What effect is this?

[wabbeljabba]

How is this effect called and can you achive this in After Effects?

Toon Effect

Notice in a still picture that the stroke colour has its own beam and there is something going on depending on the direction.

[slowtiger]

I think this is called radial blur, applied to a copy of the character behind him.

[wabbeljabba]

Thanks for the hint. I didn't care much for effects but light effects. The small curved distortion is probably a second effect made by hand. Found radial blur in AE - it's a nice and easy one, looks like a smear brush in oil.

[Greenlaw]

In 3D compositing, there are filters designed simulate volumetric rays. The source can be a matte or alpha channel, or even the image itself, in which case it will emit 'rays' from the brightest area. Such filters usually have an animateable source point. There may also be other animateable controls to adjust fall off and intensity.

In Fusion, for example, I use Microwaves or Beams. In After Effects I like to use TrapCode Shine. I'm not sure there's a free tool available but do a search--I seem to recall there used to be one but I don't know if it still works in modern AE.

You can sort of create this effect manually by using a radial blur filtered through a mask with turbulent noise. You might optionally use this as a mask for a glow filter. To get the effect as seen in the clip, you first invert the image, add the glow, and then invert it again--this gives you the diffuse glow effect or 'black glow'. To follow the character, you would have to animate the point of the radial blur, either by hand keyframing or tracking. Actually, that's just one approach--there can be many variations for this effect.

But it's easier to do with a filter designed for it.

G.

[wabbeljabba]

Hi Greenlaw, I have looked at the Shine plugin. Maybe it's too much for a 2D-Animation, but I found a cool tip in this video by TrapCode (the third tip):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krkRlr_ ... be&t=3m59s


I tried the same method of giving the source point a z-value with radial blur and CCRay- either I missed something or it is just Shine that allows for this kind of volumetric lights.

Had no luck of finding useful free plugins for my (old) AE CS4 (semi 64bit) that can do significantly more than the built-in effects (lights, blur, etc.), but on the other hand, as a nonexpirienced AE user I'm pretty satisfied with the given possibilities, although additionally effects always have a fun factor...

[Maestral]

Have you seen this one?

[MattVG]

Blender has a compositor node that simulates light rays as seen in the initial example animation.