End Logo 'Whoosh' Tutorial

This is a simple tutorial showing how to create your own end logo whoosh, similar to the ones at the end of the Episode 1 and Episode 2 trailers. You will need Photoshop and After Effects in order to follow the tutorials, although many programmes can acheive similar results.

 
Step 1
First you need to create your logo, the 'Star' and 'Wars' (assuming you want the 'classic' version)s and your flash. The flash was created in photoshop simply using the airbrush and blur tools until I had something I liked, you can create this with lens flares, or Knoll Light Factory etc. All three images need to be the size you want your final movie file to be. Once you have created them, save them as single layer RGB .psd files. (N.B. CMYK images will not import into After Effects) Once you have done this, close Photoshop and open After Effects.
Step 2

Open After Effects. Go to NEW>NEW PROJECT then go to COMPOSITION > NEW COMPOSITION and fill in the details you want (the size should relate to the photoshop files you have just created)

Now go to FILE>IMPORT>PHOTOSHOP AS COMP and pull in all three of the images you have already created.

This should all be simple for you to achieve if you have ever used your programme before. Your project window should now look something like the one on the right.
Step 3

Pull the main logo into your timeline and toggle the TRANSFORM triangle to reveal the options below. Highlight the SCALE section and begin at 0%. Click on the stopwatch. This marks a keyframe at 0%. Next move along the timeline to the time you want the logo to be full size (about .5 to 2 seconds, it's up to you) and type 100% into the SCALE section (or whatever size you think looks best. This is all you need to do to this logo. Now we'll pull in the 'Star' and the 'Wars' section...

 
Step 4

Pull this .psd file in as normal, and click on SWITCHES/MODE at the bottom (highlighted in red) and then make sure the ADD pulldown is selected, again highlighted in red. This will ensure that you can see your logo through the Star and Wars type. If you don't do this, the logo behind will not be seen.

This layer is 100% all the time, so does not need to be changed. However, this layer comes fade/blurs its way in, so we need to recreate this. Working on the OPACITY toggle (beneath the SCALE and ROTATION lines) set the opacity to 0% and click the stopwatch icon to create a keyframe. This should occur around the time that the main logo is at 100%. Then move along a few frames and type in 100% opacity and again click the stopwatch icon to set another keyframe. At the moment all that will happen is the STAR and WARS will fade quickly in. We want it to' blur' in. Go to EFFECT>BLUR & SHARPEN and FAST BLUR.
Step 5

Turn the FAST BLUR up to the maximum and set a keyframe at the point you want the blur to begin (around the 0% opacity point) Then move along the timeline and set another keyframe at the point you want the STAR and WARS to be sharp. (about .5 sec after it is at 100% opacity. Now all we have to do is create the Lens Flare effect...

 
Step 6

Pull your lens flare effect into your timeline, and set the SCALE to 0% to begin with. Then move allong the timeline and set in to 100%, then move along the timeline some more and set it back to 0% again as shown below

 
Step 7

Make sure that this FLASH layer is also set to ADD mode (circled) so that the previous two layers also show through, and react to the flash accordingly. Then render out your project, as some sound and you are done. Play around with the time/scale of things to create either a fast logo appearing, or a slow logo appearing.

 
Click on the above picture to download the composited shot. It is 192K and compressed using the on2 codec. You will need Quicktime 5.02 or above to view. Download the latest version of Quicktime from here