Some Other Techniques - Lightning Fast Animation in Element 3D - page 105

5. Duplicate your world position matte Element layer and apply the duplicate
as another Luma Matte Inverted to your flare layer. Now your smoke
(and flares) appears at appropriate times.
6. We're almost done. Now to blend everything together a bit better,
precomp everything.
7. Create an adjustment layer.
8.

Add an Add Grain effect and apply the Tiffen DFX Film Stocks plugin.
Choose your favorite film stock. To create the following screenshot,
we used a Kodak Ektachrome look:

Adding color correction and grain on top of everything is an important
step in compositing. Adding grain helps create consistent imperfections
across your whole picture. A final pass of color correction can hide any
slight imperfections, both of which help suspend disbelief.

Granted, this Ektachrome look is a bit severe. But hey, we like severe sometimes,
so there we are! Finally, use your precomp layer to add a bit of camera shake when
the impact happens and you have a pretty spiffy special effect in only a couple
of hours!

The fully rendered animation (and project) is available as part of the
downloadable content.