The 4K Dappled Light Toolkit is a collection of footage and After Effects projects that brings the organic motion of wind-blown tree shadows to any video or animation timeline. I created this collection because I needed subtle yet immersive background animations for title screens on a project I was working on. My experience is that too many motion backgrounds steal attention away from static foreground elements like titles. Unfortunately, static background images can be too quiet. The Dappled Light animations fill this gap perfectly. These clips are so generic; they can be used for any subject. If you use backgrounds, you will love them! If you like to tweak, mix and match, etc, the After Effects files give you all the versatility you need. Click here to see a demo.The 4K Dappled Light Toolkit contains imagery from real trees casting real shadows on a flat white surface. We picked days when there was a breeze blowing so that there would be motion in the shadows. The surface was filmed with a RED Epic camera at 5K resolution. The footage was then corrected to remove any perspective caused by offset camera angles. Then, these “shadow” animations were made seamless and color-corrected to create grayscale, full contrast masks. Twenty-five of these masks are provided as-is in the Toolkit.

The next step was to composite marble, wood and fabric textures with the shadow animations, which created realistic dappled light on the textures. After Effects was used for this compositing. The resulting images have a light/shadow combination that is organic and immersive. Since the shadows were taken from reality there is an inherent sense of high production value. These ready-to-use backgrounds are provided in 4K and HD sizes in the Toolkit.

In addition, the Toolkit contains the above After Effects projects, static textures, extra metallic treatments and erosion masks. The After Effects projects have compositions that allow your titles to be cast with the same shadows as the backgrounds, along with surface treatments for the title lettering.

The 4K Dappled Light Toolkit has a retail value of $799. However, for a limited time it is available at artbeats.com for $399. The 4K Dappled Light Toolkit is also available FREE to any subscribers at www.artbeatsexpress.com from February 16^th to March 31^st.

Click here to see a demo.
Click here to see Eran Stern’s Dappled Light Tutorial.