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CE LightWrap

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Learn how to make your keyed out footage blend better with the background by casting light on it from surrounding elements

Light wrapping is something everyone should know about and learn how to do. It greatly improves the quality of your compositions by making them look more believable.

In this tutorial I will show you a quick and easy way of creating great looking light wrap effect without using any 3rd party plugins (with exception of CyCoreFX which you should already have by default). The results are fantastic and you can easily compare them to many expensive commercial plugins out there that do the same thing. But that’s not all…

After over a year of providing free content I thought it’s about time to give you a chance to say “Thank you”, so I also build a CustomEffect that you can buy for a low price. It’s even more advanced and powerful than what I show you in the tutorial. I provided some examples of what you can achieve when using ceLightWrap but to see the real power I really recommend watching the tutorial.

You can purchase ceLightWrap via PayPal. After the transfer is completed and I receive a confirmation from PayPal by email, I will send you the ceLightWrap.polyCE file to the email address that was used when making the purchase within next 24h. I hope you will choose the CustomEffect over the simple preset that I show you how to build in the tutorial and therefore you’ll take your part in keeping this site alive and providing new tutorials.

For installation instructions go to What CustomEffects are page.


Get ceLightWrap (CS3) for only 9.95EUR (aprox. 14USD)

68 Responses to “CE LightWrap”

  1. thnx Genius-M.

    MARK said this August 23rd, 2008 at 13:28

  2. hey nice dude!!!! Congratulation for this amazing product and cheep too ;)

    UmairVFX said this August 23rd, 2008 at 14:10

  3. [...] he did it again, Maltaannon has a new AWESOME tool available. Its called CE LightWrap and its designed to blend keyed footage into your background better. This one he charges for (about [...]

    T.A.D.A. Media : Maltaannon’s CE LightWrap said this August 23rd, 2008 at 16:54

  4. I would like to purchase this item, but I wanted to make sure I can use it for the MAC OS X leopard.

    Amir said this August 23rd, 2008 at 17:58

  5. My good friend John Dickinson from MotionWorks.com.au tested out the CustomEffect and reported no problems. Make sure to follow the instructions on http://maltaannon.com/what-customeffects-are/

    Maltaannon said this August 23rd, 2008 at 18:26

  6. thanks maltaannon:)

    ömer tatlisoz said this August 23rd, 2008 at 20:24

  7. [...] including a video tutorial in which Maltaannon shows how to create a light wrap effect from scratch here. CustomEffects are Adobe After Effects Animation Presets with all the controllers packed into a [...]

    Motionworks » Polygon Studio releases “Light Wrap” said this August 24th, 2008 at 0:03

  8. Congratulation for your first produce.

    Dijeo said this August 24th, 2008 at 1:17

  9. Hi JD,

    somethign´s wrong with flashpalyer. your tutorials pop up but will not be shown.
    any ideas?
    latest player is installed.

    Thomas said this August 24th, 2008 at 2:42

  10. Same problem…I can’t see the videos anymore…

    Good job on the custom effect anyway…I’m cheap so I think I’m stuck with the preset :D

    Shkaa887 said this August 24th, 2008 at 8:16

  11. Probably some temporary server glitch. Should be working now.

    Maltaannon said this August 24th, 2008 at 10:44

  12. Do you see any reason why this would not work with AE7.0 instead of CS3(only)?

    Joe said this August 24th, 2008 at 13:42

  13. The reason is I don’t even have AE7 installed anymore, and with CS4 coming out soon I don’t think I’ll be messing around doing AE7 versions for any of my presets or CustomEffects.

    Maltaannon said this August 24th, 2008 at 14:25

  14. Pretty awesome. I’ve always wondered what goes into making these custom effects, are there any resources on how to make these sorts of plugins?

    Noone said this August 24th, 2008 at 19:01

  15. I am working on a tool to build those so that everybody can create one.

    Maltaannon said this August 24th, 2008 at 19:08

  16. Wow, thats really cool. Thanks, can’t wait for that.

    Noone said this August 24th, 2008 at 19:21

  17. Hi,
    flashplayer problem still occurs. tested on several machines.
    cheers,
    Thomas

    Thomas said this August 24th, 2008 at 20:53

  18. Could you please be more specyfic? You mean tutorials are not working? I haven’t changed anything, and it works for me and my friends as well. Different machines, different systems, different locations, different isp. It must be something on your side.

