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Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-style

  • tutorial
  • By Jared Nielsen

This Blender tutorial demonstrates how to create a Superfriends-style starburst animation. We created this sequence for our series, Superusers: The Legendary GNU/Linux Show which I strongly encourage you to watch if you are interested in Linux, free open-source software, and the surreal.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style

First, set the World Horizon color to black. It’s easier to see what we’re doing in the dark.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Then Delete the default cube and create an Icosphere and scale it down .25
Next, add a Material and under Shading increase the Emit to something ridiculous like 100.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Now press F12 to render. This is our starting point.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
We will be using nodes to create the starburst effect.
So split the window and open the Node editor.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Select “Render layer”, then select “Use Nodes”.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Add a Glare Filter and increase the Iterations to 5.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Then add a Blur Filter and Increase X & Y to 20 or so.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Now, copy Render Layers, Glare, and Blur.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Add a Color Mix Node and set it to Add.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style

In the first Glare Filter, set the Fade to .96

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
In new Glare Filter, set the Fade to .925 and change the Angle offset to 45 degrees.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Next, copy one of the Glare Filters and set it to Ghosts.
Change the Iterations to 3, the Color Modulation to 1.0, the Mix to -.9, and the Threshold to .5

Hit F12 again. There’s your starburst.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style

To animate it, set keyframes for the Angle offset.

Blender Tutorial: How To Create a Starburst Animation Superfriends-Style
Set the first Glare Filter to 90 and the second to 135.
You will see your starburst rotate as we move through the timeline.

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