Simulate A Glowing Neon Light Sign Of Your Logo

on Oct 5th 2012 with 63 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: Just After Effects
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Run Time: 35:29 min
Download Source Files

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 8 of 33 in the Logo Reveals Session
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In this tutorial we will not only create a realistic neon light, but a set of controls for the light intensity, the amount of flickering, and a switch to turn it on or off, everything with simple expressions. Here’s how to create an “Open Late” sign yourself.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in February 2010.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size: 179.5 MB

 
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By

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

I'm a 23 y.o. graphic designer from Mexico and have been working on TV as a motion graphic artist for one year. I'm also a college teacher for TV production and aspiring to become a professional character animator someday.  

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Newer Comments →
  • mehmet akif soyertaş

    opened a surprise now.

  • http://www.figherrimo.com/ Gianluca

    GOOD! :D really great ;)

  • Hernán Carracedo

    Very good, man !!!

  • freed

    great tuts keep em coming

  • luantran

    Thank for share. Tuts nice

  • lanbo

    lokks realy great. i will try it :)

  • bogiesan

    My congratulations for creating a realistic effect!
    Most “neon” simulations include atmospheric or volumetric lighting or glows that only support a convention, the misperception that neon or, more accurately, electroluminescent gas produces a glow in the air around the tube. If you look closely at a sign made of clear gas-filled tubes, you will see the gas inside the clear tube glows but there is no atmospheric effect unless the sign is surrounded by fog or dust.
    Another kind of neon sign material consists of tubs coated on the inside with a phosphorescent paint much like a conventional fluorescent tube light.

    david boise ID

  • http://www.youtube.com/v4vfx ramesh

    i just watched the preview. its just awesome !

  • Tango

    nice tut, thanks! used vector blur so many times but had no idea until now that it is capable of producing so much convincing glass tubes ;) certainly one of the most powerful and surprising built-in AE filters.
    p.s. since the chekbox controller returns either 0 or 1, the opacity expression could be as simple as this:
    100-100*”checkbox”

  • mitz

    very nice, more please.:)

  • AfterEffectsJunkie

    Very Nice Tutorial!!!

    This is a very cool Effect!!!

    http://www.musik-shqip.ch.vu/ <– NEW AFTER EFFECTS TUTORIALS!

  • Nef

    Excelente tutorial, de lo mas útil que he visto por aquí.
    Saludos desde Aguascalientes Mex.

  • http://www.timsoret.com Tim Soret
    • rks

      hmmmm… u r right same technique and same output. better he should give only the link not the tutorial.

    • Billy

      Now, I get a lot of condemnation around here for slamming tutorials. However, this one, based on the preview alone, appears to be a very good one with a great, realistic effect. Watching both Mat Trunks production and this preview I have NO idea how you can say that Trunks is better. It is very 2D with no more impressive neon effect. This one appears to be 3D with a shadowing on the wall that is far superior. To each his own, but I’d watch this one any day.

      Great job Juan! Would love to see some more stuff from you. Trust me….aetuts needs your stuff!

  • Nik

    Gonna try this one for sure looks awesome! Thanks

  • Abojung

    It would have been better if you added a mask around the lights to simulate specularity on the walls.
    but good job.

  • Doru

    LOVELY DONE!

  • naimalwan

    This seems to be a copy of the French tutorial as mentioned above. Hope you had permission to translate it into English.

  • http://mac-jc.deviantart.com Juan Carlos Navarro
    Author

    Hi everyone, thanks for your support and comments. I just want to encourage those people who are saying that I copied the french tutorial to take a look at my tut. That way you will notice the abysmal differences in the workflow. Thank you.

    • Billy

      Juan…there is NO comparison between yours and Trunks. The glass tubes are much more distinct and realistic. The neon glow is MUCH nicer and the entire 3D feel to the piece is FAR superior. I wouldn’t worry about what people are saying here. Anyone who thinks yours is copied is obviously blind….and/or simply a moron. :)

      • http://mac-jc.deviantart.com Juan Carlos Navarro
        Author

        Billy, thank you very much for the words, I think they just didn’t take the time to watch the whole thing before typing their comments. I’m glad you liked the tut :)

      • rks

        @ billy

        lol u want to improve ur image, this proof how idiot u are.
        i watched both tut and it is a damn copy of that even the sound effect is same. Better luck next time

        @ tim soret

        thanks for the great site.

    • bert

      Hi
      Can somebody tell me how to get the AE TUTS + effect to use in the tutorial,
      would appreciate it if someone could explain what to doto get this effect in Illustrator.

  • Anonymous

    this is like the upgraded version of Matt Runk’s tutorial…

  • Luis Camacho

    Very nice tutorial!!!!!

    Excelente trabajo, paisano, en México hay grandes talentos de la composición digital.

  • Ibantxo

    Gran tutorial amigo! un saludo desde el pais vasco!

  • AMIR B

    i hope you become a great animator.

  • Saad Ali

    thanks for sharing these types of stuffs.

  • Saad Ali

    gr8………………..

