Even with so many awesome real life weapons out there that wreak jaw-dropping damage and explosions, boys and men everywhere still grovel at the feet of lightsabers, that mystal (and unfortunately made up) weapon touted by Jedi in the "Star Wars" movies. If you've never outgr ...more
Get tips on making and animating Star Wars lightsabers using the Neon Light Engine in Effects Lab
Make light saber glow effects in lsmakerThe author found freeware that helps create light sabers. The freeware is not as good as adobe after effects, but it will serve the purpose. Download the software from the website http://www.lsmaker.uw.hulpage.php?main=lsmaker.html. Extr ...more
In this video tutorial, viewers learn how to create a light-saber effect using Adobe Premiere Elements. Begin by adding your video into the program. Then go to the effects and select the lightning effect. Configure the effect settings to the settings provided in the video. Now ...more
Check out this video from Chemical Reaction Tutorials (CRTutorials). If you love filmmaking, prop making, editing and everything else that goes along with making movies, then you'll want to see what Adam has to say about lightsabers. In the first video, Adam shows you how to ...more
Check out this video from Chemical Reaction Tutorials (CRTutorials). If you love filmmaking, prop making, editing and everything else that goes along with making movies, then you'll want to see what Adam has to say about lightsabers. Kevin from Shudder Pictures shows you how ...more
Did you ever want to know how to create Star Wars style lightsaber effects for your own home videos? Youtube user Comphelper225 has a way make this little bit of movie magic come to life using Adobe After Effects. Once you have a video of yourself or a friend swinging a base f ...more
This tutorial creates several authentic lightsaber effects. Kramer has created a simple technique to make sabers with a breeze. Create a Star Wars lightsaber in After Effects. Click through to watch this video on creativecow.net
This Blender 2.5 video tutorial tackles something that is on most people's "create -before-I-die" list, a Jedi light saber. This tutorial focuses in on the post-processing aspect by setting up a node network to create the effect of the glowing blade. Modeling is not covered in ...more
Andrew Cramer shows you how to simulate light in your After Effects scenes. The effect shown is good for any time you have a flash of light shown like lightning or clashing light sabers. Add simulated light to a scene in After Effects. Click through to watch this video on crea ...more
What more to say? It's a light saber! You will need need 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe, a dremel, a drill, a hot glue gun, a riveter, some rivets, a 12 inch metal pipe, a brass nut, a beveled rubber washer, a one inch thumb screw, a rubber door sealer and some hardware. Construct a real ...more
Learn best practices for lighting your canvas in Adobe Photoshop. Whether you're new to computer graphics, new to Adobe Photoshop CS4 or a seasoned design professional just looking to pick up a few new tips and tricks, you're certain to like this free video software tutorial. ...more
A laser light show is possible to replicate with the diffraction grating effect. Different laser effects can be created using a variety of materials: small motors and diffraction grating pieces, and mirrors. It's possible to create searchlights, crystal balls, spring patterns, ...more
Systm presents this detailed tutorial on how to make a custom Star Wars style light saber. Luke, Darth and Obi-Wan's Lightsabers were pieced out of junk piles. David shows you how to build exact replicas and an original design from The Custom Saber Shop. Then he picks a fight ...more
Jeff Schell shows you some of the options and configurations available when working with images that do not match the dimensions of your program monitor in Premiere Pro CS3. In addition, Jeff will introduce you to the 'Automate to Timeline" feature that helps you quickly creat ...more
This tutorial shows you some totally hip and smashing effects with light rays and text in Sony Vegas. Difficulty: Easy Prior Knowledge: Basic Keyframing
In the first tutorial, Creative Cow leader Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to use After Effects to simulate the popular light writing effect seen in recent Sprint commercials. The second video shows you how to improve the look of the light writing effect by adding intense poin ...more
This After Effects tutorial will show you how to create a flickering light effect. Hopefully you can take these ideas and apply them a little bit better than our teacher did. Simulate a flickering light using After Effects. Click through to watch this video on ivfilms.net
