turn off lights…a lot of lights

[Steve Roberts]

Sometimes the Block Dissolve transition effect works for me in this situation. Make a solid, apply and animate the effect to it, then use that as a track matte over the lights.

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

another option is to use the fractal noise effect to create a blocky grid with different shades of gray.

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/fractal_basics.php

Line it up with your “lights” so that they one square is over each light.

Then apply the effect called “gradient wipe” (Effect > Transition > Gradient wipe) to the lights layer, using the fractal noise as the gradient layer.

Warning, you may need to precomp the fractal noise layer before you can use it for the effect. Many effects that use other layers for part of the effect, ignore any effects applied to that layer. So it may just see a solid layer with no fractal noise.

Then animate the Transition Completion.

You can see an example of this at the very end of this tutorial:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/effecting_fractals.php

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com

—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911

[Steve Roberts]

Aharon’s is better. 🙂