Neon Text Effect Using Saber in After Effects

Download Project Files Here

Make New Solid Layer

1. Go to New > Layer > Solid. Name it Saber Neon Effect.
2. After downloading and installing Saber from https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/saber_plug-in/, go to the Effects & Presets panel.
3. Type in Saber.
4. Drag it onto the new solid.
5. Turn Visibility off on the Neon Nights text layer.

Settings

1. In the Effect Controls, change Preset to Neon.
2. Change Glow Intensity to 60.
3. Change Render Settings > Composite Settings to Transparent.
4. Change Customize Core > Core Type > Text Layer.
5. Select the Neon Nights text layer as the source Text Layer.

Animation

1. With the Playhead at the origin, hit the stopwatch next to Start Offset.
2. Change Start Offset to 0.
3. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;00;.
4. Change Start Offset to 100.
5. At 0;00;00;11;, go to Flicker > Flicker Intensity.
6. Hit the stopwatch next to Flicker Intensity to set a keyframe.
7. Change Flicker Intensity to 50.
8. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;26;.
9. Change Flicker Intensity to 100.
10. Move the Playhead to 0;00;03;05.
11. Change Flicker Intensity to 50.
12. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;10;.
13. At the top of Effect Controls, locate Glow Color. Hit the stopwatch next to it to set a keyframe.
14. Click on the box next to Glow Color and input FF006C for the color code to make it hot pink.
15. Move the Playhead to 0;00;02;00;.
16. Change Glow Color to 6F0CFF, a violet.
17. Move the Playhead to 0;00;02;25;.
18. Change Glow Color to 0096FF, a bright blue.

Video Transcript

Hey, everyone. This is the Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop and in this tutorial, I'm going to try to make it neon effect using the Saber plugin in Adobe After Effects. So we're going to be using that saber plug into your vertex like this cool angle effect?

We're also going to animate it a little just right on a flicker and some brightness, but that's pretty much it. So you could see this is what the product looks like when we're done. And I mean, honestly, like, who wouldn't want to learn how to use neon?

It's great for poppy video intros, and outros social media posts. Moreover, this is a great way to dip your toes into using saber overall. Not only does it do, but neon also has loads of other settings like a Ghostbusters ghostly effect electricity smoke, Patrolmen's Piranhas said, did pronounce it anyways.

And, of course, a light saber effect. So learning how to do this technique will open up the whole plug in for you from how it interacts with other layers to animating it. And so the Plug Saber, we're going to link that below.

It's a free plug and even comes with an installer guide, so it's very easy to set up. It's it comes from Rudy Copilots made by Andrew Kramer. He started the whole site out of his own own apartment years ago, and he's known from the film industry for like working on Star Trek Super eight.

Lots of cool things, and he makes these great plug-ins, and lots of motion graphics products. So more to the point, the product file is going to be provided below. It's got the brick background and the text all that together.

And like I said, Saber, we're going to link that as well below. So let's get started. So when you open up the file, it's probably going to look something like this, just pretty basic text and the first of that we're going to be doing when applying this effect, we're going to have to layer a new solid layer and

I'm going to name this saber neon effect. Click OK. And let's head over to effects and type in saber after you've downloaded it. I'm going to drag it onto my new layer and what appears is a saber.

A light saber. Just this little beam of light. So let's fiddle with the settings to get what we want. So we're going to be going over to presets in the flight controls, it's flying neon fairy go and let's head over to customize core.

By the way, just note how right now the background is black, but we're going to fix that later on. So don't worry about it. So core type, we want to change the core type two text layer, and then it's going to be like, Well, what text layer do you want?

We only have one, but just so you know, you open up the text layer and you hit whatever your text layer is, and there we go. Now it's resembling that text layer. But as you can see, there's a little bit of work we've got to do in order to make it look more like what we want.

So I'm going to turn visibility off on our source text layer just so it doesn't interfere with things. And the next thing that I want to do is let's actually lower some of this glow intensity so that maybe down to 60.

Yeah, I think that's a lot more usable. And what we're going to be doing is let's do that right on effect. So let's head over. You'll see under, you know, again, effect controls, look at look first, start offset and we're going to set all of that computer.

Please cooperate. There we go. So you'll see as I change that number, where the text begins and ends is altered. So we're going to be using that to our advantage to animate it. So right now, with my plate at the origin right here, I am going to set the start offset to 100.

I'm going to hit a keyframe level sort of keyframe. And by the way, with my laser highlight, I'm going to hit you. That will show me all my animated keyframes so I could see where they are on the timeline.

Let's move the plate in about a second. And then I'm going to change start offset. We're going to make that zero. So it looks like it's going to right itself on. If I use scraps of the play of a script of the timeline I mean.

Nice. All right. So let's head over to the Flickr setting. So what I want to do is get this thing to Flickr just a bit. Not too much, because that'll hurt our eyes. But I want it to start flickering, flicker a lot, and then kind of settle down.

So we open up Flickr again patrols. That's really where we're going to be working. And let's see. Let's go at about eleven frames in and, you know, 1011 frames. And let's set a Flickr key frame flicker intensity, just intensity.

I don't want to change anything else. You can focus speed is pretty much what it sounds like. Like how fast is a flicker? But really, I want to work with intensity. Um, and let's change that to about 50.

Let's have it start out at 50 and then about two seconds in. I want it to like ramp up. So it's going to be going more and more and more and more until it hits 100. And you'd show all my keyframes in.

Then three seconds and I want the flicker to die back down to about 50. So, you know, the look at this gives font like a really high-quality neon sign. It's flickering, you know, let's get this to play.

So you can see it writes itself on and then some good old flickering and then it stops flickering just a bit. So that's what we are going for. So let's go on to changing the color of this thing.

So, so so we scroll up over here can affect controls and you could see glow color. This is pretty simple. The WHO are going in with this. We're going to head over to about one second and I'm going to hit the stopwatch to set a keyframe.

I like the pink color. We can start with the pink color, but let's move over to about a second and a half. And you can figure out that as we set these keyframes and change this color, it's going to cycle through these colors.

So I'm going to pick another color. Let's choose a nice, strong purple. I really like this color. It's like a blue-purple. And again, I want my lawyer to show me all my animated keyframes. So once they hit you or double tap you, it'll show me what?

I'm working with all the key frames here. So I like that it'll turn from pink to this purple in blue over here. What does the violet color in there? Let's go, baby. two and a half seconds in and then change the color again.

Let's do like a nice icy blue. I like the saturated colors a lot. That's my preference. And again, once you study the initial keyframe, every time you animate it down the timeline, it's going to automatically set another keyframe.

All right, so let's see what it looks like, what the color change animation. Nice. Yeah, it's like a service that flickers Stewart A. All right. And then lastly, we are going to be going over to the render settings over here.

Let's toggles open. Let's look for the word composite settings, and this is so we can get this black background to go away. So Composite said it means essentially it's asking you will how do you want this layer to interact with the ones below it?

Do you just want the background black? Do you want to add them together? It doesn't really change. Just because of the nature of our background is also quite dark. But if I had transparent. There you go. It removes that background.

So, yeah, it's pretty much it. So, as mentioned before, Saber has like a lot of options, like a ton of options. I think you saw some of them. There's so many here. I haven't used all of them. It's a lot of fun.

And in particular, our neon one can be used for background signage. If you're setting up a night scene, it's great for large videos. Music videos. Title cards are also a really fun way to use this effect. So definitely check out the rest of saber's options as well.

It's a very versatile plugin. I have a lot of fun, and different options personally. So yeah, that's that's all for this tutorial. I hope you've enjoyed learning how to make an effect in Adobe after effects. This has been Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop.