When the render completed I loaded up the frames in After Effects then realized I forgot to set up 3D lights to act as flickering fire, so I decided to do an inexpensive and fast fix in AE. I added an orange circle shape layer using a feathered mask with the intention of just animating the opacity of it to fake the flickering. I’m no coder but I know when using scripts in AE is appropriate. Instead of hitting Google search for “after effects script flickering lights” I simply asked Gemini, “I need an After Effects script that I can copy and paste that will cause the opacity channel to flicker”. AE uses ExtendScript which is basically just JavaScript, simple but out of reach for me to write from scratch.
flickerSpeed = 10; // How fast the flicker happens (higher = faster)
flickerAmount = 50; // How much the opacity changes (higher = bigger swings)
baseOpacity = 100; // The starting opacity (e.g., 100 for fully visible)
wiggle(flickerSpeed, flickerAmount) + baseOpacity;
It spat out this code and the precise instructions on how to use it. And it worked perfectly. Amazing.
When the render completed I loaded up the frames in After Effects then realized I forgot to set up 3D lights to act as flickering fire, so I decided to do an inexpensive and fast fix in AE. I added an orange circle shape layer using a feathered mask with the intention of just animating the opacity of it to fake the flickering. I’m no coder but I know when using scripts in AE is appropriate. Instead of hitting Google search for “after effects script flickering lights” I simply asked Gemini, “I need an After Effects script that I can copy and paste that will cause the opacity channel to flicker”. AE uses ExtendScript which is basically just JavaScript, simple but out of reach for me to write from scratch.
flickerSpeed = 10; // How fast the flicker happens (higher = faster)
flickerAmount = 50; // How much the opacity changes (higher = bigger swings)
baseOpacity = 100; // The starting opacity (e.g., 100 for fully visible)
wiggle(flickerSpeed, flickerAmount) + baseOpacity;
It spat out this code and the precise instructions on how to use it. And it worked perfectly. Amazing.