  • BERT

    How do you create the AI File in this tut?

  • BERT

    Would like to thank the author who was very helpful when i contacted him for info regarding creating the logo.

  • Drey

    what font did you use?

  • Faisal

    All Tutorial Of Ae Tutsplus Is Very Big File Size..Impossiable To Watch Or Download Them On A Slow Internet Connection

    • Nuruzzaman Sheikh

      Yeah that’s true ( a little) I also use very slow net connection but I can download them easily, though it takes a lot of time.

      And after all I’m very glad because this big file size gives us better video experience.

      But with your voice I also want to say if ae.tutsplus.com could offer another lower quality video tutorial beside this higher one. Then it would be very helpful for people like us.

      • Terminator

        What the hell r u talking. Aetuts plus is providing free video tutorials of the vfx students. Internet Connection is slow r not but this website is providing the good tutorials

  • http://www.lonocreative.com lono

    great tutorial thanks!

  • Marcelo

    Hola Juan Carlos, maravilloso el tutorial que te mandaste!! mis felicitaciones, queria aprovechar para hacerte una pregunta, veo que res de habla hispana (y que dominas muy bien el ingles por lo demas) asi que me gustaria saber si tienes más tutoriales en español por ahi, yo comprendo ingles pero en un 80% y generalmente ese 20& que me falta es donde hay explicaciones claves para manejar bien el programa.
    Bueno felcictaciones nuevamente, seguire atento a la página!

    Saludos desde Chile

  • reub

    hee man nice tut but with font did you use for the logo?

    Grtz

  • Rafael RL

    Nice tut. Perfect. Where did you get the Neon sound effect?

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUPg0JMklhM Dylan W

    I created my own video from this tutorial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUPg0JMklhM

  • VXPZ

    Muy bueno
    Gracias

  • Martin

    muchas gracias juan, me diste un par de ideas para mi proyecto

  • Ragpiano

    Super! I’m speechless.

  • AlexFrance

    Thanks for this Great Tutorial, I just finish to make my Neon Sign and i’m happy of the Render Results

    Congratulations :)

  • james

    Do the images for the neon light effect have to be from illistator (Ai). Adding a ramp on the JPEG doesnt work.

  • Doug

    Thanks for the tutorial, although I have struck a problem.

    I have completed to just before where you enable the animation. It appears that the checkbox is not working. i.e the Opacity remains at 100% irrespective of checkbox setting. Also, If I manually change opacity settings, there is no effect. It only has an effect if I click on the enable expression button and it changes to an = sign with a / through it.

    Any help would be appreciated by anyone. I have checked the syntax of the expression as best I can, but it is very hard to read off the video tutorial.

    Ta

  • Doug

    Here is a copy of code in Opacity.

    OF=thisComp.layer(“Controls”).effect(“TurnsOnOff”)(“Checkbox”);
    if (OF==0)
    0
    else (OF==1)
    100

    Wanted to include a screen grab but not sure I can with this forum.

    • Digitalsoju

      should be else if (OF==1) i believe

  • Doug

    Problem solved, got help from Adobe After Effects forum.

    Rewrite of the code fixed problem.

  • Val Retina

    Cool Enough!
    Cheers!

  • Alex DC

    Thank you very much for this tut. Probably I will find a future application for my personal projects.

  • http://www.mrkabat.com Haraj

    Amazing tutorial. Very professionally made and to the point. How did I not come across these tutorials a long time ago? lol

  • http://cargocollective.com/zoppo Michael

    This was a good tutorial, the end result was a nice looking render with a great workflow and approach to reach the final look. That being said I feel like their were A LOT of things that could have been done to really spruce this thing up and make it look more photo-real. It’s a great tutorial to get you going but I’m surprised there was not more polish to such a simple idea. When it comes to ideas and concepts like this you don’t have to worry so much about the concept because the scene is so simple and you’re allowed to play more with the look and style. Knowing the quality that AE tuts regularly puts out I feel that this really could have been polished up to almost a complete photo-real looking render with more techniques and approaches to achieve more realistic lighting, falloff, shadows,, specularity, camera aberrations, possible subtle flares, more detail in the BG texture, subtle handycam motion, etc. I think when simple tuts are put out like this that the authors should really dive into the details of the piece because in the end that’s what really makes it pop.

    Anyways, great tutorial, good workflow, but I think this can be pushed up a few notches so more beginners can get a better understanding of how you take a piece like this and turn it into something with a lot of realism.

    Thanks for the tutorial.

  • http://www.zebravideo.ca video production toronto

    interesting method. not the simplest one for sure

  • http://www.youtube.com/easyesofficial ezs

    Hello really nice tutorial I did my version too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaj1AEAock8

  • http://eacsoft.com/ Lexi

    I love the effects! I love all things neon and glowing but I’m all for simple graphics too. But this is a useful effect for those who are just bold enough to play with their logo. Thanks!

  • seo 96

    Really the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jake.kostelnik Jake Kostelnik

    Really great. Made some tweaks of my own to make it specific to my project, but overall, really nice tutorial.

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