Create an Illuminating “Light Painting” Effect

on Apr 8th 2009 with 138 comments
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

 
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.

Ben McEwan grew up in Canberra, Australia. He started learning visual effects from a young age and persistantly followed his dreams. Today, Ben does freelance work for feature films, short films and television programs, and one day hopes to win an Academy Award.  

Plus Premium
 
 
← Older Comments
  • http://www.websilt.com kunal

    Hey Nice tus
    Can i put a text or any image behind an object in a VIDEO…..Can u please make a tutorial or give me a reference link…….PLEASE

  • http://www.rspproductions.net Rick

    Nicely done. It’s an effect I have been wanting to learn for a commercial spot. I appreciate you sharing.

  • Daniel

    hey, what is the name of the plugin ?

    • Turhan

      I think its Trapcode Particular…..

  • http://www.facebook.com/igoldhar Itay Goldhar

    you are awesome!!!
    thnx you very much

  • Rushabh

    helow :) u are so awesome about this but i need help …i cant put emiitter’s value same as null object which u did on 2:45 ….plzz give me some tips about that …

  • Stefan Klinge

    Thanks a lot

← Older Comments