This software tutorial shows you how to use the Knoll Light Factory Pro plug-in for After Effects. Knoll Light Factory Pro is the industry's favorite tool for creating lens flares, sunsets, photon torpedoes, stars and other effects. It offers a custom lens editor, auto trackin ...more
Light streaks look very cool. Their coolness is practically the reason time-lapse photography exists. This video will teach you how to take light sources in video and create light streaks off of them using Adobe After Effects. Make your nighttime videos look much more spiffy b ...more
Andrew Kramer demonstrates how to create ray traced light reflections inside After Effects. After Effects does not handle ray traced reflections natively so follow along with tutorial and learn some cool tricks to get a ray traced effect. Create ray traced light reflections in ...more
In this video tutorial, we learn how to create film title treatments with Knoll Light Factory within Adobe After Effects. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself wi ...more
In this Illustrator/After Effects CS4 tutorial, Dennis Radeke shows you how you can build your very own light show. It's easy and fun so come along and find out how! Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional ...more
A few months ago, we showed you a pretty awesome light painting project that visually captured invisible Wi-Fi signals around town using a Wi-Fi detecting rod filled with 80 LEDs. With some long exposure photography, the results were pretty amazing. This project was inspired b ...more
In this video tutorial, we learn how to get started using Knoll Light Factory Pro to generate eye-catching light effects within Adobe After Effects. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to ...more
n this video tutorial, Creative Cow Contributing Editor Eran Stern shows you a how to build a 3D scene using Photoshop CS3 Vanishing Point and re-light it inside After Effects. Part two will show you how to project text on the floor using light transmission feature in After Ef ...more
In this video tutorial from Adobe Beginner Classes, join Dennis Radeke as he shows you how to create volumetric light on text inside Adobe After Effects, and teaches how to prevent DVD coasters in Adobe Encore. See how to create volumetric light on text in Adobe After Effects.
This video shows you how to light up a bluescreen for special effects. The bluescreen must be well lit in order for the effect to be more seamless win post production.
Making titles in After Effects is fun, relatively easy, and sure to make your film make a better first impression. This video will show you how to make a cool light ray text swipe effect with particles, like the one in the thumbnail. This isn't too hard as far as our After Eff ...more
This quick AE user's guide presents a lesson in light wrapping and edge blurs in After Effects. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its var ...more
This video shows how to improve light in a room for different moods and effects. You will see how the lighting will fit the design of different rooms and still fill the basic needs of the light. A dining room with a dimmer switch will focus on the dining room table with ambien ...more
In this video tutorial, we learn how to use Key Correct Pro to composite with light wraps within Adobe After Effects. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with t ...more
The greenscreen has allowed filmmakers to take us to worlds they never could have otherwise, but they can ruin a movie when used poorly. Watch this video for a guide to picking a screen, lighting it, and getting a good key for it using Final Cut Pro or After Effects.
This step-by-step tutorial will teach you the correct way make a Light-Saber effect using Paint.net.In this video, you will learn how to gather the Light-Saber image, paste the image into Paint.net, choose the preferred color for the Light-Saber, and other special effects such ...more
If you are a big star wars fan you will love this. Using your PC, turn your Wii controller into a light saber through sound effects. Become a Jedi all over again with these cool sound effects using the program WiiSaber Use your wii remote as a lightsaber. Click through to watc ...more
In this how-to video, you will learn how to make a light saber or similar image in the Final Cut Express program. First, go to the effects tab and go to video generators and select color solid. Drag this to the viewer. Go to the control tab and select the blue color. Now drag ...more
Playing around with plastic lightsabers is juvenile; playing around with digitally generated, realistic-looking lightsabers is gangsta. Feel the power of the force by watching this tutorial for fabricating a realistic light saber on Final Cut Studio. The process is pretty qui ...more
Why make a boring 2D laser in After Effects or Photoshop when you can make a real 3D one in 3D Studio Max? This tutorial shows you how to create these shooting lasers (also works for light sabers).
