 |
The
following tutorial offers a quick and dirty alternative way
to create a ray-of-light effect if you're in a bind and don't
have 5D's plugin designed for this purpose.
Quicktime: View
the movie. (1.4 Mb)
|
|
| |
Step
1
Start a new flow that's 90 frames long. Check the high quality
box next to the start render button. |
| |
|
| |
Step
2
Add two text+ tools to the flow. Connect the following tools to
the first text tool, in the following order: Coordinate Space
> Blur / Sharpen > Highlight > Coordinate Space > Directional
Blur > Merge |
| |
|
| |
Step
3
Connect a glow tool to the second text tool, then connect the
output of the glow tool to the foreground of the merge tool. |
| |
|
| |
Step
4
Your flow is now complete, and we can begin tweaking parameters. |
| |
|
 |
Step
5
Go to the first text tool. Leave the default image size at 640
by 480. Go to the text tab type something in. I chose the word
'fusion'. |
| Step 5 Click
for larger view |
|
| |
Step
6
Go to the 'Layout' tab. Go to frame zero and set a key on the
'Center' parameter by right-clicking on the parameter and choosing
set key. Set the x value to 0.25. Go to frame 90, and set the
x value to 0.75. This just moves the text across the background. |
| |
|
| |
Step
7
Go to the font tab. For this effect, choose a thick font. I used
a strong Futura with a 0.16 size. |
| |
|
| |
Step
8
Go to the 'Shading' tab. Under the Shape pull-down of element
1, press the options button. Choose 'Text outline'. Change the
outline's thickness to 0.04. |
| |
|
 |
Step
9
That does it for this text tool. Go to the first Coordinate Space
tool. The shape should be set to 'Rectangular to Polar'. |
| Step 9 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
10
Your resulting image may be somewhat aliased. Go to the blur /
sharpen tool and set the blur size to 1.5 |
| Step 10 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
11
Go to the Highlight tool. Set the 'low' value to 0.9, and the
'high' value to 1.0. Put the curve value to 1.0. Set the length
value to 0.95. Change the number of points to 2. Change the angle
to 90. Uncheck the 'Merge Over' checkbox. This is important. Under
the Color Scale tab, change the Red and Green Scale values to
0.99. This will give you a purple-blue colour. Mess around with
these values until you have a colour, length and falloff you like. |
| Step 11 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
12
For the second 'Coordinate Space' tool pull the image back into
place with a 'Polar to Rectangular' shape. |
| Step 12 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
13
Your image may once again be a bit aliased. Fix this by using
a 'Zoom' type directional blur with a length of 0.1. Enhance the
rays by adding some glow value of 0.05 to the directional blur. |
| Step 13 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
14
Go to the merge tool. make your merge fully additive.
|
| Step 14 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
15
Go to the second text tool. Add the same text in the same font
and size. Make sure the 'Shape' under the shading tab is set to
'Text Fill' instead of 'Text Outline'. This text should stay stationary
in the middle of the screen. |
| Step 15 Click
for larger view |
|
 |
Step
16
Go to the glow tool. Set the following keys:
0=0.5
45=0.95
90=0.5
This makes the text flare when the rays are aiming directly
towards the camera.
|
| Step 16 Click
for larger view |
|
| |
Step
17
Your rays may flicker towards their left and right extremes. Fix
this by animating the opacity of the first text tool. Under the
shading tab of the tool, press the 'Colour' button, and key the
opacity slider with the following values.
0=0.8
20=1.0
70=1.0
90=0.8
|
| |
|
| |
Step
18
Right-click on the merge tool and create a preview.
You're done. This technique is quite tweakable, so be sure to
experiment to get the look you want. |
| |
|
|
|
| |
