hey guys, I was wondering if you knew if i could make sun burst effects like when the sun bursts through a tree or somthing, and fills the screen with alot of white light??
At a guess, you could use something like a "bloom" effect to make the light parts of your video glow (i.e. the light behind the trees)
Simply crank it up and make sure that it blows the whole image out
If there's any other parts of your image that blow out which you don't want - mask 'em
There's probably an easier way though
*waits for the experts*
Actually, the best solution would be the KNOLL LIGHT FACTORY. I've recently got this, and am pretty satisfied. In fact they even have an option on the lens flare to check which layer you want to be obstructed. So if you need a light passing through trees...it will move through the object as if it were real sunlight.
That would work well also. Buy the effect could be achieved with a simple white solid, a mask in the shape you want, a 20 pixel feather, and the opacity dropped.
Or, an adjustment layer with the levels tweaked to lighten the footage, and then masked again like above. You really don't need any plugins for it. And if you create your solid or adjustment layer and turn it into a 3D layer, you add a null, make it a 3D layer as well and can motion track for not only position and rotation, but perspective as well.
One of the things that usually sells that kind of volumetric lighting look is little glowing mites and particles that are illuminated by the shaft of light. Add some of those in, and you should be fine and dandy.