[David Bogie]

> i cant manage to create a very realistic light to emit from it… im trying to make the lightbulb flash on and off repeatedly like in those thriller films when the electricity of the building keeps jumping, if that makes any sense? < I didn't misunderstand. Your question makes no sense. A flickering light bulb is easy to create. A flickering light source is a completely different animal and your second post doesn't help clarify your needs in the slightest. There is a random expression that can be dropped onto your parameter in a few seconds. > trying to create the illusion of the lightbulb being cutoff for split seconds… i tried flares and everything else but cant make a realistic light that will keep jumping up and down in exposure/intensity… I havent got the time, nor the equipment to video tape a real light bulb and then rotoscope it to fit my composition…

You’ve already established that it’s going to be easier to shoot a real light bulb than for you to attempt to simulate it with software. Flares? You shot like an emergency road flare? You mean lens flares? Which is it? Why would you use a lens flare to simulate a light turning on and off.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

There really isn’t one.
You create movies with After Effects and import the movies into an editing application and export the finished program to a DVD application.
You could go directly from AE’s rendering to a DVD app but I don’t know why you’d want to do that.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

I use tubesock.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Is the “graphic” that gets turned into a green box part of the Motion Library content? A piece of a preset or template?

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

From your description, there is no motion tracking involved in the project. Place the text on the same plane as your floor plane.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

An incandescent bulb has a ramp cycle that’s easy to simulate. Heck, you can shoot video of a light bulb turning on and off (lock the exposure) and just matte that in.
LEDs are instant on.
Some CFLs have a very short burst when they fire up and then they ramp up slowly oer five minutes if they’re completely cold.
Other CFLs are instantaneous or even dimmable

Your phrase, ” a very realistic light to emit from it” is puzzling. That’s a completely different topic from attempting to simulate the filament lighting up.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Hit Macworld and Maclife for reviews of displays. The market is much larger than just those two devices. We have lots of satisfied Dell and NEC users around here.

Personally, I only buy Apple displays for all of our graphics and video stations’ primary monitors. We’ve got 16 of them. Everyone around here uses old CRTs and erfurbed Dells for second displays.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Depends on what you need. Drizzle and Rain come to mind (search the effects folder)
but the illusions are decidedly fake. You need to carefully consider what you’re trying to simulate.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

If you open up the twirlies on Shatter you will see an entire universe of physics properties you can control.

There is a pdf that describes all of the AE effects in depth. It is not installed automatically, you need to get into the extras folder on the instal disk and find it.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[David Bogie]

Find copies of Angie Taylor’s After Effects books. She has great tutorials on the subject of just this kind of thing. It’s a bit more difficult that you might to get a good illusion but it’s a lot of fun, too.

theanvel.com has a nice set of tutorials on working in 3d spaces like hallways and rooms. Used to be free but they’re worth the expense.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”