LED and Casino light text effects in After Effects

LED and Casino light text effects in After Effects @ PVC is a collection of a few resources that share treatments on LED or light walls, casino lights, or Jumbotron-type looks using AE filters like CC Ball Action or Vegas.

Create a Light Wall: tutorial & preset

Quba Michalski shows you how to create a Light Wall – an array of lights driven by an animated image map that can be used for either cool light/flare looks or for precise control over the particles. There's a free tutorial, project, and preset on his website; the preview is below.

Similar treatments can be found in Quba's previous tutorials and in Creating an LED sign in After Effects, Creating Automated Flashing Light Patterns by Chris Zwar, 3D Ball Dispersion with CC Ball Action, and Jumbotron in After Effects.


Light Wall Tutorial Preview from Quba Michalski on Vimeo.

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UPDATE: Kevin P McAuliffe created a video wall in 3D space in Complex, Real-World Effects with BCC Wild Cards.

Creating an LED sign in After Effects

Update: 

LED and Casino light text effects in After Effects @ PVC is a collection of a few resources that share treatments on LED or light walls, casino lights, or Jumbotron-type looks.

3D Ball Dispersion with CC Ball Action

Andrew Kramer has a new After Effects tutorial on Video Copilot, 3D Ball Dispersion:

"In this tutorial we will learn a technique to offset the animation of the CC Ball Action effect to create a cool transition. This effect uses only built-in plug-in and offers creative flexibility for a variety of looks. The project file also includes a script for offsetting the layers by 1 frame to make the process easier. The tutorial is about 25 minutes but the time will fly by!"

The built-in CC Ball Action filter "transforms the source layer into an array of balls. You can rotate and twist the array around a specified axis and scatter the array in all directions." Ball Action is a very old filter that hasn't been upgraded beyond support for the AE comp camera, but using the Brighten Twist control makes things interesting beyond the basics described by the intro by Brian Maffitt from an old Total Training video at Toolfarm.

Other tutorials can be found around the net, including Jumbotrons in After Effects, Harry Frank's Rippling Circles, Sound Reacting 3D Waveform without 3rd Party Plugins from Satya Meka, and Give Your Type Some Ball Action from Adam at AETuts.

Jumbotron in After Effects

Motionworks has a new tutorial, After Effects: Jumbotron Column:

"In this extended tutorial learn how to identify the field order of footage and interpret it collectly; create a realistic Jumbotron-style look using CC Ball Action, Glow, Levels and Curves; turn the jumbotron into a 3D column mounted on grungy wire mesh using Zaxwerks 3D Layer Warps; and fine tune the look by adding animated arrows plus a touch of Trapcode Shine and Magic Bullet Looks."

There were also a few other tutorials on creating a jumbotron look by Maltaannon and below by Aharon Rabinowitz.