    Maltaannon said this August 24th, 2008 at 21:12

  19. Hi JD, i´ts definetly because of Flash version 9.0 r124

    Thomas said this August 25th, 2008 at 8:51

  20. tutorials are still playing here– if on Firefox, try disabling, then re-enabling the Shockwave plugin. I do this monthly because YouTube and other Flash vids will stop playing audio for some reason, but if you reset the Shockwave plugin, they are fine.

    good luck, and cool plugin Maltaannon!

    (I’m on Firefox 3.0 (shockwave 9.0 r 124) and Windows Vista 32-bit Home Premium)

    Monroe E. "tequilaman2006" said this August 25th, 2008 at 9:16

  21. Hi,
    no chance. i even reinstalled the plugin.
    the start screen of the tut pops up shortly and then disappears.
    other sites, e.g. VCP do work without problems.
    don´t know whats wrong.

    Thomas said this August 25th, 2008 at 10:19

  22. UPDATE

    Have installed FF 3. Now everything works fine again. Even the cursor here in the input window is back again.

    so far. keep on rocking

    Thomas said this August 25th, 2008 at 10:32

  23. Awesome Plug-in Maltaannon!! I’d definitely purchase more of your product in the future! Keep up the awesome work, and thanks for everything.

    Vinnie said this August 25th, 2008 at 10:41

  24. As always George, you nailed it down! I must say this is a very cool and useful tool for everybody, including me of course. Great Tutorial as well :-)

    Eran Stern said this August 25th, 2008 at 20:45

  25. Hi ! There’s a problem in your flv video. I can see till the music start and you say: ” Stop the music !”. From that point my players stop. I have 8 computer and 6 different players. 6 computers are recently installed…so there’s no win reg corruption, disk fragmentation…etc…i can’t see the second part of this BEAUTIFUL tutorial. Can you fix it?

    Dave Starr said this August 26th, 2008 at 13:32

  26. It’s hard to say whats wrong. It all works for me. I know that the server is going through some difficulties at the moment. Honestly there are problems all the time. Sorry I can’t afford a better one. As you see others do see the video. I don’t know what’s wrong, it can be a gazillion things.

    Maltaannon said this August 26th, 2008 at 13:47

  27. Hi,
    I was also having problems watching the tutorial until I installed the latest version of Firefox. Now it loads fine. Great job, Maltaanon! The custom effect is well worth the $$$. Thanks!

    Max said this August 26th, 2008 at 20:15

  28. Thanx Maltaannon for another great tutorial!
    Love your work!

    Christian said this August 27th, 2008 at 14:45

  29. Great , great tool(torial) ;).

    Im gonna get it!

    illd said this August 27th, 2008 at 19:11

  30. Hi,
    Just having a slight issue getting my head around one part of the tutorial. When I apply the ‘CC Composite’ it brings back my original footage with the greenscreen still in the image. If I set it to ’stencil alpha’ I end up with the feathered outline, but the rest of the image turns black and I can’t figure out how to get rid of this.

    I’m guessing there is something I was meant to do to the keyed out footage before starting this tutorial, but I have no idea what.

    Any help would be highly appreciated as this looks like it will really enhance my university project.

    Cheers.

    Jamie said this August 30th, 2008 at 12:17

  31. i think that precomping your key would solve the problem. key your footage out, precomp it and then apply the steps from the tutorial

    Maltaannon said this August 30th, 2008 at 17:07

  32. Thanks heaps Maltaannon, that got it working. Regards for all the great tutorials, they’re a real help.

    Jamie said this August 31st, 2008 at 4:56

  33. Hi, thanks. I’ve been lookin’ for something like this for a long time. Just a quick tip: To display percent after the value you can use DISPLAY_PERCENT=”true” in the PresetEffects.xml file.
    Please also make sure to checkout my free AE Preset Collection: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2O2OyLlwqUU

    Thanks, Constantin

    Constantin said this August 31st, 2008 at 23:11

  34. Pretty cool, but I really wish you’d show us a RAM preview at the end or something. So we can see the effect in motion!

    Lee Skinner said this September 2nd, 2008 at 15:05

  35. yeah!! a RAM-preview would rock!!!

