I need a shiny star...

S

Stab

Well-known member
Alright, don't take the title serious :)

For a film I'm looking for a certain effect, but I don't know how to make it or how it is called to see if I can find a tutorial or download.

I have shot something of metal and it should 'shine' or 'blink'. The same effect that is used in toothpaste advertisements to show how shiny their teeth are. It's usually a short animation of a 'star' which shines and accompanied with a high 'ping' or beep.

Anyone have any idea?
Thanks!
 
There's a plugin for After Effects called Starglow, which would do the trick easily. It's customizable and can be animated with keyframes for duration and length. Would worth it as it can also be applied in other situation.
 
Trapcode Starglow is nice but is kind of overkill if you just want a single star in a single place. Just find (or make) a star shape in Adobe Illustrator format (I'd bet Google can find 100's of free ones). Load it in. Add it to the comp, make it additive (so it brightens), position it, animate the opacity to make it come on and off. A little rotation if you want that. Might also want to duplicate the base video layer, mask everything but the metal part. Make the duplicate additive. Use levels on it so that only the "bright" areas are left. Ramp the opacity on that so you can get the metal to flash. Use B&W effect to tint it if you don't want pure white.

You can also do this with lens flares (lots of options there).

You can also make the star shape in AE itself using a solid and the pen/polygon tools.

Most of these steps can be done in an editor as well as AE. Or in just about any app that will let you composite layers.
 
Tin foil, the answer is tin foil.

ok seriously.. I've used starglow and its pretty good but I'd probably instead recommend using glow on a star like object and animating the glow values using keyframes. plus its "free" and doesn't require any plugin.
 
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