On this tutorial, you may learn to add lens flares in Adobe After Results utilizing an instance animation undertaking. Lens flares are simply the correct factor when it’s essential to add slightly little bit of flash and pizzazz to your undertaking.
Our instance animation undertaking has an nearly retro-futuristic vibe happening, which is ideal for including lens flares. By including lens flare results, we are able to actually make the animation stand out!
On this instance, we wish to add some flares simply when the textual content brightens up (once we animate from simply the stroke and the sunshine fill is available in). So let’s drop a marker right here with the asterix, so we all know when so as to add the lens flares.
I wish to have this entire factor gentle up good and shiny, and including some lens flares will make the textual content seem a lot brighter than it really is.
Tips on how to Add Optical Lens Flares
So to perform this, I’ll use a third-party impact referred to as Optical Flares. That is by Video Copilot, and it is in all probability top-of-the-line lens flare plugins on the market.
So to use optical flares, I’ll create a strong by going to Layer > New > Strong. Identify this ‘OF’ for optical flares.
Then go to the Results & Presets tab, sort in “Optical Flares”, after which add it to the strong by double-clicking or clicking and dragging the impact to the strong.
Set the strong to Display screen.
Then, within the Impact Controls panel, bounce into the choices by double-clicking the Choices button. This can open up a brand new window the place you’ll be able to customise your flare.
Now, the Optical Flares plugin comes with some default flares, after which there are some professional presets that you may select from. It additionally comes with a bunch of various preset packages. So select the one that you just just like the look of. For this instance, I am going to select the preset referred to as Sub Zero from the preset browser.
There are some components of the lens flare that I want to take away. Fortunately, I can take away components of the flare by clicking on the Disguise button (positioned beneath the preview window). So simply discover the layer that you just wish to take away after which disguise it.
Again within the Impact Controls panel, I am additionally going to vary the Positioning Mode to 3D, which is able to assist it monitor slightly higher with the digicam.
After which I’ll place it simply on the sting of the body when it reaches the marker that we created on the timeline.
I will even trim up the start of the layer with the start bracket key [ so that the lens flares start right here, and I’m going to animate the position by adding a position keyframe.
Then I’ll move forward in the timeline and adjust the position in the Effect Controls panel so that it moves further down.
Let’s go back to the marker and animate the scale and the brightness. You can increase both to your liking.
Move forward in the timeline again, and then reset both the brightness and scale or turn them down to your liking.
Select all the keyframes and ease them.
Go into the Graph Editor and select Speed Graph. Click on the Fit All Graphs to View button. Then give it a curve that looks similar to the one below. This will make the flare look like a flash if the curve is that exponential shape.
The Optical Flares plugin also has a Flicker section where you can further adjust the look of your flare. Change the Type to Sharp. Turn up the speed and amount to your liking.
How to Add RGB Separation
The only thing that I would do in addition to this is give the background a bit of an RGB split.
Select the background layer in the Project panel, right-click on it, and select Replace with Precomp. And that’s going to precomp my background layer.
I’m going to double-click and go onto my background layer. And here we will apply another third-party effect. This one is from Red Giant Universe, and it’s called RGB Separation.
Universe is a collection of all kinds of very useful effects for After Effects and Premiere. And one of them that I’m very fond of is this RGB split. It separates the red, blue, and green channels in space, and it has this really cool-looking effect that I just love.
You can also use the preset browser, where you can choose a bunch of different looks. For this example, we will apply the Subtle Distortion preset.
Finishing Touches
You can also duplicate the Optical Flares layer and use the position XY to move it around the screen to where you want it (you will also need to change the end position keyframe).
You could also add a Curves effect to the Optical Flares layer to further adjust the look of your animation.
Congratulations
Congratulations! And that’s how you can add optical lens flares in Adobe After Effects. Now that you’ve learned the basics, check out some of the other tutorials we have on Adobe After Effects below.
I hope you’ve found this tutorial useful, and I’ll see you next time on Envato Tuts+!
