Create an Illuminating “Light Painting” Effect

Tutorial Details
  • Program: After Effects, Trapcode Particular
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 20:06 min

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

You’ve surely seen a “light painting” photograph by now. Sprint made it very popular in their latest advertising campaign, but it’s been around for a long time, Picasso made a light painting in 1949. In this tutorial Ben shows us how to easily recreate this effect using particles in After Effects.

This effect is loosely based off the traditional method of shooting still photographs with a slow exposure to capture the motion path of a light. This tutorial is filled with many small tips and tricks for Adobe After Effects to enhance the average user’s knowledge and speed up their workflow. If you would like some footage to experiment with, you can download the footage here


Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size MB

Add Comment

Discussion 129 Comments

Comment Page 2 of 2 1 2
  1. foxnett says:

    Thank you for this tutorial

    foxnett.netsons.org

  2. Alokozay says:

    Hey this is Obaid alokozay form Afghanistan
    and want to tell this that
    i thing the best is your site
    thanks from good doing for people and i am thankful specially from
    Andrew Kremer
    bests wishes

  3. newbie says:

    Hi people from all over the world.
    We all have a common love ….AE and we are starving for great tutorials.
    That’s why we all visit the coolest sites to get inspired and learn things.
    Andrew Crammer Is EXCEPTIONAL and many other guys(not to be mentioned here) but I REALLY appreciate each and every one who is conducive to AE people’s progress by any means.
    Instead of hurting people who contribute to the prevalence of AE capabilities ,it certainly would be better encourage them and egg them on keeping up the good work.
    It’s not our business to criticize people,,,,,,OUR BUSINESS IS ONLY TO LEARN.

    Congratulation Crammer or Ben or Eran Stern or……..
    Thank you all for getting us one step further..

  4. Flavio Fernandes da Costa says:

    Otimo parabéns

  5. aliZap says:

    hi, please upload the footage to another upload center…
    if you can give a direct link that’s better.
    but connection speed is low and i cant download from file front…

  6. aliZap says:

    I cant download Tutorial file!
    when download progress reaches 98% my download manager stop downloading and that was closed… what i should to do?
    i try downloading with two pc’s and with that two pc’s download having error
    Help Me Plz!!!

  7. blake says:

    i bought particular and installed the program but how do i put it on the after effects

  8. Zack says:

    Thanks a ton dude!

  9. jelly says:

    Awesome! I learned al ot! Thanks!

  10. Priyanka says:

    hi,
    I an wanting to make a complex video light effect.(with a lot of movement) Isn’t thr a way to do it live while moving and painting..Or is this the only way.
    thanx

  11. Rafael says:

    NICE!

  12. me says:

    Clean your room.

  13. BHUSHAN says:

    Hi people from all over the world.
    We all have a common love ….AE and we are starving for great tutorials.
    That’s why we all visit the coolest sites to get inspired and learn things.
    Andrew Crammer Is EXCEPTIONAL and many other guys(not to be mentioned here) but I REALLY appreciate each and every one who is conducive to AE people’s progress by any means.
    Instead of hurting people who contribute to the prevalence of AE capabilities ,it certainly would be better encourage them and egg them on keeping up the good work.
    It’s not our business to criticize people,,,,,,OUR BUSINESS IS ONLY TO LEARN.

    Congratulation Crammer or Ben or Eran Stern or……..
    Thank you all for getting us one step further..

  14. BHUSHAN says:

    Thank you for this tutorial

  15. elvis antonio huaroc says:

    soy de perú y gracias por ese tutorial esta busimo

  16. vicente castillo says:

    buen tutorial, very good friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  17. Dodo says:

    its really a helpful tutorial you had made for the beginners…. Thanks a Lot Sir.

  18. abre says:

    very nice! thank you..

  19. nn says:

    BEN hello I do not speak English to translate this case tambein need your help friend, I started your tutorial but the moment is that you apply the truth a zero and moves the flcha the option that comes down to the xy pocision no effect that I stride I leave that option and really not to do that by running the video did not I get in the way that goes straight up in the tutorial normal particles but everywhere I do help me

  20. ChrisMag says:

    i did the tutorial but i have a giant red “X” through my video, any reason why? is it because I chose the “trail” version the “particular” effect from the website? like a watermark or something till i buy the actual product?

