3D volumetric light with Shine or Lightburst

Harry Frank shares a method to make 3D volumetric light with Trapcode Shine and more in Red Giant QuickTip #11: Three New Ways to Work With Trapcode Shine:

"In this QuickTip: Harry Frank helps you rekindle your love for Trapcode Shine, by showing you three new ways to work with it: by combining CC Composite, exploring the Alpha Edges option and by applying the ever useful toComp expression."


Red Giant QuickTip #11 - Three New Ways to Use Trapcode Shine from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.


Note: You may not need Shine since CC Light Burst is bundled in AE (8-bit only), but you get more control and subtle results in a shorter time with Shine.

Here's some benefits of Shine from an old review: Shine includes numerous ray coloring options including 3- and 5-color gradients with 22 tweakable presets and unique controls to make light rays shimmer without animating the light source or layer position. Additional controls include pre-processed Threshold and Use Mask commands to control the luminance value or area where the effect begins. This in addition to a Transfer Mode controls to add original layer information, as well as separate Opacity controls for Source and rays, is much more powerful than a simple Mix slider (as seen in the Light Rays filter in Motion).

You could get similar results with other filters without much difficulty, but at the cost of more layers and/or built-in effects. Since Shine is fast, visual feedback during parameter adjustment makes setup quicker too.

Update: Motion Artwork shared how to do this with CC Lightburst in 3D Text in After Effects ENGLISH // Part 2 on YouTube in 2007,