Work Exp: Flares!

Today was spent trying to get a decent flare effect working on the sparkles, and to begin thinking about another visual.

With the help of some tips from Pete, I created the spark's flare by creating two directional blurs - perpendicular to each other - and plugged a random script into them. I also use a combination of lens blur and sharpen to get the right effect.

Here's the first test for another potential idea: