Calling Greg Niles ...

Hi Greg,

Finally got a chance to sit down and try to recreate that "New World" text title treatment in Motion...I followed your steps and I'll be damned if it doesn't look dead-on! THANK YOU :-)

I also used your tip to use the record button and adjusted the center point to give it a little more flow which worked beautifully as well.

I've been trying some little tweaks to fine tune it and wanted to see if I can get your expertise...I'd like to have the light rays extend a little further (I have them set to max), but if I up the expansion under glow, they move off the letters - is there a way to extend the rays further and keep them centered on the text?

Also, the effect radiates from the top half (north of the horizon line), and I'd like to try and make it radiate both above and below for a full 360 degrees as opposed to the top 180...is there a setting to tweak this, or can I somehow duplicate the effect and invert it (like creating a text shadow reflection in Photoshop)?

Again, I can't thank you enough for taking time to figure out and list the steps - it would've taken eons to figure that out on my own. I still can't wipe the smile off my face!

Cheers,
~Chris

Figured it out after playing with it for awhile...turns out the extension wasn't moving it off the letters as I'd first thought (I was trying all kinds of things, duplicating layers, etc., so maybe that's why?)

Anyway, I finally got the right look and radiation angles by moving the center point in a path through and above the text so that the radiating lines travel through and below the text.

Still, it would be good to know for the future...is there a way to make the radiating light rays shoot out 360 degrees from the center point? I can already see other places where I'd use this.

~C

Yeah, I messed with it some too after your post.

The effect looks great. Thanks for sharing, Greg Niles.

Jamie

Well, there's a first - never had a thread named after me specifically... ;-)

Anyway, glad you enjoyed the recipe. I'm not sure what you mean by not getting 360 degree rays - mine always go 360 out from the center point. The rays always travel from the center point outward, however, if you're applying it to text they might appear above or below the text depending on the position of the center point.

One possible method to get a different look is to make another duplicate of the light rays text and adjust the center point on the duplicate to make more rays appear in a different position.

The Expansion slider isn't to increase the length of the rays, it's just to increase the size of the bounding box so the rays don't get cut off at extreme lengths. There's no way to increase the length of the rays beyond the maximum in the Amount slider, although moving the center point around will also affect the ray length.

-- Greg

Got it - thanks again Greg

~Chris