How To Make Blinding Paparazzi Flashes

How To Make Blinding Paparazzi Flashes

on Sep 1st 2010 with 23 comments
Tutorial Details
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Have you ever see the masses of photographers at red carpet events and the hundreds of flashes going off when a star walks by? In this tutorial you can find out out to make bright Paparazzi Flashes in After Effects for use in a logo reveal. I will show you how to the flash element and use a particle system to create the appearance of flashes.

Tutorial

Step 1

Create a new comp at your desired resolution. I’m making mine 1920×1080 at 25 fps.

Step 2

Create a Black Solid and make sure its comp size, name it Particles.

Step 3

Go to Effect, Trapcode, Particular and add it to the black solid.

Step 4

Change the Emitter Type to Box and then change the emitter size to your comp resolution; mine is 1920×1080. Set your Emitter Size Z to 0.

Step 5

Set all the velocity numbers to 0

Step 6

In the Particle drop-down menu, set the Life to 0.1.

Step 7

You should have a comp that looks like this.

Step 8

Create another Black Solid and name it Flare.

Step 9

Go to Effect, Videocopilot, Optical Flares and put it on the Flare solid you just made.

Step 10

Click on Options and delete all the layers under Global Perameters.

Step 11

Then click on Lens Objects on the left side of the screen and add two glow layers and two shimmer layers. Set the brightness and scale of the first glow to 125 and 14. The second glow layer to 125, 17. The first shimmer layer to 728, 12 and the second shimmer layer to 159, 39.

Step 12

Then change the global colour to R: 132 G: 184 B: 243 or HTML: 84B8F3.

Step 13

Click OK and you should end up with something like this.

Step 14

Pre Compose the Flare solid and check Move All Atribures, name it Sprite.

Step 15

In the Sprite comp, center the flare to the middle of the comp by dragging the target.

Step 16

Go to Composition, Composition Settings and resize your comp to 2500×1406 or what ever your computer can handle.

Step 17

Then go to Layer, Solid Settings and click Make Comp Size.

Step 18

Then alter the Brightness and Scale in the Optical Flares Effect menu so the glow does NOT touch the edges of the comp. I set it to 60 brightness and 50 scale. You may want to add a circular mask just to be safe.

Step 19

Also, set the Render Mode to On Transparent.

Step 20

Now, go back to your main comp and ALT click on the 8bpc till it reaches 32bpc. This reduces that horrible banding you get with gradients. Note this may slow down RAM preview time so I recomend setting it to 32bpc when you are redy to do your final render.

Step 21

In the Particular Menu, go to the Particle drop-down menu and change the Particle Type to Sprite. Then open the Texture drop-down menu and set the Layer to the Sprite comp.

Step 22

You may get this warning saying that the layer is too big, just click ok.

Step 23

Now, turn off the Sprite layer as we do not need to see it. If you can only see tiny dots insted of flashes, increase the scale of the particle to your desired size. It should look something like this.

Step 24

In the Particle drop-down menu, go to Opacity over Life and select this ramp.

Step 25

Thats your basic flashes done. Now to make it into a logo reveal import our desired logo, text or image into the comp and position it in the center.

Step 26

Animate the Paricles/sec to 3000 on the first frame then 100 at one second. You can press F9 to smooth out the keyframes.

Step 27

Then select your Logo and animate the scale so it is a bit larger on the first frame then one second in it is back at 100% scale.

Step 28

And there you go. I have added a bit of a glow to the logo for good measure. I hope you enjoyed this tutoral.

Additional Aetuts+ Resources

 
Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I've been using After Effects for several years, I have been teaching myself how to use it be watching as many tutorials as I can, now I want to teach others how to use it.  

Plus Premium
 
 
  • Carlos

    Do you really need Optical flares for this?

    its a simple effect, It would be ok for beginners that are starting on AE but they probally dont have OF unless they are cracking to test out etc

    I mean come on, just make up some glow on another composition and import it up to the main comp

  • tcf098

    Sorry Matt, I don’t mean to bash your tutorial, but this is an over-complicated technique for such an extremely simple concept. This same idea could have been accomplished in about 10 steps, without any 3rd-party plugins.

    If these simple “beginner” tutorials are meant to teach basic techniques to people who are just learning AE, shouldn’t the tutorial be about as simple as possible, without any 3rd-party plugins?

  • http://shuvravfx.tumblr.com/ SHUVRA

    Ya i agree with carlos & its not Intermediate tutorial at all.

  • Andrew

    Good tutorial but would of liked to see this without the plug-ins.

  • Ryan

    Seems to me like this would be better for a WW2 nighttime anti-aircraft flak scene than for paparazzi flashes.

  • antony615

    Waste Optical flares

  • microlbilc

    another way (i think easier) to do this without a custom particle would be to make the Particular layer, pre-compose it, then make the OF solid. Set the Optical Flare positioning mode to ‘Luminance’ referencing the Particular layer. Done. At least that is how i thought to accomplish it after first seeing the preview. -good effect though

  • http://bestflashwebsites.blogspot.com Flashy

    Mmmm I agree, I did this same effect last year just using flares done with a Photoshop brush and exported as an image.

  • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh

    I don’t think that the preview really does it justice. It’s way too compressed, and looks horrible, but the effect is nice. Agreed, there are easier ways to do this without Optical Flares, buy you might as well use real lights when you have them available to you, instead of trying to fake it with still images.

    You get a different look to it with the brightness of a light going up and down rather than the opacity.

    • jink

      agreed, why make it 1080p if you have such a low bitrate?

    • brandon

      simple techniques need simple workflows, why would you use real lights when you can get away with it with still photos? in post production, you need to be fast and effective. render times go up when using real lights. you’ve disappointed me topher. i thought you knew your stuff.

      • Mike

        Brandon,

        Topher is actually correct. Using video footage of real lights is far superior to a still photo and simply changing the opacity of the layer. The way a real light heats up and brightens from the coil or center and the way the glass bulb looks is completely different from simply changing the opacity of a still image. While you need to be fast and effective in post, you also should make quality. Rendering times will get a bump up using video rather than one still image, but on a shot as short as this, the render time difference would be minimal, especially on a decent machine. Trust me, I do know my stuff.

      • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh

        I’ve disappointed you? There is no doubt that you can “get away with” using still images, but you can’t say it doesn’t look different. You have that distinct subtle shimmer to the lights if you want, and its not just opacity going up and down, with lights you have the rays, and all sorts of different pieces to a lens flare that can animate.

        If you have a fast computer, it won’t matter what technique you use, because they will render virtually the same amount of time. Maybe a one or two minutes difference.

      • brandon

        believe me, there are more techniques than using opacity. scale is one option, but in real life visual effects, the director would provide a real shot of the flash. using real footage. which can always be duplicated. i know my stuff too bro. i work as a 2d compositor for featured films. not bragging about it but just saying i know workflows and deadlines to the T. and frankly it doesnt matter how you do, just as long as it gets done. and a faster workflow, if working on films, will be better if using stills or real footage. you need to keep in mind that any shot with flashes will only be at max of maybe 40 frames.

    • http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100000145742382 WOMAN in BLACK

      AGREE w/ you TOPHER and I think u so cute ;p

  • http://connorcrosby.me Connor Crosby

    I agree with most of the commenters, it was way too complex and could have been done easily without a plugin. Plus, like Topher Welsh said, the preview was way too compressed, so it was pixelated, at least for the beginning part. Nice tutorial though.

  • Afterista Studio

    First Of All
    Very Good Tutorial Matt! Thanks a Lot…
    Second Of All :D
    Guys Please Don’t Be Too Hard On Him.Like Dear Topher Said It’s a Lot More Complex and Pro ii like To Use a Real Light Than a Picture…
    For Who’s Don’t Have Optical Flares They Can Use Built-in “Lens Flares” But They Also Have To Do Some Adjustments Too Make It Look Like Optical Flares
    For Who’s Don’t Have Particular , They Can Use Built-in “CC Particle Word”.
    Beside All Of That I Realy Liked The Idea Of This Tutorial. You Know You Could Film e A Shot With People Photographing From Somebody With Not So Expensive Cameras And Then You Can MotionTrack The Cameras And Give Them This Spaks And Tadaaaa You’re Guys Famous Like Zachary Quinto!!!
    Good Luck.
    BE GREEN

  • Afterista Studio

    First Of All Very Good Tutorial Matt! Thanks a Lot…
    Second Of All :D
    Guys Please Don’t Be Too Hard On Him.Like Dear Topher Said It’s a Lot More Complex and Pro ii like To Use a Real Light Than a Picture…
    For Who’s Don’t Have Optical Flares They Can Use Built-in “Lens Flares” But They Also Have To Do Some Adjustments Too Make It Look Like Optical Flares.
    For Who’s Don’t Have Particular ,They Can Use Built-in “CC Particle Word”.
    Beside All Of That I Realy Liked The Idea Of This Tutorial. You Know You Could Film e A Shot With People Photographing From Somebody With Not So Expensive Cameras And Then You Can MotionTrack The Cameras And Give Them This Spaks And Tadaaaa You’re Guys Famous Like Zachary Quinto!!!
    Good Luck.
    BE GREEN

  • rachid

    so complicated for the beginners…thank you any way!!!!!!!!!

  • IanJ

    I’m not going to criticize the technique here, I just don’t think it looks like what you say it will. I’m no expert but when compositing we strive for realism. I feel its lacking randomness, the lights flash too regularly, and when they go off on mass, there are just too many too close together… if you tried to imagine that many photographers standing together like that it couldnt happen. this lets the effect down… and when they lessen in the middle of the comp, the flashes are too rhythmic, like a disco effect.

    if you could increase the randomness considerably, the effect would look more real

  • Phil

    Step 23 never happens…

  • Phil

    I follow every step, bought the plugins, but step 23 doesn’t happen. WHY?

  • sbta

    particles always overlap with other particles
    that’s one thing that really SUCKS about trapcode :(