Lightsaber Flashes in After Effects?

Alright, I hate to throw a lightsaber question out there, since I'm sure they are common, but...

I've been using the tutorial on rotoscoping saber blades in AEffects over at fanfilmfx.com - the film they have there, I don't remember the guy's name off hand, but it's a great tutorial, and makes a good blade.

However, in searching through various tutorials, I haven't really found anything on creating the contact flashes, and as I'm winding down on the rotoscoping (finally!), I'm at a point where I really need to start learning how.

So, how does one make contact flashes for saber blades in AE? Thanks!

 

The method I use is to create the flash in Photoshop, make sure it's centered in the image and to have the background all black. You then save the image.

Open it up in your composition and place it in where it needs to be, set the layer mode to Screen. You can also resize it, re-position it, and spread it over a couple of frames to give it that extra touch.

Sometimes, the flare won't be as bright. Simply just duplicate the flare layer in AE so there are two, one on top of the other.

One reason this method is also useful is because you can duplicate the flare layer again and move it across the timeline over to the next saber clash.

 

Golden-Y knows whats up.


~werd

 

If you don´t have Photoshop at your disposal, here´s how you can do it AE only:

Make a new composition besides the one with your finished rotoscoping. First insert a new solid layer with color BLACK. Next insert a second solid layer with color WHITE. When done, use the pen tool to draw a mask on the white solid layer (like you would do when making lightsabers in AE). I recommend a shape like an oval or circle. After you have your masked out white layer, be sure it´s still selected and then goto

effect->blur&sharpen->gaussian blur

Give it a value of let´s say 15 (depends on your resolution you´re working with, just play around). When done, duplicate this layer 3 times just like you would do with Ryan´s saber method. Now go for each of the duplicated layers and increase the blur amount to get something like:
layer 1 = 15
layer 2 = 30
layer 3 = 50
layer 4 = 80

Now you should have a nice gradient circle / oval.
Next thing is to insert this new composition in your already existing composition with the rotoscoped lightsabers. Do so. Now select the just inserted composition and goto effect->adjust->color balance. There you should go for something like
Midtones Red = 100
Midtones Green = 50
Highlights Red = 50
Highlights Green = 25

Don´t touch the shadow values and make sure "Preserve Luminosity" is ticked.

This should give you a nice yellow/orange color for your saber flash. Adjust a.m. values accordingly to your needs.

Finally set the transfer mode for your contactflash layer to screen or add (whatever suits your scenes the best in each situation).

That´s pretty much it. You can now use this layer as often as you need, just keyframe it´s size, position and duration. Make it not more than max. 3 frames to show to get a nice result. Two frames should be sufficient (first big flash, second small flash, then gone).


Hope this helps.

 

Click here for some great saber contact flashes & instructions how to use them on the downloads page.

Mushi

 

Hey, much, much thanks for the replies!

Yes, I do have Photoshop, but am really enjoying AE, much more than those filmstrips with my last project! Thus, wanted to keep it in AE if at all possible!

Thanks again!

 

Hey -

Been trying some of this out - certainly is simple stuff, now that I have some idea what I am doing! I particularly like those premade flashes, Mushiman!

However, question: While I have everything else figured out, I don't understand how to size a flash in one frame, but then in the next change the size - ie, it goes from bigger to smaller. When I change it in one, it changes it for both frames. Do you have to make separate layers for each frame (I can't imagine that's the case).

So, how do you keep separate sizes in consecutive frames? Thanks -

 

You don't need to resize the flash as you only need to apply it to 1 frame. Thats all thats needed, 1 frame - then you get a proper flash instead of a funny looking thing IMO.

Mushi

 

keyframes are your frieeeeeeeeends...

turn on keyframes, and then scale away... don't forget to scale to 0% and move the image offscreen when there's no flash...

p.s. I'm just about finished with an indepth tutorial on contact flashes entirely in AE... should be posted by the end of the week...

 

pfft just draw one with the paintbrush tool

 

I believe that the fanfilmfx AE saber tutorial is just our favorite guru Ryan Wieber's masterful wad of ones and zeros.