John Dickinson shows you how to use Boris Continuum Complete‘s 3-Way Color Grade and Film Glow filters to rescue a dull clip in After Effects.

1. Download a free 14-day trial of Boris Continuum Complete
2. Learn more about Boris Continuum Complete

Answer: There are a ton of glows out there. I'm attaching a small excerpt from my book Plug-in to After Effects, which gives an example of some of the glows. I'm adding extra info to the details.

1. Original Image
    
2. After Effects Glow (Free with AE). It works either on the Color Channels, which can be used for creating a glow for full-frame footage, or Alpha Channels, for creating light ray effects around layers with alphas such as text and logos. There are a decent amount of options but the look just isn’t as nice as with the third party glow options. It has no presets.
    
3. Noise Industries FxFactory (MSRP $399, TF Price: $379) The FxFactory Glow (Box-shaped) is a nice looking glow, but there are no presets. Even at a Strength value of just 0.01, the effect is still viewable. This is a great plug-in for bright bloom transitions. There is an option to Use Image Colors or to choose a Color with the eyedropper, an option not included in a lot of glow plug-ins. There is a built in Mask Tool, which has custom Mask Shapes or the option to choose a path on the layer. FxFactory is Mac only  and works in AE, FCP, Motion and Final Cut Express.
    
4. Boris Continuum Complete (MSRP $999, TF Price: $945) BCC Glow is a robust plug-in comes with multiple presets and allows for the glow to be based on RGB Channels, Luminance, Lightness, Red, Green, Blue or Alpha. There are the usual glow adjustments such as the radius, threshold and compositing mode. BCC Glow has the added options of a built in Motion Tracker, a Pixel Chooser to isolate areas of the shot and Beat Reactor, to animate with audio input.  There are quite a few glow plug-ins included and it's one of my favorites because of the variety of options and speed. We sell Continuum Complete for $945 (list price is $999) and it's well worth the price because there are so many great filters with it.

   Update: Peter McAuley of Boris FX contacted me to let me know that the filter used in the sample is now obsolete with the release of BCC 8 (looks like I need a major revision to the book!).  It was replaced with BCC Film Glow, which is "capable of generating an exact match to the Sapphire Glow filter, and in fact it even matches Sapphire Glow at it's default settings. One of the added advantages of the BCC Film Glow is that, again by default, it renders a glow all the way to the edge of the source clip… the Sapphire Glow filter stops short of the source edge, regardless of the setting used." 
    

5. GenArts Sapphire ($1699) Sapphire's S_Glow is interesting because it works with a Background and Matte layer, so it is made specifically for compositing. Width X and Width Y allow the glow to be stretched and this is not something seen in other glow plug-ins. Not only that, individual Red Green and Blue widths can be adjusted. It also has options to Glow From Alpha and Glow Under Source, so the glow can come from behind the text or keyed footage, not just on top of the image. There are no presets with S_Glow, but it’s a solid choice.
    
6. Digieffects Delirium (MSRP $299, TF Price: $284.05) Delirium's DE Glower, which does not have a lot of options but it does include the basics and the option to set a Dark Color and Bright Color, or use the Original Colors. There are a few presets as well. Delirium is fairly inexpensive and has a lot of fun filters with it. Note, the image above, from the book, is out of date. Glower is from the older version of Delirium. Delirium DE Glow is included in the new version and looks like this:

Here's another quick sample (Thanks, Brandon!)

7. Tiffen Dfx Digital Filter Suite (MSRP $599.95, TF Price: $569.95). DFX Glow is a plug-in that doesn’t seem too special on the surface but once the Color Correct settings are pulled down, there are options not seen in other glow filters. There are Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Contrast, Gamma and Red, Green and Blue controls for the color of the glow for precise control of the color. I love this package. It's mostly not glows but gels and lens effects that recreate the look of their gels and lenses in the real world.

Another option, not pictured is Red Giant Warp (MSRP $199.00, TF Price $179.10). It includes a glow plug-in.

All the plugins here are available as free trials or demos here. I'd highly recommend downloading a few and checking them out to see which gives you the look that you want. I'd definitely suggest trying the Boris Continuum Complete package and if you're on Mac, Noise Industries FxFactory.

