ReCreating a Photoshop Light Effect in AE

[Max Jackson]

Hi Everybody,

I have been trying to recreate an (attached) light effect I made in Photoshop. I believe I made it using the actual ‘lighting effects’ in Photoshop.

I’ve tried using everything I can find in AE natively (CC Light rays, light burst, beam, etc.) but I can’t seem to get anything to work. Either I can’t get the angle, or the edges are too soft or the intensity is weak…Should I try using shapes? I’d maybe foray into using fractal noise, but I need the light the fan out, not be straight up and down. I’d probably layer noise on top just for some variance/flow anyway, but I can see to get that initial shape/value.

Has anybody done anything remotely similar to get this in the past?

[Graham Quince]

Unfortunately I can’t see your image, but if you register your Boris Mocha AE included plug-in, (in the animation menu) one of the perks offered is Stage Light, a lovely effect which creates 3D light beams.

[Max Jackson]

Here’s the file, my bad. I must’ve forgotten to attach it. I’ll check out Boris FX.

Thanks!

GUIDE02.jpg 62 KB Image File — Click to view

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[Greg Gesch]

Hi Max. I would be tempted to start with Fractal Noise and add the Bezier Warp effect to get the shape. As a starting point you might want to look at Animation Presets/Backgrounds/Curtains.

[Max Jackson]

Hi Greg,

Right, the curtain effect. I saw a tutorial on that a long time ago using fractal noise and thought briefly about that too. So the bezier warp could help me get that keystone-ing? That would be cool. I’ll try playing with that and looking into tutorials in that direction as well.

My challenge I think I might run into with is soft sides to the ‘beams’. I’m hoping I can get a setting that still keeps it hard/flat.

Thanks!

[Max Jackson]

I just had a breakthrough this morning. I’m not there yet, but made some major strides.

After revisiting CC Light Burst for like the 5th time, I’ve tried adding it to a shape layer wiggle path and then cycled through the random seed.

It still needs work, but if I get something significant, I’ll post the results.

Thanks again!

[Max Jackson]

I was able to get this far with recreating Photoshop’s ‘Lighting Effects’. I’m still trying to find a way to blend or layer a bright gradient on top of a shape layer with this CC Light Burst, but it’s getting closer.

The shape I’m using is an upside-down trapezoid. Screengrab attached.

Screen-Shot-2022-01-20-at-12.32.38-PM.png 1 MB Image File — Click to view

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