  21. DoPar says:

    I have the same giant red X … can anyone explain why?

  22. charly says:

    i dont know how to do in 5’50′ .just set the mask’s key. it’s all show in font and in last….

  23. charly says:

    i can’t follow you without captions.can you send me one?

  24. Ryan says:

    Hi Ben.

    When I was adding key frames for the null object, the previous key frames block the view of where I move the null object and cause mishaps. How did you make it so that when you move the null object to make key frames, the previous ones don’t block your view?

    Thanks!

    • Ben McEwan says:
      Author

      Ryan,

      There’s a little slider on the bottom of the timeline with a picture of a small mountain on the left, and a bigger one on the right. Sliding it to the right will zoom the timeline in so you can see what you’re doing a lot better…

      Alternatively, the shortcut to zoom in is the + button, and to zoom out is the – button (the one’s near enter and backspace, not on the numpad).

      Hope that answered your question.

  25. CrOuCh says:

    Awesome :D !!! Nice tutorial :)

  26. Cixos says:

    Aright just gut the full the program as a present… i am going to try this …prepare for question because i know i am going to be lost like crazy……XD great tutorial still………

  27. dimib says:

    This is not a entirely tutorial related question, but what camera do you used to film yourself? Thanks

  28. Muha says:

    Great tut, although you could have enhanced it further by setting the size over life of the particle streak to a downwards slope in particular and also created some small particles coming off the main streak.

  29. alburt says:

    i have NO ! idea what your talking about, i got lost throughout this whole video, can you make one for me ? :[

  30. waldo says:

    wew so hard to make…but i learned a lot dude..tnx^_^

  31. Jose says:

    Hi Ben, I am Spanish, so I have a problem: I do not understand what you say in the video. Especially when you select the XY position, because by not understanding what you say, I just do what I see in the video and I do not listen. Could you describe the steps to complete the tutorial written instead of spoken? please!!!!

  32. Jose says:

    Hi Ben.
    I have managed to make the video but I only need one thing you do not explain: As fades the end of the line of light. If you read this please you Tell us it

    Please!!!

  33. Arley Daza says:

    MUCHAS GRACIAS!… MUY CLARO Y EXPLICADO EL TUTORIAL… :D

    Muy bueno poder conocer un poco las propiedades del Particular…. exelente!

  34. James says:

    Ben you are amazing, thank you very much for this, its so helpful.

  35. romen says:

    why you don’t make track motion on hand and go click on one step and drag track motion box

  36. Paul says:

    Omg thx so much! It takes a f*****g lot of time to render but it’s worth it.

  37. Haha! says:

    Hahaha… Magneta

  38. Bebergh says:

    Hi buddy
    i have one problem i don’t get this white line which you have please help me or send me mail please

  39. Bebergh says:

    i made it

  40. In the great design of things you secure a B+ just for effort. Where you lost me ended up being in all the particulars. As people say, details make or break the argument.. And it could not be more correct right here. Having said that, allow me reveal to you precisely what did deliver the results. Your text is definitely highly powerful which is probably the reason why I am making an effort to comment. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. Next, even though I can easily see the leaps in reasoning you make, I am definitely not convinced of just how you appear to connect your details that produce the final result. For now I shall subscribe to your position but wish in the future you connect the facts much better.

  41. mike says:

    I’m having trouble rendering the final project. can someone please help. I’m a beginner and i can use as much help as i can get. when i choose an output module it says the directory chosen is un available or something like that. can someone please help!!!!! Also I’m using a mac and version cs5.5. hope that helps come to a conclusion.

  42. Farhad says:

    hi
    could you do me a favor plz?
    i need AE project file.
    somebody help me. PLZ

  43. Lidia says:

    muy bueno el tutorial.

    MUCHAS GRACIAS!!

  44. Bithin says:

    grt tutorial
    thnx a lot
    :)

Comment Page 2 of 2 1 2

Add a Comment

To add a code snippet to your comment, please wrap your code like so: <pre name="code" class="html">YOUR CODE</pre>. You can replace the class name with "js," "css," "sql," or "php." If there are any "<" or ">" within your code, please search and replace them with: &lt; and &gt; respectively.