    Thanks for the tutorials

    henry said this September 3rd, 2008 at 20:06

  36. [...] including a video tutorial in which Maltaannon shows how to create a light wrap effect from scratch here. CustomEffects are Adobe After Effects Animation Presets with all the controllers packed into a [...]

    Polygon Studio releases “Light Wrap” : Motionworks said this September 5th, 2008 at 7:30

  37. I can thouroughly recommend that you BUY this CustomEffect - it will save you a heap of time and is easily worth the small price being asked.

    I am not a professional by any stretch of the imagination but this little tool makes a HUGE difference to how the finished product looks. My keying was pretty good before but with a little bit of further tweaking, this tool has allowed me to completely get rid of that ’sat on top, layered look’ and I am delighted. You will be, too.

    Professional or amateur, you will be really glad you added CE Light Wrap to your arsenal.

    Sorry if that sounds a bit like an ad for it but my words are genuine - you’re definitely going to be impressed with what this thing can do for you…

    Patricia said this September 7th, 2008 at 15:42

  38. gracias! maltaannon lo que hacia falta para una buena integracion!

    crislex said this September 8th, 2008 at 16:53

  39. Hi, is there any option to download these tutorials? couse I wanna watch them at my workplace but there is no network connections for my laptop. I just want to take maltaannon anywhere with me :)

    Pavel said this September 17th, 2008 at 19:32

  40. Sure there is. Theres a download link at the bottom of each video. Also the video player had an arrow icon in the bottom-right corner. Clicking that will download the tutorial.

    Maltaannon said this September 17th, 2008 at 23:18

  41. Thanks George, greate plug and greate tutorial.

    Greetings. CC³.

    CristalCube said this September 18th, 2008 at 2:14

  42. Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.

    James said this September 19th, 2008 at 10:04

  43. hey M. great tutorial as always!
    everyone who has a problem display on their browsers, you have to know that there is a Adobe Flash with Firefox 3 problem that is unsolved! yes it is a pain but i hope they ‘ll find a solution quick or google chrome will take over!
    again M you are great and thanks much for your help to AE comunity!!

    manost72 said this September 25th, 2008 at 14:14

  44. thanks for all the kind words. Funny you mention the Flash problem for FF3. I’m using it since it was released and didn’t notice any problems. Maybe a few, but very rare. Any my site works well in FF3 and Google Chrome.

    Maltaannon said this September 25th, 2008 at 20:25

  45. I Tried to purchase this item but your Paypal wont accept my Thailand address. Seems it’s looking for a nice clean main street USA address. What Paypal is this???

    Bernie said this September 28th, 2008 at 1:09

  46. hiya, how soon can expect the download link after purchasing your very useful plug? it’s been a few hours now and i’m worried… he he!

    harry said this October 1st, 2008 at 20:51

  47. Why you’r not creating more tutorials?

    Miki said this October 12th, 2008 at 19:39

  48. hey maltaannon wake up!!!

    ömer tatlisoz said this October 13th, 2008 at 21:23

  49. put some new tutorials!! what’s going on? we are waiting a lot for this!! now come on!

    David said this October 14th, 2008 at 19:16

  50. Maltaannon? R you there? please post some new vid tutorial! please!!

    Dekel said this October 15th, 2008 at 22:22

  51. Maybe if some of you people put your hand in your pocket once in a while and paid the tiny amount being asked for great products such as this, instead of take, take, take all the time, EXPECTING this stuff to be delivered free all the time, he might find more time to make the free tutorials. The man does need to put money on the table, you know.

    Jesus! Blatant greed…

    Alan said this October 19th, 2008 at 17:42

  52. Thanks Alan.

    Maltaannon said this October 20th, 2008 at 11:25

  53. Very nice Job Maltaannon for all your products!
    Your presets help me so much in my project and in my learning about AE. Tthe prices are cool for personnal user hobby like me.
    Thanks a lot

    Quarck said this October 21st, 2008 at 0:52

  54. Alan, just notice that you’r simply talking without any proves.
    I did paid and donation maltaannon, and he can check it too, and i want some back for this. at the begining the site was great but now he is not updating nothing. i this he wait until he gonna get the mony for the server+domain back and ran away to neverland or something like this.
    so if maltaannon reading it - don’t wait until someone will donate you. think about te rest that donated you in the pass.
    Dekel.

