Effects Experimentation Project

Light Writing Effect:

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/Light_Writing_Pt_1/video-tutorial
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/Light_Writing_Pt_2/video-tutorial

This tutorial utilized a Displacement Map as well as Strokes and Fast Blurs, with great emphasis on Expressions.

For the light writing's wiggle I gave each object a Displacement Map (Effect > Distort > Displacement Map) that was set to a Fractal Noise Comp (Effect > Noise and Grain > Fractal Noise). I also used a Wiggle expression on each object's position, rotation and scale as well to further the effect.

The stars' and moon's shapes were copy and pasted paths from Illustrator onto separate solids as masks. I set the stroke's (Effect > Generate > Stroke) brush for each stroke to be about 6 and knocked the hardness down to zero, paint style to transparent. I would then change the layer's blend mode to Add to mesh it more with the background.

Besides the stroke paths' start and end, I also used some randomized lights that also follow the objects path, layering each stroke to achieve the blurry, almost sci-fi phaser type look.

To complete the glowiness of the moon and stars, I gave each of them reflections which are duplicated, flipped comps that have a variety of effects on top of them to make them appear soft, including the bezier warp (Effect > Distort > Bezier Warp) and linear wipe (Effect > Transition > Linear Wipe).


Mostly with this tutorial I learned that expression are for more than looping and are good ways to further manipulate effects without having to apply more effects onto one layer (example: using the wiggle expression instead of using the Wiggler.) I also liked that it worked a lot with Blend Modes, which feel more familiar to me as someone who uses them a great deal in Photoshop to achieve the looks I want. Also, the magic of Pre-Comping shall not go unrecognized! Pre-Comps really helped clean up my Comps and made them more manageable, way less overwhelming. Overall, I really enjoyed the tutorial on Creative Cow. The guy (Aharon Rabinowitz) wasn't overly chatty and was very thorough when explaining each step. I also appreciated that he reiterated keyboard shortcuts, very helpful! I liked this project and look forward to using more effects.