One of the most enjoyable things about getting a new editing program is to try out all of
the filters and effects. Of course, after the initial wonder wears off, you're left
with trying to figure out which effects are actually useful and which ones should never
see the light of day. To help you with this, we'll show you useful ways to use great effects
like light flares, particle generators, noise, and motion tracking in a way that will make
your titles look professional.
An easy way to make any title or graphic more interesting and professional is to use a lens
flare. Lens flares are bright areas of light that flash across a screen in order to mimic
light hitting a camcorder's sensor. Most editors use lens flares to make footage and titles
look more realistic and to draw attention to a certain area of the screen. The movie
Star Trek made great use of lens flares in order to give the production a natural futuristic
feel. In order to make your own, you'll first need to arrange your text on the screen. For
this example, we chose to promote an annual photography award show where flares can really
help the text stand out. Next, add a gradient to the text using a variety of dark and light
gold colors in order to make the text seem reflective. Then create either a black slug
or black video, depending on the program you're using, and place it in your timeline. This
will be the layer we apply the lens flare effect to. With the lens flare applied, change
the flare type to your liking. Then, make a keyframe on the brightness parameter. We're
going to try to make the flares look like flash photography so we'll want to set a short
distance between our darkest and brightest keyframe. In our case, we went three frames
ahead and set another keyframe to 150 percent. We then went two more frames ahead and set
the brightness level back to 0. Lastly, we trimmed the clip so that it was only as long
as our flash animation. If you want more flashes in your text reveal, it's possible to copy
and paste the black video layer multiple times in your timeline. This is how our animation
turned out. As you can see, we also added a flare to the text in order to make it stand
out as well.
Particle generators can also give your titles and graphics a natural look and feel. They're
often used as an element to direct the viewer's eye, to create interesting backgrounds, and
most of all - to give text a sense of realism. Movies like Prince of Persia Sands of Time
utilize particle generators as a way to reveal text and remind viewers of the movie's theme.
We'll be making an animation for a local tire and brake company using a particle generator.
First we'll make a solid black layer in After Effects and apply the Trapcode Particular
plugin to it. This plugin will allow us to control many different aspects of our particles.
Since we want our rain to fall at a constant rate, we'll set our Velocity parameters at
0. Next, we'll set our particles per second to 2000, the position of the particles up
to the top of the screen, and the "Z" position of our particles at 1900 to give them plenty
of depth. We'll also need to pick the "Box" option under "Emitter Type" and then scroll
down a bit to change the Emitter Size X to 5000 pixels wide, the emitter size Y to only
100 pixels tall, and the Emittter Size X value to 5000 pixels deep so that our rain has a
lot of depth. Also, in order for us to see the particles right away, we'll need to twirl
down Emission Extras and set the Pre-Run option to 100%. Moving on down the list, we'll set
our Particle life at 2 seconds so it lasts long enough to be seen on the screen, set
the size of the particle at 10, and change the "Size Over Life" parameter to get progressively
smaller. In this example, we chose to use custom designed backlit raindrops that we
built in Photoshop instead of using the particle presets in Particular. We did this by importing
our rain drop graphics into After Effects, then by making a new composition that was
200 pixels wide by 200 pixels tall. We're keeping it small in order to make render times
go a bit faster. () Next, we made each layer one frame long and placed them in sequential
order along the timeline. From there, we placed the rain drop precomposition layer into our
main composition, turned it's visibility to "off" by clicking on the "eyeball" icon on
the left to off. At this point, in the Particular plugin, we went to Particle Particle Type
and changed the option to "Textured Polygon" in the drop-down menu. Then under the "Texture"
parameter, we changed the "Layer" to our Rain Drop precomp, the "Time Sampling" to "Random-Still
Frame", and the "Random Seed" to 4. Choosing Random-Still Frame allows the plugin to permanently
choose a random rain drop particle from the composition instead of just playing it through.
This next step is where the real magic begins. Under the "Physics" setting, we'll change
the "Physics Model" to "Bounce" so that our rain will quickly come down from the sky and
bounce on our pavement. In order to make sure our rain drops fast enough, we'll set the
gravity to 500. Then to speed up our rain drop particles, we'll twirl down the "Air"
property and change the "Wind Y" to 1500, which will simulate wind coming straight down
from the sky, and the "Wind Z" value to 125 so that the rain slants a bit toward the screen.
Next, under the "Bounce" parameter, we'll set our floor layer to be our Street background
layer and the amount of bounce to "1" and enter 0 in the "Slide" value since we don't
want our particles moving once they've hit the pavement. Lastly, under "Aux System" we'll
set a particle to emit at the "Bounce Event". () From here we'll set our "Emit Probability"
to 100% so that every rain drop that hits the pavement spawns other rain drops, our
"Particles per Collision" to 6 in order to make sure we don't get too particle-heavy,
the life span of the particle to 1 second, the size of the particle to 4, and the velocity
of the bounced particle to "400" since we want it to appear the rain drop hit the ground
fairly hard. The only thing left is to set our gravity at "500" in order to match the
gravity for the rain drops that initially fall from the sky. At this point, all we have
to do is add our text and maybe a few flashes of light that look like lightning and we have
a natural rain effect that quickly gets our point across to the viewers.
One of the most forgotten, yet powerful plug-ins in compositing and titling programs is noise.
Though it may not sound like much, it's the basis of many great effects. The noise plug-in
is often used to create displacement maps, textures, and more commonly, backgrounds.
In our case, we'll be using the noise filter to make a Western title look like it was shot
on old film. The first thing you'll need to do is make a black solid and place it in your
composition or timeline. Then grab the "Fractal Noise" plug-in from your effects window and
apply it to the solid. Once you've done that, change the value of the "Contrast" setting
to 350 and the "Brightness" to -165. This will leave smaller portions of the fractal
noise effect on screen that mimic dust on film. If you want the dust to be thicker,
you can make these values smaller to leave more on screen. Next, in order to give the
dust some movement, scrub your playhead to the beginning of the timeline and click the
"stopwatch" icon next to the "Evolution" parameter. This will set a keyframe for this value. At
this point, go to the end of your timeline and change the "Evolution" to 10 if you're
using a 5 second composition, or more if using a longer composition. This will make your
dust move rapidly across the screen. Lastly, change the blend mode of the clip to "Difference."
By doing so, you'll be able to get rid of the white background in your dust noise layer.
Playing our animation through, you can see that we now have a great looking "old film"
effect.
Complex motion tracking tasks are best left to programs such as Adobe After Effects or
Mocha but simple tracking - over very short periods of time - can be accomplished within
any editing program. For example, you’ve probably seen a commercial where someone has
a message or other symbol floating above them as they walk. In order to make a similar effect,
place your walking-person-footage on the timeline and the message-to-be-floated on the video
track above it. Now, make sure the message graphic is selected. Scale it to the desired
size and position it directly above the person’s head so it appears to be floating there. Next,
set a position keyframe. Using the right arrow key on your keyboard, advance the timeline
until the person's head has moved significantly in the frame. At that point, drag the message
into the same approximate position above their head. Don't worry. Each time you move the
layer a new keyframe should be created. Repeat this process until you're at the end of the
clip. Render the animation and the message will follow the person around as though it's
attached to their head!
As you can see, effects and filters can really help a titles look realistic and compelling.
Using the techniques we've shown you and with plenty of practice, you'll be able to make
titles that will make any production look professional.