What you have been creating here is the core of the light sword. You need the core to remain that pale yellowish-white color, but gradually transition into the outer glow. In order for this to happen, you need to blur the core. Before this, however, turn the opacity of the pale yellow solid from 30% back up to 100%.

Now that you have the mask, you need to blur the image a bit. Set blur to about 3.0% and add a fast blur to the pale yellow solid stick.

Add a Fast Blur to the pale yellow solid, and set Blurriness to around 3.0. This will blur the core (obviously) and give you a softer edge.

You also want to bring up the exposure of the blade a tad, so add an Exposure effect (Effects>Color Correction>Exposure) to the pale yellow solid, and set the Exposure up a little bit. In this case, 0.6 works.

Now, you finally get to colorize the light sword. Duplicate your Core Layer (the pale yellow solid layer) by pressing CTRL+D on the keyboard. This will create an exact copy of the Core Layer, with all the effects, keyframes and the mask that you created.

Duplicate your Core Layer.

Now you'll need to change the transfer mode of this new layer to Add.

The top layer is now your Glow Layer. Select that layer, press Enter on the keyboard and rename the layer to Glow Layer, just so you can make sure you stay organized.

Rename the dupe and lay the duplicate layer above the original layer.

With that layer still selected, press CTRL+SHIFT+Y on the keyboard to bring up the solid's properties. You can change the color of the solid to whatever color you want your light sword to be. I chose a deep purple color for the light sword, but you might like green or hot pink.

The inner yellow glow will remain the same, but you're changing the color of the outer edges. Select a color that will show throughout your video.

You will hardly see a difference in the look of the light sword. However, you will notice that the outer part of the light sword is slightly tinted the color that you chose. In order to colorize the light sword, you need to do the following:

• Change the Fast Blur of the Glow Layer to 36.
• Change the Exposure to 7.8.

You will see the glow on the light sword in the color you chose.

Now your light sword is complete. Remember, you can tweak the appearance of the Glow by adjusting the Exposure, Fast Blur and the Opacity of the Glow Layer and dropping the Glow Layer below the Core Layer. You can even try switching the Transfer Mode of the Glow Layer in order to get different results.

Tweak the light sword glow by adjusting Exposure, fast blur and opacity.

As with everything else in Visual FX, these settings are not set in stone. You have to experiment each step of the way. What looks good to my eye might not fit your taste. Just experiment and play around with the settings in order to achieve results that are to your liking. Good luck, and May the Force Be with You! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

View the tutorial video for The Sword and the Light.