When
Thursday, March 22, 2012 @ 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time

Register Now!

Join Michele Yamazaki as she teaches you how to create the following effects…

FOX's Fringe 3D Text Effect

J. J. Abrams' science fiction television series Fringe revitalized the old-school technique of incorporating 3D text in video. Now, numerous shows are creating their own spin on this same concept. Learn how you can easily create this unique 3D text effect combining Boris Continuum Complete with Adobe After Effects' 3D cameras and lights. Then, get ready to put it into practice in your next creation.

TRON Legacy Title Animation Effect

TRON Legacy puts a modern twist on the classic TRON title design, keeping the retro tech feel. While it looks complicated, you’ll learn how you can easily create this amazing title effect in Adobe After Effects with the help of Boris Continuum Complete's 3D Objects and After Effects’ built-in camera and lights.

About Michele Yamazaki
Michele Yamazaki is VP Marketing & Pluginologist for Toolfarm, a value added reseller and distributor of visual effects software. She recently wrote Plug-in with After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery, published by Focal Press. In 2009, she co-authored Greenscreen Made Easy: Keying and Compositing Techniques for Indie Filmmakers with Jeremy Hanke. Michele started at Postworks as a motion graphics artist in 1995 and worked there for a decade before joining Toolfarm. She also taught Adobe After Effects and Photoshop at Kendall College of Art & Design. In 2001 she launched AEFreemart.com and in 2002 co-founded the West Michigan Animation and Effects User Group.

John Rofrano explores volumetric lighting and bad reception with two effects from Boris Continuum Complete on Boris TV.

John Dickinson demonstrates the creation of a logo reveal using Boris Continuum Complete 8 and its new Particle Emitter 3D effect.

“Generate realistic textures such as Steel Plates, Bricks, Clouds, Granite, Wooden Planks, and Rock with the Boris Continuum Materials Unit! The textures are procedurally-generated to ensure smooth render at any scale. Each filter provides a variety of animation parameters including controls for the color, width, height, and other aspects of the material. Many of the filters let you add 3D detail to the material surface and include lighting controls. Apply the materials as realistic surfaces or use them as animated organic backgrounds. Each filter includes presets that make using the materials a point and click operation – even for complex animations.”

Click here to get it!

Boris is giving away 500 copies of its Materials Unit… for FREE!

“Generate realistic textures such as Steel Plates, Bricks, Clouds, Granite, Wooden Planks, and Rock! The textures are procedurally-generated to ensure smooth render at any scale. Each filter provides a variety of animation parameters including controls for the color, width, height, and other aspects of the material. Many of the filters let you add 3D detail to the material surface and include lighting controls. Apply the materials as realistic surfaces or use them as animated organic backgrounds. Each filter includes presets that make using the materials a point and click operation – even for complex animations.”

This is unit is a $199 value. It works with CS3 thru CS5 on Mac and Windows. The news has been out for a little while so hurry and try to download now. Register and Download here.

— John Stanowski

Did you miss it?

A couple of weeks ago Boris presented a free, live webinar on Continuum Complete‘s 3D Objects filters. The webinar is now available to watch anytime you like from the Boris FX website. You’ll also be able to download the media and AE CS5 project used in the video. Watch it here.

- John Stanowski

“In this webinar, we’ll take a close look at the Boris Continuum Complete filters offering integration with the After Effects 3D environment: BCC Extruded Text, BCC Type On Text, BCC Extruded Spline, BCC Extruded EPS, BCC Layer Deformer, BCC Pin Art 3D, and BCC Particle Array 3D. And we’ll be showing some tips and techniques for working with these filters in AE in order to best exploit them in AE 3D compositions. Since these filters can also be used in NLEs such as Final Cut Pro and Avid, we’ll also take a look at how they translate to that environment and how it’s possible to use BCC filter effect presets created in AE within the NLE versions of these plug-ins.”

Attendees will be entered into a random drawing for a free Boris Box Set ($1,995 value).

Sign up at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/397570489.

UPDATE: A recording of the seminar can be viewed on the Boris website.

- John Stanowski