Today we’ll use Trapcode Mir and Trapcode Shine to create a warm summer kaleidoscope animation. We all remember that cylinder with mirrors and colored objects made from triangles, pebbles or beads inside. Warm summer breeze and shiny colors… Let’s recreate that in today’s tutorial.
Step 1
Create a new composition by dropping our audio to a comp icon and name it “Summer Kaleidoscope“.
Step 2
Create a new comp-sized Solid and name it “Mir”.
Step 3
Add Mir effect to our solid by going to ?Effect->Trapcode->Mir?.
Step 4
Add a new “Light“…
…and “Camera“.
Step 5
Make sure that your “Light 1“:
- Position is set to “693, 306,-444″;
For “Camera” I used next settings, but later you can play around and choose a more convenient view:
Step 6
Ok, moving to our “Mir” layer. Use the following settings from the image:
Under “Evolution” add expression “time*10;”
Your image should look like this:
Step 7
Precomp our 3 layers (Camera, Light, Mir), name it “Base“, switch on “3D Layer” and “Collapse Transformation” checkboxes;
Step 8
Basically “Mir” has two options to change it`s color. They are:
- Material -> Color
- Texture -> Texture layer
What we want is that each polygon has it`s own color so we can change it separately from others. To prepare this effect we`ll create a new Adjustment Layer, name it “Luma to Alpha” and add the “Channel -> Channel Combiner” effect.
Step 9
Change “Channel Combiner” settings as shown in the picture. With these settings we`ll take the Luminance channel value and add this to the Alpha channel.
Step 10
Ok, now we`re going color our layer by adding a new Adjustment Layer, naming it “Bevel colors” and adding “Perspective -> Bevel Alpha” three times. What “Bevel Alpha” does is give the alpha boundaries of the layer a chiseled appearance. So I used the following settings, but you can play with any color, light, angle, and edge thickness.
Step 11
Precomp all three layers and name it “Base with Color“.
Step 12
Add “Stylize -> CC Kaleida” effect to our created precomp, and change
- Size parameter to 176,7.
Under Rotation settings start
- first keyframe on 0000 with 81 value
- the second on 01517(at the end of the composition), with 216 value
Again, you can play around with “Rotation“, but I like the way that the kaleidoscopic area is bigger at the end.
Step 13
Create a new Solid (we’ll name it “BG“) and add “Generate -> Ramp” with the following settings:
Step 14
Lets add some depth to our kaleidoscope by duplicating the “Base with Color” layer, scaling it to 106%, and changing the Mode to “Overlay” using the “F4” hotkey shortcut.
Note: Scaled layer should be top layer.
Step 15
For the next step lets make our animation a little bit brighter by adding new Adjustment Layer with the “Color Correction -> Hue/Saturation” effect and increasing:
- Master Saturation to 50
- Master Lightness to 5
Step 16
Moving to our preparation for the flash, we’ll create a new ellipse by double-clicking on Ellipse Tool icon, name it “Shape Flash” and put it between normal and scaled “Base with Color” layers.
Step 17
Change Mode to “Add” and with layer selected hit “UU” to reveal shape options. Uncheck the little chain icon so parameters aren’t linked and change:
- Size property to 856,337
- Fill 1 color to – #FF003C
Step 18
Add “Blur&Sharpen -> Gaussian Blur” effect and change:
- Blurriness parameter to 342,3
Step 19
Now lets animate our flash opacity.
- 0 frame – 0%
- 12 frame – 42%
- 71 frame – 35%
- 119 frame – 0%
Select second and third keyframe and press Shift+F9. With this action you`ll apply “Easy Ease In” which will make your flash a little bit smoother.
Step 20
Trim the layer length on frame 119 with key combination “Alt+]” on Windows or “Option+]” on Mac. Move the whole layer to frame 161.
Step 21
Add as many flashes as you want by duplicating the existing “Shape Flash” layer and changing it`s color (like in step 17). I made several changes on different frames:
- 161 – #FF003C
- 374 – #3E56C3
- 555 – #2748DD
- 754 – #FFDE00
- 956 – #0000FF
- 1175 – #FF0000
Step 22
Precomp all our layers excluding audio, name it “Base + flashes + hue“.
Step 23
Add a new Solid, call it “BG controller“. Uncheck the “Visibility” icon. Apply “Generate -> Ramp” effect on it and create several keyframes within Start Color like these:
- 00204 – #0A0025
- 00371 – #390000
- 00412 – #390000
- 00551 – #001C01
- 00592 – #001C01
- 00747 – #1E1E00
- 00788 – #1E1E00
- 00955 – #001E1E
- 00998 – #001E1E
- 01174 – #160025
Step 24
Back to our “Base + flashes + hue” precomp and on the “BG” layer under “Ramp -> Start Color” paste this expression: comp(“Summer Kaleidoscope”).layer(“BG controller”).effect(“Ramp”)(“Start Color”);
Step 25
Ok, now moving on to the shiny look. Add a new Adjustment Layer, name it “Shine“, and add “Trapcode -> Shine”.
Step 26
Apply the following settings:
Colorize -> Midtones
- 111 – #FFA600
- 220 – #00FFEA
- 400 – #F0FF00
- 596 – #FF00FC
- 799 – #00B4FF
- 1035 – #FF0000
Colorize -> Shadows
- 111 – #FF0000
- 220 – #0042FF
- 400 – #FFEA00
- 596 – #FF00FC
- 799 – #0060FF
- 1035 – #FF0000
Shine -> Opacity
- 00 – 0
- 12 – 100
- 41 – 100
- 157 – 0
- 208 – 0
- 220 – 100
- 249 – 100
- 365 – 0
- 388 – 0
- 400 – 100
- 429 – 100
- 545 – 0
- 584 – 0
- 596 – 100
- 625 – 100
- 741 – 0
- 787 – 0
- 799 – 100
- 828 – 100
- 944 – 0
- 1005 – 0
- 1017 – 100
- 1116 – 100
Step 27
Move the Current Time Indicator to frame 00163 and with the selected layer hit “[“.
Step 28
Create a new Shape Layer just like what we did in Step 16. Call it “Final Flash” and put it between “Shine Layer” and the Precomp.
Click “UU“, select “Ellipse 1” and duplicate it 2 times by hitting “Ctrl+D” on Windows or “Command+D” on Mac.
Step 29
Now change Fill color in each Ellipse to the following:
- Ellipse 1 – #FF2A00
- Ellipse 2 – #FFFC00
- Ellipse 3 – #FFFFFF
Step 30
Open Transform:Ellipse -> Scale settings for each Ellipse and enter the following keyframes:
Ellipse 1
- Frame 00 – 0%
- 12 – 147%
Ellipse 2
- 06 – 0%
- 21 – 168%
Ellipse 3
- 14 – 0%
- 23 – 191%
Step 31
Change layer Mode to “Screen” and add “Gaussian Blur” to the following keyframes:
- Frame 00 – 232
- 12 – 332
- 38 – 0
Step 32
Move the “Final Flash” layer to frame 1326 just like we did in Step 27.
Step 33
That`s it! I hope you learned something new and useful. Try your own colors, angles, and settings. We’d love to see what you come up with so be sure to share your results in the comments below!
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