SpotLight Engine

About this plugin

SpotLight Engine is three effects under Effect > Generate that work together. Apply SpotLightEngine to a layer and press Add Light or Add Laser to add a SpotLightEngine Light or SpotLightEngine Laser effect for each beam you want. Every beam is a light in 3D, aimed with a 3D Point and Rotate X, Y and Z or made to follow a null with Create Null, and rendered through your comp camera, so it sits in your 3D scene. Set its width, length, falloff and core, its colour and a colour offset, the emitter lens and its glow, and a film grain. A laser can be a single beam, a nested fan or cone of up to 50 beams, or an offset row of up to 51 lasers. The beams light up the haze along every ray, with a smoke texture you scale, fade and evolve, and the highlights roll off softly. Give each light and laser an animation (Disco, Rock Concert, Jazz, Music Festival, Fashion Runway, Cyberpunk, Museum, Laser Show, Strobe or Hyperspace) and drive them all with the main effect's Global Animation, Animation Speed and Animation Intensity, while Loop repeats the whole show seamlessly after the interval you set. Unmult turns black transparent, so the lights go over any footage. SpotLight Engine renders on the GPU (CUDA on NVIDIA, OpenCL on AMD and Intel) or on the CPU, in 8, 16 and 32 bpc, with Multi-Frame Rendering. For After Effects on Windows: unzip it, copy SpotLightEngine.aex, SpotLightEngine_Light.aex and SpotLightEngine_Laser.aex into After Effects' Plug-ins folder and restart After Effects.

What it does

• Volumetric spotlights and lasers, rendered through your comp camera
• Three effects: SpotLightEngine runs the show, with Add Light and Add Laser buttons for every beam
• Aim each beam with a 3D Point and Rotate X, Y and Z, or a null from Create Null
• Beam width, length, falloff and core: a soft edge and a hot core
• Lasers: a single beam, a nested fan or cone of up to 50 beams, or an offset row of up to 51
• Colour and colour offset for every light and laser
• The emitter lens and its glow, with their own intensity
• Beams light up haze, with a smoke texture you scale, fade and evolve
• 10 animations: Disco, Rock Concert, Jazz, Music Festival, Fashion Runway, Cyberpunk, Museum, Laser Show, Strobe and Hyperspace
• Global Animation, Animation Speed and Animation Intensity drive every light and laser at once
• Seamless loops: the whole show repeats after the interval you set
• Film grain with its own scale
• Unmult: black turns transparent, for lights over any footage
• GPU rendering with CUDA (NVIDIA) and OpenCL (AMD, Intel), or the CPU
• 8, 16 and 32 bpc, and Multi-Frame Rendering