Light Interacts

Light Interacts

Provided that your camera does not rotate too much, a
2D fi re layer, or a set of them, offset in 3D space, can read
as suffi ciently three dimensional. The key to making it
interact dimensionally with a scene, particularly a relatively
dark one, is often interactive light. As was stated earlier,
fi re tends to illuminate everything around it with a warm,
fl ickering glow.
As shown in Figure 14.17, a fi re element may include a certain
amount of usable glow. Input White and Input Black
in Levels control the extent to which glow is enhanced or
suppressed, respectively; you can use these controls to dial
it in and out.
Note, however, that this glow isn’t anything particularly
unique or special; you can re-create it either via a heavily
blurred duplicate of the source fi re or using a masked
and heavily feathered orange solid, with perhaps a slight
amount of wiggle added to the glow opacity to cause a bit
of interactive fl ickering.