Real Glow is a specialized digital effect designed to create more realistic glow or aura around bright elements in digital imagery and video.
Understanding Real Glow
Based on the provided reference, Real Glow is a glow aura generator which works on rules of optically correct light falloff as opposed to an unrealistic simple linear blur as AE's internal glow and other glow plug-ins use.
This means that unlike standard glow effects often found in software like Adobe After Effects, which might use a basic, linear method to create the glow (essentially blurring the bright areas), Real Glow emulates how light actually behaves in the real world.
How Real Glow Differs
The core distinction lies in the method of generating the glow:
- Real Glow: Uses rules of optically correct light falloff. This mimics how intense light blooms or diffuses in reality, often with a non-linear, more complex distribution.
- Standard Glow (e.g., AE's internal glow): Uses an unrealistic simple linear blur. This results in a uniform or predictable spread of light that doesn't accurately reflect optical phenomena.
Why Use Real Glow?
By adhering to optically correct light falloff, Real Glow aims to produce results that look more natural and integrated into the image or video. This can be crucial for achieving a higher level of realism in visual effects, motion graphics, or color grading.
Using a technique based on realistic light behavior can help:
- Create more convincing bright elements (like lights, stars, or energy effects).
- Prevent the artificial, 'computer-generated' look sometimes associated with simple blur glows.
- Enhance the depth and dimension of a scene.
In essence, Real Glow provides an alternative, more sophisticated approach to simulating light diffusion compared to basic linear blur methods.