If you want your own lightsaber, you don't need to be a Jedi or have kyber crystals in your possession; now, thanks to augmented reality, all you need is an iPhone and a rolled up piece of paper. On Wednesday, app developer 2020CV released InstaSaber on the iOS App Store. The ...more
How many trips up and down the stairs do you think it took artist Janne Parviainen to create this incredible topographical light painting? Apparently, quite a few. Using only one LED, he moves around his house, tracing all of the surfaces. Sometimes the exposure times are up t ...more
Backyard FX shows how to build a real lightsaber. Erik Beck unearths the original lightsaber blueprints from the special effects creator for Star Wars, and show you how to buy parts to a real lightsaber so you can have your own custom Star Wars weapon. In the test film you'll ...more
Bradley Lewis is a visual effects artist for BioWare by day, but in his spare time he runs Slothfurnace, a blog dedicated to showcasing his incredibly realistic lightsaber replicas. His latest, which took 18 months to build, is Obi-Wan Kenobi's Reveal Lightsaber from A New Hop ...more
Nintendo's Wii Remote came close, but never has a video game peripheral garnered such adoration from the hacker community than the Kinect. Since the release of Microsoft's controller-free gaming device last November, there has literally been thousands of fun and useful projec ...more
Snap introduced some fantastic new augmented reality abilities in version 3.4 of Lens Studio, the company's tool that allows anyone to create AR lenses for the Snapchat app. The newest features include improved hand tracking and full-body segmentation. The Lens Studio communi ...more
Who doesn't love Star Wars? No one, that's who. And if you love Stars Wars, logic would follow that you like lightsabers, so central are they to the tale's mythology. It's part sword, part laser, and makes a sound like a humming motor have multigasms. If I saw one in real life ...more
Rich Harrington explores the new realistic behaviors of light and shadow in After Effects CS4. In this software video, Rich concentrates on creating and positioning light sources and creating shadows. He also moves the camera around to create a small action clip. Start with a ...more
This clip demonstrates how to create a caustic lighting effect using Houdini's Mantra PBR rendering engine. The first part starts with a refresher on refraction. More generally, guide looks at setting up normals correctly, then at the glass shader in Houdini, faux caustics and ...more
Does your video look flat? By using Three Point Lighting, you will be able to give your flat video more dimension. In this tutorial, Israel Hyman demonstrates the effects of the key light, the fill light, and the back light. This is a long standing lighting technique that you ...more
Have you become a Jedi in your Star Wars delusional mind? If so, break out of the the asylum with a Jedi lightsaber. Oh, but you don't have a lightsaber yet, okay. Well, this video tutorial will show you how to make a very inexpensive LED light saber with the most basic parts ...more
Watch as Novastar and Gundamaniac demonstrate detailed wiring for a crystal focus board for Star Wars Lightsabers! Making your very own Jedi Light Saber may be a daunting task if you don't know what you're doing, but this four-part video tutorial will save the day from evil fo ...more
After Effects 6.5 shipped with many Cycore Effects one being the Light Sweep effect for fast and effective light gleams. In this video tutorial, DMN’s Stephen Schleicher walks you through the process of using the effect for your project.
How does taking photographs outside differ from taking photos inside? Well, unlike indoor photography, which boast easily adjustable artificial lighting and lighting effects, with outdoor photography the light you get is the light you use. Watch this video to learn how to pho ...more
Using After Effects 3D layers and light sweep effect to create this text that moves in 3D space. For more Adobe software tutorials from Layers Magazine, search Layers Magazine on WonderHowTo. WonderHowTo indexes all Layers Magazine tutorials for Illustrator, InDesign, Photosh ...more
Add energy and excitement to your scene with lightning! During this tutorial you will discover how to quickly model a detailed lightning bolt, make an object disintegrate, create light flashes, add glow and glare effects in the compositor. Whether you're new to the Blender Fou ...more
The helmet is the most important part of football padding and safety equipment, especially in light of recent research into the prevalence and lasting effects of concussions on football players. This video features an explanation of how to properly select and fit a helmet for ...more
This tutorial uses After Effects to design a quick animation that looks like several light streaks form the letters of a word. The letters burst from the light streaks with a particle explosion. This tutorial uses Trapcode 3D Stroke and Particular. Whether you're new to Adobe' ...more
Turn Cinema 4d into your own lighting studio! This tutorial shows you how to use the HDRI Light Kit Pro kit of plugins and addons to create unique lighting effects - add your own softboxes, ring lights and other sources to improve your renders.
Three awesome film special effects, one video. Ryan at Film Riot sure knows how to make one-stop shopping filmmaking tutorials. This video will show you how to shoot someone's head off, use a jib and dolly together to get more dynamic shots, and also how to make a great cheap ...more
This After Effects tutorial will show you a nice underwater scene, complete with light rays, rising bubbles and cloudy ocean mist. You don't have to be a professional AE user to recreate this great animated scene, either! Laurence Grayson demonstrates all the techniques for th ...more
This video continues to elaborate the titles that the creators started working on in this tutorial on blur in-out effects in Premiere Pro. This time they focus on creating light spots and fast bumpmaps and how these techniques can be used to create even cooler titles. Downloa ...more