Force Lightening

Is there any way to create force lightening in After Effects? I just downloaded the free version of MainVision, and I have no clue how to use the program. However, I am fairly capable in After Effects. Any Help?

 

The lightning effects in Duality were done using a "lightning" plug-in from Cult Effects... There's always the normal "lighting" AE plug in, too (although I don't think it looks as nice...).

 

is there a tutorial for that, because my first three attempts failed misreably

 

if you just want to do it in After Effects create a new layer (make it black) turn its transfer mode to "Screen", then go to Effect > Render > Lightning. THat is the easiest way I believe. It might require a little tweaking however.

Hope this helped.
good luck

PM me if you have any questions.

 

Amazingly, the guys that did the Alternate Lightsaber Duel (that pretained to Ep: 2) had excellent lightning. It was better than in the actual movies. If there was a way to contact them...they could give you some advice.
I am Coll Iceni, Shadow Jedi, and the guy that wants Luminara's Saber.

 

The lightning of "Alternate Lightsaber Duel" actually was the AE Production Bundle Lightning. Ryanw W. just used a similar method like he does with his sabers to make the lightning look even better.

 

AE's own lighting is actually quite nice. A lot of people keep forgetting that it's fully adjustable, like any other effect in AE. I've gotten it to make a passable variant of the AOTC lighting, but that was just for a still-frame, I haven't tried it in motion yet.

 

i agree, since the lightning in AE is fully adjustable, it has alot of possibilities.

 

I was just playing around with it a bit, and noticed something I hadn't seen before. I recently (and finally) upgraded to 5.5, and it has a new effect called "Advanced Lightning", which yields much more realistic lighting than the original "Lightning" effect. Unfortunately, it's intended to replicate actual lightning strikes, which don't change, so it's a non-animated effect. But I also fiddled with it a bit and you can force it to animate by changing some of it's properties over time.. since it has to re-generate the lightning based on the changing properties. Looks promising, but needs some definite tweaking to provide Force Lightning. But I also had good results with the basic Lightning effect, since it's self-animating.

 

I have been trying to get a good lightning effect and the only thing I've been having trouble with it the "texture" of the bolt, if you will. If you watch the movie or trailers, you'll notice they aren't just solid white cores but rather a textured, kind of a twisting ribbon. Any suggestions on this effect would be appreciated. Look at the Mystery trailer, it has some lightning in it. I'd take a screenshot but you can't with quicktime.

EDIT: Care to post a pic of the advanced ligthtning? Cheap 'ol me is still running 5.0. But I've noticed the upgrade to 5.5 is only 100... wow, maybe I'll do it.

EDIT^2: Actually, I can get a screen grab. it's here. You'll probably need to save target as.

 

i have 5.0 Production, looks like I need to get to upgrading to 5.5.

 

Here's an example of both versions of AE's lightning: (click for larger image)

[image=http://www.jedi2016.com/starwars/ae_lightning_compare.jpg]

The standard lightning needs quite a bit of tweaking to get it like that.. there's an option in there, something like "width variation" that gives it those larger segments. In this image, the lightning is also pure white, with a separate Glow effect added to it, which looks much better than the lightning's own coloration.

The second pic is the new Advanced Lightning. As you can see, much more realistic, more "electric"-looking. Unlike the standard Lightning, this one has it's own Glow settings built-in, so there's no extra effects applied. At it's default, it makes a single-strike bolt, like you'd normally see during an electrical storm, but just twiddle with the sliders a bit, change the Glow colors and settings to your liking, and you get something like this. For this image, I specifically made the Glow settings for both images as close to each other as I could.

The Advanced lightning is definitely an improvement in realism, but may not be suitable for Force Lighting, which doesn't really look much like "real" lightning. And it's a helluva lot safer than setting up a Tesla Coil and zapping your actors with it, and looks about the same.. hehe.

 

Jedi2069: thanks for posting those man, there sure is a striking differance (get it striking..............oh forget it.)

 

hah, striking differance ba dum, bah!
yea like he said, forget it...

 

I am able to render the lightening into one frame of my movie, however when I move across the screen, the lightening comes out my actor's back. Since it is not considered a shape, I cannot set key frames for its movement. How can I get the lightening to move where I want it to frame - by frame?

 

In the lightning settings check the fixed endpoint and fixed start point boxes - there is a stopwatch for start and end positions which you can keyframe once you check the stopwatch.

 

This thread reminded me that I wanted to make a lightning test. I've done so (not too pleased with it, but it'll do) but I can't seem to find a lightning sound effect! Could someone be so kind as to point me towards one?

Thanks

 

Thanks a ton Ryan_W!

 

I've sort of finished it, though it isn't very good. Compressed pretty small. 5.5 Seconds, On2 VP3 --lightning test -- . Tripod is to blame for any avaliability issues. Edit: Use save target as or copy this into your browser
http://nerdius.tripod.com/lightningSmall.mov

 

I think the "advanced" lightning is Cult Effects Lightning -- I'd heard somewhere that Adobe had bought it. That's the one I used for Duality, with some tweaks.

 

NXTB: AAAAAA, On2, NOOOOOO, white screen of death,

STOP USING On2 until it is fixed people, PLEASE i am on my knees here.

 

Fixed? There's nothing wrong with it. If you're using Quicktime 6, what you need to do is completely uninstall quicktime. Then reinstall it. Then go to C:\Program Files\Quicktime\ and run the QuicktimeUpdater.exe. Click custom, then check the box to install the On2 codec. There you go, fixed.

It is a workaround, but at least On2 will work for you.

 

Lord Rive, have you played with the Advanced Lighting in AE yet? The one problem I had with it was getting it to animate.. it seems designed around a single still strike, like a real-world lightning strike. The only way I was able to animate it was by changing some of the settings over time, but it completely redraws the lightning each frame to do that, rather than the Standard Lightning's "twisting" type of animation, which seems to flow smoother. The Standard Lightning doesn't seem to re-draw so much as actually move and twist the existing bolt around, which looks better animated than the Advanced Lightning. Just wondering if there was a trick I should look for.

 

Brent, and others.

I do like On2, but here is a Sorenson3 version, as there were others who didn't have VP3 and didn't care to get it. http://nerdius.tripod.com/lSorenson.mov 6.08 meg. If you want smaller size, use the On2 version, 1.57 meg and pretty much the same quality. 0n2 here http://nerdius.tripod.com/lightningSmall.mov

 

After fooling with the advanced lightening a bot, I was able to perfect it. However, I don't have any lightening sound effects. Does anyone know where I could find one?