    Dekel said this October 22nd, 2008 at 20:13

  55. Of course I do and I am thankful, but keep in mind that I’m also running a company and dealing with all sorts of crap right now, but with all do respect that’s none of your business unless I post about it in the blog section, so if I need a time off, or simply can’t find the time to do more than that.. well… that’s just the way it is.

    But… as a matter of fact I just finished recording last but one tutorial for the DVD training I’m making for you guys, and I assure you - you’ve never seen anything like it. It’s 04:36 in the morning. No other time for me to do this. I loose my time, my sleep, and my health due to that. But screw that. I do love it so I spent every moment I can spare on providing you guys with great content.

    If you’ve been watching my site for a long time like you say you did you’d know that I had major breaks like this one, but there was always a great come back after. I am thankful for your donations Dekel, but they don’t make you a saint. I am grateful for all the donations I received so far - they reassure me that I am in the right place doing the right thing, and they occasionally help with the hosting bill.

    Like I said - I love what I do and I’ll keep posting tutorials, tools and all sort of new stuff that you haven’t seen before. I’d just love to make a living out of it - that way everybody wins. I get to do what I love, you get your free content. I’m doing everything in my power towards that.

    Best regards my friends.
    Happy AfterEffecting.

    Maltaannon said this October 23rd, 2008 at 3:38

  56. @Dekel:
    In my nicest words I have: Please go home and never come back!

    @Maltaannon: We love you :)

    illd said this October 23rd, 2008 at 16:32

  57. Hay Malttannon. thanks for the good answer. I’ve read my comment before a moment and it’s look like i’m accuse someone, and i’m not. I’ve just wonna clear some point. again - thank you for your honest comment, and I can’t wait to your products ;)

    And… illd? I didn’t understand why?

    Dekel said this October 26th, 2008 at 21:32

  58. I have just recently found your site and tutorials - good job. I would like to help you and myself by getting your lightwrap preset. But first wanted to know if it will work with AE CS4. Let me know and thanks for your knowledge sharing.

    Skip said this November 2nd, 2008 at 3:27

  59. I have at least one confirmed working copy on AE CS4. You may have problems installing due to different security settings on Adobe folders. Make sure to follow the instructions when installing. It should work fine.

    Maltaannon said this November 2nd, 2008 at 12:22

  60. Thanks Maltaannon I just ordered. Let you know if there is a problem. Worst case I will use in my CS3 copy.

    Skip said this November 3rd, 2008 at 1:42

  61. Dude You’re amazing! I enjoy all of Your tutorials, and Im glad how much i can learn from them!. I wish You all of success with your work and helping the others. As You said in once of tutorials Youre my favorite AE teacher ^^. and im glad of your nationality becouse im from Poland too.
    Cheers : Chris

    Chris said this November 11th, 2008 at 1:21

  62. ok

    jaro said this November 21st, 2008 at 21:20

  63. I”m interested in purchasing this Preset but I can’t install it with your installer.. I’m using Windows Vista, followed all of the instructions and nothing will install. I have downloaded some of your other presets from Creative Cow and manually installed and they work great. If I purchase can you deliver the preset file so all i have to do is drop it in my polygon folder?

    Stevem said this December 13th, 2008 at 15:28

  64. Yes, I can deliver the preset file, but please note, that you should not use any information from Creative Cow since they are outdated. There is a new installer, and CustomEffects has a different format than they used to. Please go to http://maltaannon.com/what-customeffets-are/ and download the newest CE Installer.

    Maltaannon said this December 13th, 2008 at 16:52

  65. I’ve already tried downloading the newest installer and for some reason, Vista will not allow me to write to the adobe files. When I change the properties it appears to chance but after a few minutes they are the same as before. Note I’m running Vista and not very familiear with it.

    Stevem said this December 14th, 2008 at 2:20

  66. Well… I don’t have Vista yet, and several people have reported the same problem. They always said that they found a solution, and the solution was to set up the privileges for the entire Adobe folder and all subfolders, so thats the only thing I can recommend doing.

    Maltaannon said this December 14th, 2008 at 18:13

  67. [...] at the edges of the Horton character in the “This Summer” movie you’ll see I used the handy Maltaannon Light Wrap preset [...]

    Heroes using After Effects, ProAnimator and Cinema 4D | Motionworks said this January 1st, 2009 at 22:33

  68. it’s great

    KAP/L0 said this January 1st, 2009 at 22:45

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