{"id":1787,"date":"2014-11-16T18:03:19","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T00:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2014-11-16T18:03:19","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T00:03:19","slug":"behind-the-scenes-raining-platform-part-4-fake-lighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/2014\/11\/behind-the-scenes-raining-platform-part-4-fake-lighting\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind The Scenes – Raining Platform Part 4: Fake Lighting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last subject in Raining Platform’s<\/a> Behind-The-Scenes thread is the fake lighting for the lamp posts. This wasn’t a major effect, but it was a nice detail that came out nicely and was worth sharing. I considered creating the lighting in Lightwave. However, since I was using multiple renders on different layers, I didn’t think this was the best way.<\/p>\n

To better show the final post lighting, below is a shot without the rain. Notice how the opacity of the yellow light is greater near the platform and gradually becomes more transparent as it reaches the source:<\/p>\n

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I began with a yellow\u00c2\u00a0solid. To taper its transparency, I used a Track Matte. Below shows the setup of this in After Effects.<\/p>\n

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The yellow solid layer is [Faux Light]. By selecting a Luma Track Matte, the opacity of the Faux Light layer will be dictated by the brightness of the image above it (in this case [Gradient]). When the Gradient layer is white, Faux Light will have a 100% Opacity. Conversely, when the Gradient layer is black, it will be completely transparent. As a side note, you can also use Track Mattes with an Alpha setting – where a layer’s opacity will be dictated by the above layer’s opacity. This is another technique I commonly used.<\/p>\n

Back to this project, to have the Faux Light layer get progressively more opaque the further down it goes, I created a simple black\/ white gradient via the Ramp effect. Below is that gradient (for the Gradient Layer):<\/p>\n

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It took a little tweaking to get the gradient exactly how I wanted. To make the effect more subtle, the top part of the gradient wasn’t pure black nor was the bottom part pure white. I then set the Blending Mode for the Faux Light layer to Screen and lowered it’s opacity a little more (just for good measure).<\/p>\n

The last step was creating the masks to outline the actual shape of the light. Below shows the solo-ed light without the Track Matte (top) and with the Track Matte (bottom).<\/p>\n

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And that is how I was able to get the lighting for the posts – done entirely in After Effects. Using\u00c2\u00a0Track Mattes to taper the layer’s opacity made for a nice, subtle touch that I was particularly proud of.<\/p>\n

Well that wraps up the forth (and final) part of the Behind-The-Scenes for Raining Platform. They all focused on work done in After Effects, which did most of the heavy lifting in this project. Honestly, much of what I did was pretty straight forward and didn’t require a great deal of knowledge. All you really need is the basic ability of knowing how to navigate through the program and then toying around with its features.<\/p>\n

Anyway, if you have any other questions, or would like to hear about another aspect of the animation, feel free to hit me up – I wouldn’t be against making another part or two if its on a subject worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last subject in Raining Platform’s Behind-The-Scenes thread is the fake lighting for the lamp posts. This wasn’t a major effect, but it was a nice detail that came out nicely and was worth sharing. I considered creating the lighting in Lightwave. However, since I was using multiple renders on different layers, I didn’t think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,116],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-raining-platform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pivisuals.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}