HOW TO – Make your own light streaking effect (like the iPod commercials)

Craft & Design
HOW TO – Make your own light streaking effect (like the iPod commercials)

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Here’s a screencast / tutorial of how to make the light streaking effect that’s in all those new iPod ads using After Effects (project files can be downloaded too) – [via] – Link.

16 thoughts on “HOW TO – Make your own light streaking effect (like the iPod commercials)

  1. ehrichweiss says:

    Ok, I get why almost everything else has been put here but this is SOFTWARE and all point-n-click, not MAKE.

  2. philliptorrone says:

    ok, so here’s the deal… MAKE is more than hardware, it’s more than software, it’s when you *make* something yourself, maybe it’s pointing and clicking to make a cool video, maybe it’s pointing and clicking to make parts in autocad, doesn’t matter – humans making :)

  3. durin says:

    absolutely the kind of stuff we visit the blog for. why would you put limitations on linking to cool stuff that people are proud of and want to share?

  4. ehrichweiss says:

    Phillip: But you’re not making anything yourself, the software is doing it, and the software isn’t even written by the person posting it, it’s Adobe’s product. I can go to ANY video forum and find this tutorial. They wouldn’t be impressed there, why should I be impressed HERE? Again, it’s simply point-n-click. Write the software to do that or explain how to find the info to do so and I might be impressed.

    Durin: I would put limitations because people are proud of a lot of things they do but none of that necessarily means it deserves to be here. It doesn’t seem that it would be newsworthy of writing a tutorial on how to make your web experience better by downloading FireFox, Adblock and Flashblock and “making” a config file for them but that’s the essence of what I’m being told here … that there are NO boundaries, right? Can I write how to turn my old SGI’s into doorstops?

    Would it be MAKE quality material if I wrote an article on how to “make” your 12 minute video fit within YouTube’s 10 minute limit? Nope, hardly even worthy of mentioning regardless of whether I did it myself.

    How about an article about how I made a video look like old film using CineFX(or whatever it’s called these days)? Nope, that’s software and almost 100% automated and *I* wouldn’t have made anything. Nobody on the video forums would be impressed, why should we then?

    How about if I wrote a script that acted as an information agent and tied together all of my email, instant messages and every website I had ever visited as well as any related websites in one interface? YES, it would be something to write about.

    Is the distinction really that hard for you guys to see? I’m not trying to be rude or the like but regardless of whether we think there should be boundaries, you either have boundaries, or you find yourself publishing junk. And I’m in the publishing biz so I am full well aware of how much junk there is.

  5. philliptorrone says:

    ehrichweiss – we have about 24+ posts a day, over 7,800 total, this is one of the few video editing related ones. when someone shows a skill, a method to make something, in this example the effect used in a popular ad “a do-it-yourself” version, it’s a MAKE. just because there isn’t solder involved, doesn’t mean it’s not something worth sharing. as far as you question regarding the youtube videos – would that be on MAKE? nope, but i might post a round up of all the cool hacks/tricks for youtube since many of maker use youtube for their videos.

    if you want to write a post or article for MAKE, send it on in – if it’s something i think that’s interesting you’ll see it posted, that’s pretty much how it works.

    it’s not a science, it’s what our auidence likes, not everyone needs to like it either – it’s ok, there is plenty here for everyone.

  6. ehrichweiss says:

    Phillip: it has nothing, nada, zero, zip, nil, null, zilch to do with “soldering” or even a hardware-only aspect so why do you think that is my focus? I clearly stated that if it were software that someone wrote themselves it would make sense or did you miss that part?

    I could write a “do-it-yourself” on making your own version of Star Wars on a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 Extreme using Alias|Wavefront instead of Maya but that doesn’t mean it would be worthy of even talking about here. But rewriting a software driver(or what-have-you) for the mouse so it would act differently and make the creation process of said project much simpler *would* be along the same lines because I *made* something instead of simply *using* something. I’m sure you don’t let every hardware article come through simply because it uses a soldring iron either. “Learn how to make a light with an LED and a battery”

    If I USE Adobe GoLive to “make” a website it’s not what I would call newsworthy; I’d say that’s pretty much the norm and the same goes with using AfterEffects for video. It all evokes the “so what?” response.

    If I used GoLive to create a *video* and burn it to DVD, THAT might be worth talking about since it, being software with a specific purpose, doesn’t normally produce video nor burn DVD’s(unless Adobe has added features I’m unaware of…I use DW these days)

    Does that now make sense to you?

    I know you have the last word on this(though you might consider doing what Fark does where subscribers vote to approve submissions, you don’t normally have a lot of junk but some of them have been quite questionable)but I’m here to tell you that if stuff like this wound up in the print edition, you would likely see a dramatic drop in your subscriber base.

  7. philliptorrone says:

    ehrichweiss – in MAKE 07 we have “How to Drink Beer on C-SPAN by Bill Barminski in DIY: Imaging Put yourself into somebody else’s video. Page 144”

    fun video editing, our readers loved it too :)

    http://www.makezine.com/07/diy_video/

    our site covers dozens and dozens of projects each day, more than any magazine does or could online…

    there’s something for everyone.

    in less than a day this post will pop off the main page, and go to the archives and dozens of new posts will take its place covering all the world of making things…

  8. JeffDM says:

    It’s an old story, but still interesting.
    AfterEffects is a tool. It’s more advanced and expensive than a soldering iron, but by itself, AfterEffects is nothing. It’s definitely not point and click.

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