Video Apex Bookshelf

Friday, December 5, 2008

Anamorphic Lens–Flares

It's amazing how little things can add a big difference to video when you're trying to make it look like film. Anything from color correction to proper shadows to lens flares can help.

Lately I've been playing around with ways to create lens flares in After Effects without using plug-ins or generators. I've used everything from solids to the glow plugin to motion tracking, etc. Here are two examples: one was created with a very popular plugin, and the other was created in after effects without any plugins; see if you can guess which is which:

Notice how only the top one has a core, the bottom one does not...the top is the one that I created in After Effects, the other was made using another popular plug-in. For three minutes of work it looks very good. What you can't tell by the pictures though, is that the top one has much more smooth movement than does the bottom when it's applied to video.

There may be a how-to post or maybe even a tutorial that deals with this sort of thing in the near future. Let me know what you guys think!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks great can't wait!

Anonymous said...

Looks great! What plugin did you use for the other one?

Anonymous said...

sweet man...thnx so much

Anonymous said...

a tutorial would be awesome!! how to is just as good though :-)

Anonymous said...

I´ve instantly guessed on the top flare to be the one from the plug-in. I´m surprised that the plugin delivers a much more poorer result than the "selfcreated".

Unknown said...

I'd love to know how you did that. Great work. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm a big fan of yours, so I'm looking forward to seeing your tutorial.

Best,
James Wicks
Zfx Studios
South Florida

Anonymous said...

This blog simply ROCKS!
Thanks so much for the efforts!!!