Bundles
Custom UI Plug-ins
Workflow Tools
Continuum Complete
BCC AE Templates
Continuum Units
SAVE $795 with this bundle!
Over 300 Native Video Effects Filters
Includes Continuum Complete and
Final Effects Complete
GET IT ALL!
Our entire collection for one low price
Only $999 for Continuum Complete
or RED owners
Newsletter sign up
Enter your email address below to receive tutorials and free goodies!
Learn Boris products fast
Learn Boris products fast
Webinar Replays
Boris Webinars
Image Restoration and Touchup in Adobe After Effects
Thursday, February 28th @ 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time
Fixing It In Post for Avid Video Editors
Thursday, December 20th @ 2:30 PM U.S. Eastern Time
Streamline Your VFX Workflow with Continuum Complete
Thursday, December 6th @ 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time
Network Graphics with Extrusions, Particles, & Lights
Wednesday, October 3rd @ 7:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time
Boris TV Channels
Latest Boris TV Episodes
There are several Boris Continuum Complete AVX (BCC AVX) filters that were designed to produce the glow effect that is very popular for sports broadcast and commercial spots. In this tutorial, we will use BCC AVX 5 in Avid Media Composer to give you an overview of the BCC Glow, BCC Colorize Glow, and BCC Glow Alpha Edges filters.
Apart from being a nice look when applied to just about any clip (even at its default setting), a popular example of the BCC Glow effect is to apply the filter to the tail of an outgoing clip and to the head of an incoming clip. The glow is then animated to generate a white-flash / glow effect, which acts as a very organic transition between the two clips in the timeline.
A second glow look is where objects in an image clip appear to have a glow but the glow color is not based on the pixels inherent in the original clip but rather it comes from a secondary source. We'll create this look using the BCC Colorize Glow effect and the secondary color source in the example that we are creating will be a color gradient generated using the built-in gradient editor within the filter.
The third type of glow that we are going to create is when an object that has been isolated from a background with a mask shape or key filter appears to have a contour glow that follows the edge of the mask or key. We'll create this look using the BCC Glow Alpha Edges filter effect. We'll add to that effect two additional BCC filters to complete the stylized result that we are looking for and in doing so we'll show you how to correctly stack multiple BCC AVX filters over an image with alpha.
Let's start by importing the clips for the glow transition effect. The clips that we are using are stock Artbeats clips of busses making their way through the city of London. The white highlights in the images are well suited to this stylization as are the colors in the reflection of the buildings on the river Thames.
By default, the effect will scale the whites in the image to which it is applied, thereby generating a glow effect. To increase or decrease the effect of the glow, you need only be concerned with two parameters in the BCC Glow filter - Glow Threshold (which determines the start point of the effect along a linear luma curve from 0-255) and Glow Intensity (which sets the intensity of the effect and works in conjunction with the Glow Threshold setting.) We'll change the default settings of these two parameters to see what effect they have on the filtered result.
Now we'll add the BCC Glow effect to the raw clip
In the project window click on the BCC Effects category in the left pane, which will display a list of BCC Effects filters in the right pane. Select the BCC Glow filter in the right pane and drag this onto the london_1.mov clip in the timeline.
Enter "Effect Mode" in the Avid UI to access the filter parameters Drag the Glow Threshold parameter to the left, towards the 0 value.
Observe that the Glow effect happens earlier in the image and that as we move the Threshold parameter value towards 0 the glow affects black values as well as white values. Setting this parameter value to zero almost, but not always, makes the image completely white.
Set the Glow Threshold back to the default value of 50.
Observe now that the glow is restricted more towards the white areas in the image clip. Setting this value to 100 almost, but not completely, negates the effect leaving just a slight glow in the sky.
Now we'll work with the Intensity parameter
Drag the Glow Intensity parameter toward the 0 value.
Note that lower values in the Intensity parameter reduce the apparent effect of the glow, and that a setting of zero completely eliminates any visible signs of the effect from the image. Higher values in this parameter will increase the intensity of the glow effect and setting the Intensity parameter to a value of 2 or more will blanket (cover completely) the image pixels in contained within the Threshold value in white.
Drag the Glow Intensity parameter to the right, stopping at a value of 5.
Observe that the glow has not completely obliterated the image, but that it seems to stop at the threshold value. All pixels that are within the Threshold value are now pure white. This is clearly way too much for a simple glow effect over the image and we really don't even need to push this parameter value all the way to 5, the default setting of 1.0 provides a very nice looking glow for most image clips. What we can see from the results of manipulating the values in these two parameters that if we adjust both the Glow Threshold and the Glow Intensity parameters over time that we can use the BCC Glow as a transition effect, with the outgoing clip disappearing in a white glow and the incoming effect appearing out of the glow.
So we now have the BCC Glow filter effect applied to both the outgoing and the incoming clips. Next step is to animate both the Glow Threshold and the Glow Intensity parameters on both clips to generate the glow wipe transition. The outgoing clip will glow up to pure white and the incoming clip will glow down from pure white to normal. First we'll set up the outgoing clip.
Now we'll animate the BCC Glow effect on the incoming clip.
Enter your email address below to receive the latest news, video tutorials, and freebies.
