Lightsaber Effect After Effects

Lightsaber Effect After Effects Model
Force Effects Lightsaber

Once you have your footage, all you need is After Effects to make the lightsaber effects. Want to master Microsoft Excel and take your work-from-home job prospects to the next level? Jump-start your career with our Premium A-to-Z Microsoft Excel Training Bundle from the new Gadget Hacks Shop and get lifetime access to more than 40 hours of.

Unleash your inner Jedi (or Sith) with this quick guide to creating a lightsaber in After Effects.

Aug 01, 2020 The glowing effect after taking it out of the hilt was a neat surprise - I really didn't do a lot of research on this before preordering it - but, it's just kind of a neat bonus. The thing I really dislike about this new saber is the stand.
How To: Make a lightsaber effect with Adobe Premiere Elements How To: Create a force field effect in Adobe After Effects CS5 How To: Create 3D text in After Effects without plugins How To: Build two lightsabers, make effects, and use the force.

Image above from Star Wars: The Force Awakens

If you’ve used AfterEffects for any amount of time, chances are you’ve wanted to create a Star Wars effect at least once or twice. Let’s take a look at how to create your very own lightsaber in AfterEffects using 100% native plugins. (Subtly waves hand.) This is the tutorial you’re looking for.

Step 1: Create a Solid

The first thing you need in order to create a lightsaber effect is some great footage. In this tutorial I’m using a clip from Shutterstock. Once you’ve imported your footage into a new AfterEffects composition, create a new white solid. The label I chose for my solid: Purple Lightsaber.

Step 2: Mask and Keyframe

Next, mask and keyframe the solid so that it surrounds the motion blur of the lightsaber from your reference footage. Try to keep your mask to only four points. If you use more than four, you might begin to get confused about which part is supposed to be at the base of the lightsaber and which part is supposed to be at the top of the lightsaber. By using four mask points, you can keep the exact same points at the top and bottom throughout the entire animation.

Step 3: Create an Inverted Alpha Mask

Next, create a mask so your lightsaber will not cross in front of your subject if it’s actually supposed to be behind your subject. To do this, create a new solid and mask out the areas where your lightsaber should be behind your subject. Our example above is fairly easy; we’ll just have to mask out our subject’s head.

Quick Tip: Make sure to trim your mask layer so that it doesn’t accidentally cover up your lightsaber in any other parts of your composition.

After you mask and keyframe your alpha mask, it’s time to set your track matte. Position your masking layer above your lightsaber layer and change the track matte to Alpha Inverted. This will automatically hide your masking layer in your timeline and create a hole where your subject should be.

Step 4: Add Stylization Effects

Precompose both your alpha mask and your lightsaber layer. Now it’s time to add a few quick stylization effects. The two that I use every time are Fast Blur and Glow. The Fast Blur effect makes your lightsaber seem a little more organic, while the Glow effect adds color to the white layer if you’ve set the Glow Colors to A&B Colors. After you add your stylization effects, simply turn your transfer mode to Screen and adjust any of your effects as needed.

Here’s what our final result looks like.

Want to see a step-by-step tutorial about how to create this cool lightsaber effect? Check out this great tutorial by Legacy Entertainment that uses the same layer technique outlined in this blog post.

This is just one of the many different ways you can create a lightsaber in After Effects. Another popular method is to use the lightsaber preset designed by Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot. I highly recommend checking out their tutorial.

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Create visual effects from a galaxy far, far away with these fun After Effects tutorials.

Star Wars undoubtedly features some of the most iconic visual effects in cinematic history, and while they were groundbreaking initially, many of them have become easier to replicate than you might think. In fact, with these After Effects tutorials, you can have all the skills you need to put yourself in the Star Wars universe.

1. Title Crawl by Nick Khoo

Lightsaber effect after effects download

Where better to start than the signature title crawl that kicks off each Star Wars film? One of the simpler tutorials on this list, this effective introduction to creating a 3D text crawl through space is useful beyond the context of Star Wars – it is also a good way to introduce beginners to text layers and how touse them in 3D space.

2. Lightsabers by Flawless Films

This wouldn’t be a complete list of Star Wars visual effects without the inclusion of the lightsaber. Easily the most recognizable effect of the franchise, the lightsaber is an extremely enjoyable visual to create, making the learning process of rotoscoping in After Effects much less tedious. This also doubles as a great excuse to get silly with your friends and bring your own duels to life!

3. Holograms by Ramone Hulet

This effect is a bit more universally applicable than those previously mentioned. While holograms are now featured in most science fiction films, Star Wars was among the first to bring them to life on screen. There are presets and plugins available to instantly create this effect, but you can generally achieve similar results with vanilla After Effects, as seen in this detailed tutorial.

4. Light Speed by Graymachine

Jumping from one part of the galaxy to the next would not be nearly as enthralling without the signature visual effect that Star Wars showcases in each film. Even now, it still provides a sense of wonder and anticipation every time. There are a number of tutorials that can walk you through this process, but this one is especially cool in that it even shows you how to replicate the stunning revamped hyperdrive jump shown in the trailer for The Force Awakens.

5. Planets by PremiumBeat

What is Star Wars without its stunning outer space visuals? With this tutorial, you can create a custom 3D planet scene without any plugins! It even demonstrates a technique that allows the camera to animate in 3D space relative to the planet created by CC Sphere.

6. Matte Painting by Krisco Art Productions

We’ll conclude with a tutorial that, funnily enough, isn’t actually focused on Star Wars. This introduction to 3D matte painting does require a prerequisite of basic After Effects competency, but it does a great job explaining the logic and basic techniques behind creating a virtual 3D environment. You can even implement the previous space scene technique here by adding background planets and other atmospheric details to the sky.