Cart

Docs · Compositing

Light Wrap

Light wrap for composites: light from a backplate layer bleeds over the foreground's edges, seating a keyed or rendered element into its background.

Product page →
Version 0.3.0
Parameters 11
GPU On the GPU (Metal), with a CPU fallback. Nothing to configure.
Hosts After Effects 2020 or later (2025 or later recommended). macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.

Light Wrap takes the light sitting behind your foreground and bleeds it over the foreground’s edges, so a keyed actor or a rendered element stops reading as pasted on. A subject that sat on the plate starts sitting in it — the edge picks up the color and brightness of whatever is behind it, the way a real edge would if that light were actually falling on it.

The setup is one wire. Apply the effect to the foreground layer and point Backplate at the background layer. The effect reads that layer for its light, so anything you can put on a layer — footage, a render, a gradient you built in the comp — can be the source of the wrap.

The backplate is read as a source of light rather than as a picture. That light is spread out, Wrap Radius sets how deep the spread reaches, and the result is then held inside the foreground’s own alpha, so light can only land where the foreground exists. That containment is why this is not a glow: the wrap never halos out into empty space, and there is nothing to mask off afterward. Everything past that point is delivery — Edge Only decides how far in from the edge the light carries, Intensity and Tint how much of it and what color, Mode how it combines with what is underneath, and Wrap Only shows you the contribution by itself.

Restraint is the working setting: at 10–20% Intensity the wrap does the seating job and the shot reads as correctly lit rather than as treated. If the wrap itself is visible as an effect, it’s set too strong.

Parameters

Controls

9 params

Backplate is the wiring, and nothing happens until it is set — with no layer assigned there is no light to wrap and the frame passes straight through. Point it at the layer that sits behind this one in the comp; the effect itself goes on the foreground, never on the background.

Wrap Radius sets how deep the bleed reaches into the foreground. Keep Wrap Radius 20–40 for a tight seat that reads as edge light on a hard-edged subject, and Wrap Radius 80–150 when the background is a large soft source and you want the light to feel like it is filling the silhouette rather than outlining it. The default of 50 is a working starting point at 1080p; a comp at 4K wants roughly double that for the same read, and the hard range runs past the slider to 500 for large-format work.

Intensity is the strength dial, in percent, with 100 being the wrap at full computed strength. The working zone sits far below the default: Intensity 10–20 is where the wrap stops being visible as an effect and just seats the edge, which is the whole point of the tool. Intensity 40–60 is a stylized extreme, not a scenario — even a subject backlit by a source blowing out behind it seats in the working zone, and this band is a choice to make the wrap itself part of the look. Above that you are drawing a rim light rather than integrating an element.

Edge Only controls how far in from the edge the light is allowed to carry. At 100, the default, it stays near the outline and is gone before you are into the subject — the classic tight wrap, and the right answer for a clean hard-edged key. Bring it down and the wrap bleeds deeper into the fill: Edge Only 60–80 suits edges that are not really edges — hair, smoke, glass, heavy motion blur — where light should behave as if it passes into the element rather than across its outline. Take it toward 0 and the backplate’s color floods the element entirely, which is a grading move, not a seating one.

Tint is white by default, which is neutral — the wrap carries the backplate’s own color. Tint it when the shape of the wrap is right but the temperature is wrong, usually after the plate has been graded and its spill no longer matches what the edge needs.

Mode chooses the combine. Screen (the default) scales the wrap back by how bright the pixel underneath already is, so it compresses toward white and cannot push an edge past it — which is why it stays safe on subjects that are already bright. Add puts the wrap in at its full value regardless of what is underneath, so it has no ceiling and it will clip. The two modes agree wherever the foreground edge is dark. They diverge wherever it is bright, since those bright pixels are exactly the ones Screen was holding back. So the same Intensity reads hotter in Add, and switching modes means coming down toward the bottom of the working zone, not up. Pay that price when the thing behind the subject is an actual emitter and the edge is supposed to go hot.

Wrap Only is the diagnostic. Turn it on and the output is the wrap contribution alone over black, which is the honest way to check your work: the band should trace the silhouette and be gone well before the middle of the subject. If it looks obvious there, it is obvious in the comp. Turn it back off for delivery.

