Look at what we’ll be creating…

Now let’s get down to business…

Setting Up the Flares

• Start with an 800 x 600 composition, square pixels, 30 frames per second, 9 seconds in length by going to Composition > New Composition

• Type in whatever the text is going to be in the center I’m using FORGING FIRE STUDIO, font-size= 64 pixels, font = Myriad Pro Black

• With the text layer selected, pre-compose the layer into it’s own composition by going to Layer > Pre-compose or by the shortcut shift+alt/opt+c
• Change the layers mode to “add” on the layer in the timeline by selecting the mode dropdown to the right of the layer name, you may have to “toggle switches/mode” to see the modes

• Name the precomposed layer flares by simply selecting the layer and pressing return or enter on the keyboard and then entering in the text “flares”
• Next, goto the Effects and presets panel and type in particle systems and you should see the plug-in CC Particle Systems II, add this to the flares layer by simply selecting it in the panel then dragging and dropping it onto the “flares” layer

• Then search for CC Vector Blur in the effects and presets panel, apply that to the flares layer by simply selecting the effect in the panel and then dragging and dropping it onto the layer and apply the following settings

• Again, search for Turbulent Displace in the effects and presets panel, apply that to the flares layer by simply dragging and dropping the effect onto the layer and apply the following settings

• One more time, search for Glow in the effects and presets panel, apply that to the flares layer by simply dragging and dropping the effect onto the layer and apply the following settings

These settings are VERY tempermental and will vary somewhat for different amounts and sizes of text. The key to all of the settings is held within the vector blur amount and the turbulent displacement size. So– if you’re having trouble getting your fire to look like this chances are one of those settings, maybe both need to be adjusted. At this point the fire flares should be exactly that. As you scrub the timeline you should see fire flares popping onto the screen and disipating into the air.

*My recommendation if you’re having trouble is to follow this tutorial exactly then play around with the settings as you become more comfortable.

The Belly of the Fire

• Duplicate the “Flares” layer by using the following shortcut, with the layer selected– hit cmd/ctrl+D
• Rename the newly duplicated layer to “Fire Belly”
• Turn off the visibility of the “Flares” layer by pressing the eyeball icon to the left of the layer name
• Reselect the “Fire Belly” layer, in the effects panel– apply the following settings

If everything has gone according to the plan– after turning the “Flares” layer’s visibility back on– your fire should now look like this

The Molten Drip

Adding the downward flames

• Duplicate the “Fire Belly” layer by using the following shortcut, with the layer selected– hit cmd/ctrl+D
• Rename the newly duplicated layer to “Downward Flames”
• Turn off the visibility of the “Flares” and “Fire Belly” layers by pressing the eyeball icon to the left of the layer name, we do this to save rendering time and cpu usage while we’re working because this can be very taxing on your computers memory. If your computer is still going slow you may want to bring the resolution down from full to half or maybe even a quater
• Reselect the “Molten Drip” layer, in the effects panel– apply the following settings

After you’ve turned back on the invisible layers and scrub the timeline to somewhere in the middle, your preview of the flame should look similar to the above. It may not look exactly the same but it should be fairly close.

Adding the molten drip

• Duplicate the “Downward Flames” layer by using the following shortcut, with the layer selected– hit cmd/ctrl+D
• Rename the newly duplicated layer to “Molten Drip”
• Turn off the visibility of all other layers by pressing the eyeball icon to the left of each layer’s name
• Reselect the “Molten Drip” layer
• In the effects and presets panel search for CC Mr. Mercury and apply it to the “Molten Drip” layer below the Particle Systems II effect but above the Turbulent Displace effect
• Delete the CC Vector Blur effect
• Apply the following settings

Adding the Background

The texture we’re using for the original preview background is available in the Flourish Master Pack Extended, it’s available here, and it’s 2.jpg. I know ALOT of you have it but if you don’t you can get a set of 6 free textures in our free stuff, one of them will work just fine!

• Drop your texture into the timeline panel below ALL of the other layers
• Rename the layer to BG
• Scale it down to your desired size. I used the high resolution version of 2.jpg and scaled it down to look like this

• Next, go to the effects and presets panel and search for hue
• Apply the Hue/Saturation effect to the layer “BG” by dragging and dropping it onto the layer in the timeline
• Change the settings to the following

• Next, duplicate the “BG” layer by using the following shortcut, with the layer selected– hit cmd/ctrl+D
• Rename the layer to BG Highlite
• Change the layers mode to “add” on the layer in the timeline by selecting the mode dropdown to the right of the layer name, you may have to “toggle switches/mode” to see the modes
• In the toolbar at the top, with the layer still selected, change the shape from the Square Tool to a Ellipse Tool. After it’s been selected, double click the ellipse tool icon. This should add a elliptical mask to the layer as illustrated below

• Then scale down the mask by double clicking on the mask, then– holding down shift and dragging a corner to the center so that it looks like the glow from the fire
• After you’ve scaled the layer down add some bezier curves to the mask by using the pen tool to add points as shown below

• Then using the move tool, shortcut “v” on the keyboard, move the newly added bezier curves to distort the elliptical mask as shown below
• Also– with the bg highlite layer still selected hit “f” on the keyboard to reveal the feather options for the mask in the timeline layers and use the settings shown below

• Add flicker to the “BG highlite” layer by hitting “t” on the keyboard with this layer selected to reveal the opacity settings. Option/ALT+click the opacity stopwatch to reveal the expression entry area. Enter “wiggle(50, 200)”. This says change the opacity of this layer 50 times per second within 200 points of it’s original setting . This will achieve the flicker we’re after.

Adding the Vignette

• Add a new solid by using the shortcut “cmd/ctrl+y” this will bring up the solid settings dialogue box.
• Change the color to black
• Rename the layer “Vignette”
• This layer should be positioned above all other layers in the layer stack
• Once again, in the tool bar with the elliptical tool selected, double click it to apply a mask to this layer
• With the layer still selected hit “m” twice on the keyboard to reveal the mask settings
• Change the mask mode from “add” to “subtract”
• In the feather settings, change the amount to create a nice fall-off that creates a nice soft black border for the entire composition

With all of the settings in place and visible– your composition should now look like this

Adding the Text

• Add the same text to the stage that you used to create the “Flares” layer, same size and font
• Change it’s color to black and it’s layer blend mode to overlay
• Move the text to be centered inside of the flame as illustrated below

• Duplicate this layer again
• Change it’s color to orange, I used #FE8F00
• Change it’s layer blend mode to normal
• Apply a layer mask as illustrated below by selecting the ellipse tool and dragging over the desired area then apply feather to soften the edges

• Apply glow using these settings

• Duplicate the last layer
• Change it’s layer blend mode to multiply
• Duplicate this layer
• Delete the layer mask and glow
• Change it’s layer blend mode to add and apply the bevel alpha filter from the effects and presets panel using these settings

• Duplicate this layer one last time
• Change it’s layer blend mode to add
• Change it’s bevel alpha filter to these settings

Bringing It Home

• Add an adjustment layer by going to Layer > New > Adjustment Layer, this should sit on the very top of the layer stack
• Apply the curves filter from the effects and presets panel by dragging and dropping it on to the adjustment layer
• Change it’s channel settings to match these in the effects panel

And that’s it! Render it out and you’ve got a pretty cool forging fire, gas fire with flares or whatever?! Enjoy and we’ll see you on the flipside!