Help! Lens Flares and grain

J

Johnny06

Member
Hey! Total newbie question here. I'm running AE 6.5 PRO

I'm doing some minimal FX for a low budget music video and I can't figure out how to add a single lens flare. In the effects palette I can choose between 50-300mm zoom, 35mm prime, and 105mm prime. The main (larger) flare for the 50-300mm zoom is the one I want, but its the other little flares with it that look awful. I was able to add single lens flare in earlier versions of AE.

Also, I'm trying to remove the grain off of the video, however the remove grain effect only works when I import small clips (like around 20 seconds). When I import the entire music video, it doesn't seem to render at all. It's now 5 a.m. here in LA...I'll give up until tomorrow morn. Thank you!
 
I've never used the lens flare effect in AE, so I couldn't tell you why it's not working. If you have the cash you might want to check out this, http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/knolsec2teso.html. It's Knoll Light Factory and it's great for producing realistic and different lens flares.

For remove grain, I've never heard of a time limit for an effect, so you might want to check your Render Settings.
 
try lens flare in Premiere. It should have. about the remove grain... are you sure about the lenght of the composition? (when you set it)
 
Why use Remove grain? It's very heavy and difficult to setup. Go with a lighter effect.
It will take ages to render.
 
yeye, I thought. But what are the names of these effects, because I do not know any other.
 
Steve_Arm said:
There are my bad English. :) I meant filters that are not so cpu consuming as the Remove Grain.
Click to expand...

Well, I don't know of too many other filters that can be used to remove grain. I would think anything that degrains footage will take a while.
 
Either you can fake it with 1 pixel median, or look at the Saphirre plugins, they are really fast and have a grain remove filter. But if we are talking about film grain not video noise, AE's remove grain is really good when setup right.
 
Hey Guys,

Thank you so much for responding. This forum rocks! I will definitely check out the Knoll software...I have to make some shots of sunsets look brighter and also replicate some light flares during some intimate scenes. As far as the grain, it's video noise from the DVX. I don't know if the heads were dirty on the cam. but there is a lot of noise. One of the FX guys we work with recommended using the remove grain filter in AE. It works ok, but I think it softens the image too much
 
Johnny06 said:
Hey Guys,

Thank you so much for responding. This forum rocks! I will definitely check out the Knoll software...I have to make some shots of sunsets look brighter and also replicate some light flares during some intimate scenes. As far as the grain, it's video noise from the DVX. I don't know if the heads were dirty on the cam. but there is a lot of noise. One of the FX guys we work with recommended using the remove grain filter in AE. It works ok, but I think it softens the image too much
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the softening is the nature of the beast. You might want to try some CC first to see if you can "hide" some of that noise, then move on to different approaches.
 
You could also try a channel blur. Blue usually holds the most noise, so blurring it slightly may help remove it a little, without too much softening.

It would be much easier if you posted a pic to see what yer talking about. one cpic with noise on it will let the Photoshop gurus go at it and then it's fixed in AE.
 
Steve_Arm said:
Either you can fake it with 1 pixel median, or look at the Saphirre plugins, they are really fast and have a grain remove filter. But if we are talking about film grain not video noise, AE's remove grain is really good when setup right.
Click to expand...
I have never heard about Saphirre.
anyway there are other cool methods like the one said by Rapier
 
Surf if you had seen an Avid you will have heard of them. They are very expensive and they are mostly used with Avids. When I fooled around with them the first time I instantly knew where and how all the TV series were being edited. -> Avid + Saphirre. It has some very funky effects and the best of the them is the soft focus, never seen such a fine quality soft focus effect.
Well what I want to say is that Saphirre plugins are the choice of pros all over the world.And fortunately they are hosted in AE!!!!!
 
Steve_Arm said:
Surf if you had seen an Avid you will have heard of them. They are very expensive and they are mostly used with Avids. When I fooled around with them the first time I instantly knew where and how all the TV series were being edited. -> Avid + Saphirre. It has some very funky effects and the best of the them is the soft focus, never seen such a fine quality soft focus effect.
Well what I want to say is that Saphirre plugins are the choice of pros all over the world.And fortunately they are hosted in AE!!!!!
Click to expand...


I have been looking into the Sapphire effects, but I haven't had much luck finding results with them to judge. Can you post a few clips with different effects you are particularly fond of?

THanks if you can.
 
If you want clips I might do a small mix video, with the best of them but I won't have it soon. I would say on Monday best it will be ready.
From what I remember, definetely the SoftFocus is the best one and then it has a nice blur dissolve, oh and there is one that shakes the camera very very realistically...what else...some good film effects, the usual Shine (light rays) and some more light effects very awesome. And of course don't forget the EdgeGlow.Man are they good! I will sure make a demo clip!
You can download a demo from their site.
 
Steve_Arm said:
If you want clips I might do a small mix video, with the best of them but I won't have it soon. I would say on Monday best it will be ready.
From what I remember, definetely the SoftFocus is the best one and then it has a nice blur dissolve, oh and there is one that shakes the camera very very realistically...what else...some good film effects, the usual Shine (light rays) and some more light effects very awesome. And of course don't forget the EdgeGlow.Man are they good! I will sure make a demo clip!
You can download a demo from their site.
Click to expand...


Sounds cool. I looked at the demo a while ago. I'll check it out again. But some footage from you would be nice. Take yer time on any demo, I just want to see what one of us can do with it, not the pros trying to sell their product.

But I'm gonna check her out again.

Personally, I wann know how the guy did this:

http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1587

said here it was all Sapphire.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=269925
 
Funny cause I sat at my machine to capture some footage for the clip and I thought: "What am I doing?Like I'm a Sapphire reseller"!!:) Anyway it will be fun since I have some time to touch AE. You see I work as a programmer now, I quitted the motion graphics job.
 
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