Timelapse flickering building Internal lights

[CEJ1976]

Hi,

 

I have a 300 frame sequence that I am working on. It's a locked shot with a still camera, and I'm rendering at 4k so that I can comp some time-lapse cars & sky in accurately.

 

The comp features 2 towers and the internals are lit and give off a glow. Without actually animating the materials turning on and off in 3d, is there a way in after effects to simulate the lights in the towers being turned on and off in a time-lapse way over the 300 frame passage of time?

 

Thank you.

[Nicolai Bongard]

I do not know if it is going to work, but you could perhaps try to render out a picture of the lights being on during night time, then you could use the refraction render element (as i assume the lights are behind glass), then apply it on top of your animation as you would in photoshop. You could perhaps seperate the refraction render element into bits and pieces that would fit each room, so that not all lights would be lit at the same time. Depends a bit on the shot if it will work, but it might be worth a try.

[Scott Schroeder]

Render out one set of windows on and one set of windows totally off. Render out a mask for the windows that has a few random solid colors (red, green, blue), if you want to have the windows turn off in a random sequence. Then in AE use those solid colors as masks.

 

If not, then just lay the windows on layer on top of the windows off, then animation the opacity of the windows on layer in AE.

[hockley91]

I agree with Scott. That should work well I think.

[CEJ1976]

Thanks Scott, i'll go for that.

 

Cheers.

[Guest dialog]

I concur with Scott...that is exactly how I did this still image. Every single room and unit had the lights rendered on then off....except I just used masking in photoshop.

[Tommy L]

does the ambient light change? if so id recommend doing it in 3d as you need to render the frames anyway.. you only need to animate about 4 sets of lights then just array them and offset their keys.