Creating a Flickering Light


A flickering light over the flying sparks adds heat to the effect. If you look at this chapter's final movie on the DVD, you'll see that the sparks trail a little behind the flickering light as it travels across the logo, making the light appear to burn away the gold. Here are the steps:

1.

Go to time 2:00, and create a new comp-sized solid layer named Light Flicker that's black (RGB: 0, 0, 0).

2.

Apply Effect > Render > Lens Flare to the solid, and leave the effect's default settings.

3.

Select the Sparks layer in the Timeline, and press U to display its keyframes. Select the effect's Producer XY property to select all three of its keyframes, and then choose Edit > Copy to copy them.

4.

Expand the Light Flicker layer's Lens Flare effect in the Timeline, select the Flare Center property, and paste the keyframes you copied in the previous step.

5.

Still at time 2:00, add a keyframe to the Lens Flare effect's Flare Brightness property, and set the keyframe to 150%.

6.

Go to time 3:00, and change the value to 0%.

7.

Press Alt + ] (Windows) or Option + ] (Mac OS) to trim the Light Flicker layer's Out point to the current time.

8.

Set the Blending Mode for the Light Flicker layer to Screen in the Modes column.

Tip

The shortcut key to toggle between display of the Switches and Modes columns is F4. You can display both columns simultaneously by selecting both in the Timeline's fly-out menu, located in its upper-right corner.

9.

Select both of the Light Flicker layer's Flare Brightness keyframes at times 2:00 and 3:00, and then choose Window > The Wiggler to display that palette. Change the Noise Type to Jagged, Magnitude to 100, and Frequency to 30, and then click Apply.

The Wiggler makes the light flicker between the two keyframes.

Settings for the Wiggler

Save the composition, and then click the Ram Preview button in the Time Controls palette to see the results.



    Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic
    Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic
    ISBN: 0321267230
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 236

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