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Volumatric Lights in 3D Space
I am looking for a way to easily make volumatric lights that I can travel a 3D Camera through in Z-Space. I saw this tutorial by Maltannon here:
https://maltaannon.com/articles/after-effects/volumetric-lights/
but the problem is I need to hide the layer thats emitting it and since I am moving very deep into Z-Space I can’t just Transform the layer like he did here because I still see it. That doesn’t give me enough freedom. Is there a way to get the Volumetric lights from the layer but then somehow hide that layer after the rays are created? Or maybe there’s another way to create Volumetric lights all together that give me the freedom I need. Thanks in advance.
-jm -
5 Replies
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Trapcode Lux- makes all AE lights visible volumetric lights.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Bucharest, Romania
http://www.ennstudio.ro -
I second it. Trapcode Lux is a great plugin.
– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
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I’m not sure how Lux would give me this effect.
https://maltaannon.com/articles/after-effects/volumetric-lights/
I need it to look and react like this but hide the layer producing it. Lux just takes 3D lights and and visualizes them. I would end up needing 100+ lights (using Lux) to do this same thing, would I not? I would also have to track all of these shots in.
Here’s the idea I am going for: I have a jet leaving an aircraft carrier and the camera is attatched to the back of the jet pointing back at the carrier. I need to give the clouds light rays that we pass through as the camera/jet continues its flight.
I have tried using all of the light rays plugins and effects in after effects but they just end up looking really cheesey. The only way I can think of doing this is to create a 3D layer with fractal noise animated on it, position it in the sky, track it in, and then use the same technique Maltannon used but instead of transforming it to get rid of that layer, I would need to hide that layer once the “Volumetric Lights” are created. I have never done this before but I would hope there was a way to do this. Thanks for all your help on this.
-jm -
True- for rays of light coming through clouds you will need a lot of lights and you’ll need a 3d camera track, but there’s really no other way to get real volumetric lights in AE. You could do what you described and create some layers of rays and put them in 3d space but you will not get the same effect.
Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Bucharest, Romania
http://www.ennstudio.ro -
The volumetric lights in the example you show could be faked with shine or that CC effect whose name currently escapes me. Maybe Light Burst?
Oooooh, check out this tutorial. See if it gives you any ideas.
– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.
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