Creating Glitter With Continuum Complete

In this tutorial we'll use the BCC Glitter filter in the Adobe After Effects host to generate a glittering sky on an Artbeats stock video clip, against which we will create an animated title. The BCC Glitter filter is OpenGL hardware-accellerated and can be used to generate glittering sparkles of pretty much any size. There are parameters in the filter UI to control the brightness, scale and color of the glitters and also the number of rays that each glitter has. The GLitters are set by default to automatically animate along a transparent horizontal path and to flash on and off over time. We're going to disable the horizontal animation of the glitters but we will leave the flashing.

• Start by creating an NTSC D1 project with a 5 second duration
• Import into the project the Artbeats clip that we are going to treat with the BCC Glitter filter
• Drag the clip from the project window into the AE timeline
• Slip the media in the timeline so that the last frame in the clip is the last frame in the comp

In order to isolate the glitters to the sky, we need to create a mask.

• Double click the Artbeats clip to being it into the layer view
• Select the pen tool and create a rough mask that follows the skyline and fills the sky

• Close the layer view
• Duplicate the layer in the timeline
• Rename the top layer with the mask to Background Sky
• Rename the bottom layer to Foreground Cityscape
• Disable the layer mask from the bottom layer
• Apply the BCC Glitter filter to the Background Sky layer

• In the Glitter filter UI, set the Glitter Background Map pop-up to use the Foreground Cityscape

Now we'll fine tune the Glitter parameters so that they are small, sparkling but not moving in the x or y direction

• Set the value in the Glitter Frequency parameter to 50 to generate more Glitters
• Set the value in the Brightness parameter to 150, which will generate bright Glitters
• Set the value in the Glitter Scale parameter to 0.15, which will produce small Glitters
• Set the value in the Glitter Speed X parameter to 0 - this will freeze the glitters in place along the Horizontal axis
• Set the value in the Glittering Speed parameter to 5 - this will cause the Glitters to sparkle on and off over time

Preview to RAM to see the result.

Next, we add the BCC Colorize Glow filter to the Glittering result

• Apply the BCC Colorize Glow filter to the Background Sky layer

Because the Glitter filter has already composited the foreground and background layers, we need only apply the Colorize Glow effect to the Foreground Sky layer to see the effect over the entire image. We'll leave the Colorize Glow filter at it's default settings.

Next we'll generate the animated title, which will appear above the skyline and push / zoom forward in Z space. Usually I would animate the title push in Z space but for this tutorial I'll simply use the Layer Scale controls to fake this look.

• Set the time marker to the start of the timeline
• Select the Text tool and click in the Composite Window
• Type the word Seattle in all upper case
• Select the text and set the Font to Arial Black, 48 points
• Disable the fill and enable the stroke for the title
• Set the stroke color to R=255 G=178 B=87 (peachy color)
• Set the stroke width to 4 pixels

Now we'll animate the scale of the title

• Go to the start of the timeline
• Set the scale to 70 percent and click the stopwatch to enable keyframing for this parameter
• Go to the 4 second mark
• Set the scale to 150 percent

Next we'll apply the Rays Radiant Edges to the title to lend the effect of volumetric lighting to the title

• Apply the BCC Rays Radiant Edges filter to the title
• Move the Light Center so that it is in the center of the title, which is in the center of the first letter T
• Go to the start of the timeline
• Set the Ray Length parameter to a value of 18
• Set the Ray Style pop-up to Fat
• Go to the end of the timeline

To finalize our look, we'll add an adjustment layer on top of everything in the comp and add the Curves color correction filter, setting up an "S" curve color correction to provide a little saturation and contrast to the final result.

Preview to RAM to see the effect

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