Recreating Star Trek Phasers in After Effects

Recreating Star Trek Phasers in After Effects

Graham Quince July 15, 2024

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In this tutorial, I show how to build a reusable phaser effect, based on those in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I've been rewatching TNG recently and it reminded me of the excellent behind-the-scenes video from @fxguide where they looked in the remastering process for the series. At one point, they discuss how they used Flame to reproduce the look of the phasers. These effects were originally achieved in 1987 using Quantel Paintbox and so now, I thought it's past time to demonstrate how you can use After Effects to get the same look.

The challenge with After Effects in making a multi-layered effect is how to make it reusable, but thanks Essential Graphics, this problem disappears. So in this video, I start with creating a null packed with all the options by using Expression Controls (found in the Effects menu). Then I apply the Beam effect to create the beam, but I add Turbulent Noise to create a sense of plasma. Next I use some expressions to create some 3D controls before adding flares using the Circle effect.

There's a lot of set up, but once done, you have a reusble, changeble phaser beam.

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