Quality steps Q1 through Q4, with Q2 shipping as the default. Build the wrap at the default and set Q4 for the final render.

Name Type Range Default Choices
License button — — —
Backplate layer — none —
Wrap Radius slider 0–200 (hard 0–500) 50 —
Intensity slider 0–200 100% —
Edge Only slider 0–100 100 —
Tint color — RGB 255, 255, 255 —
Mode popup — Screen Screen · Add
Wrap Only checkbox — off —
Quality popup — Q2 Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4

Master

2 params

Two macro dials ride the wrap you already built: Master Amount multiplies Intensity, Master Scale multiplies Wrap Radius, and 100 is neutral on both.

Master Amount is the animation surface. Dial the wrap until it seats on one frame, then keyframe Master Amount for whatever changes across the shot — a source that flickers, a plate that brightens as the sun clears a building, a subject that walks out of the light. One slider carries all of it, and the balance you set between depth and strength stays intact.

Master Scale is the resolution and reframe dial. A wrap built at 1080p needs a deeper spread to read the same way in a 4K comp; Master Scale = 200 gets you there without touching the dial you tuned, and the same move covers a shot that got scaled up in the edit.

Ride either a Master dial or the dial it folds, never both at once — animate both and the multiplication stacks on itself.

Name Type Range Default Choices
Master Amount slider 0–200 (hard 0–400) 100% —
Master Scale slider 0–200 (hard 0–400) 100% —

Examples

Seating a keyed subject into a plate

A green-screen key that stops announcing itself, because its edges carry the plate's light

  1. Stack the comp normally: background plate on the bottom, keyed foreground above it. Apply Light Wrap to the foreground layer and set Backplate to the plate layer.
  2. Set the depth before the strength: Wrap Radius = 35 at 1080p, a band that hugs the silhouette without reaching into the face.
  3. Find the strength from above — park Intensity = 40 where the wrap is plainly visible, then walk it down until you have to look for it. On a typical key that lands near Intensity = 15.
  4. Leave Edge Only = 100 for a clean hard-edged key. On flyaway hair or real motion blur, Edge Only = 75 carries the light past the outline so those semi-transparent pixels sample the background too.
  5. Check it with Wrap Only on: the contribution should be brighter on the side the plate is bright and nearly dark where the plate is dark, since that variation is the information you applied the effect for.
  6. Turn Wrap Only back off for delivery.

Variations: on a soft, out-of-focus plate raise Wrap Radius toward 120 and drop Intensity to 10 — a wider, weaker wrap matches a defocused background better than a tight bright one; or hold the tight wrap and add a second instance with a deep radius for the ambient contribution.

Backlit edge from a blown-out background

A subject crossing in front of a window, fire, or sky whose light climbs onto the edge as it passes

  1. Foreground over the bright plate, Backplate pointed at the plate. Build an ordinary seat first in the default Screen: Wrap Radius = 90 and Intensity = 15 — the radius is wide because a window or a fire pit is a big soft source.
  2. Switch Mode to Add and watch which parts of the edge move. The shadow side barely changes; wherever the edge was already catching light it jumps, because Add has no ceiling holding it back.
  3. Take the jump back out with Intensity = 12. Two or three points is usually the whole correction.
  4. Push Tint toward the source’s true color — warm for fire and tungsten, cold for a daylight window. A source past 100% has no color left in its pixels, and the wrap can only carry the color that is there.
  5. Animate the pass with Master Amount: 0 on the frame before the silhouette overlaps the source, 100 on the frame it is fully across, back to 0 as it clears, easing into and out of the middle keyframes. 100 is neutral, so the top of that ramp is exactly the look from steps 1–4.
  6. Scrub to the frame where the plate flares brightest and look for the lit side of the edge going flat white. That is Add clipping; take another point off Intensity rather than lowering the Master Amount ramp.

Variations: drop Edge Only to 70 when the subject has hair or smoke against the source, so the light carries in past the outline instead of stopping at it; or run two instances — a tight Wrap Radius = 25 in Screen for the constant seat, plus this wide Add one for the moment the subject crosses the source.