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JULY 30, 2003 My God! It’s full of stars!
Step 10: From the Effect menu choose Effect>Image Control>Colorama. Colorama allows you to really change the colors of a layer and create some far out effects, but for this Star Gate, you can keep it fairly basic. The stretching of the layer, plus the color change do give the layer a bit of a different look, but the colors blend too evenly. Let’s separate them.[an error occurred while processing this directive]Step 11: The first step in changing this solid mass of color to give it a more band like appearance is to increase the contrast. From the Effect menu select Effect>Adjust>Brightness & Contrast. Crank up the Contrast for the layer to at least 80.  Step 12: In order to create holes in the layer, apply the Luma Key from Effect>Keying>Luma Key. As you may remember, Luma Keying allows you to key out brighter or darker values of a layer. In the Effect Controls Window, change the Key Type to Key Out Darker, and set the Threshold to 153. This definitely creates some holes in the layer, but it looks too “scratchy” and hard.  Step 13: Apply the Gaussian Blur effect to the layer, and change the Blur Amount to 5 pixels. This softens the effect enough just enough to make it work for the opening credits of a sci-fi thriller.  Step 14: The composition has the trippy bottom plane, and needs the top. Duplicate the aerial layer by pressing Command+D on the Mac or Control+D on the PC. Step 15: With the duplicate layer selected, press the P key to open the Position property for the layer. Reposition the layer by changing the Y-axis to -150. Step 16: In the new position, the rotation of the duplicate layer is off. While a X-axis Orientation of 275 doesn’t work here, a value of 265 will. Step 17: For a final effect, create a New Solid and apply the Ramp effect to it using the Radial setting. Move the layer to the bottom of the Timeline Stack.  Do not make the layer a 3D layer. By remaining a 2D layer, the distance to the layer is basically set to infinity. Neither of the two 3D planes will ever come in contact with it. Step 18: Change the Transfer Mode of the two Aerial layers to Add to help blend the layers with the infinity background.  This gives you one possible way to create your own Star Gate effect. Experiment with other source layers, like the Soap Film, Reel Textures, or Alien Atmosphere collections from Artbeats (www.artbeats.com). If you want to tint the layers to make them green, blue, purple, or other color, as your character moves through hyperspace, simply add an Adjustment Layer. Step 21: Add an Adjustment Layer by going to Layer>New>Adjustment Layer. Remember that an Adjustment Layer takes whatever effect or transfer you apply to it, and applies it to all layers beneath it. Step 22: Apply the Hue/Saturation effect from Effect>Adjust>Hue/Saturation menu. In the Effect Controls Window, turn on Colorize, and then adjust the Hue and Saturation amount to get the color you desire. “I’m sorry Dave, that’s all there is to this exercise.”
When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher Related sites: • Animation Artist • AV Video • Corporate Media News • Creative Mac • Digital Animators • Digital Media Designer • Digital Post Production • Digital Producer • Digital Video Editing • DV Format • Film and Video Magazine • Hollywood Industry • Presentation Supplement • Production Supplement • Siggraph News • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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