How to create a shine effect on a logo in DaVinci Resolve

It is that glint travelling across the logo at the end of an ad, or sweeping over the phone in a product video. It looks simple, and the idea is. What confuses almost everyone is where you apply it.

The idea: the light does not illuminate, it crops

The most common mistake is applying the shine to the whole video and expecting it to stay inside the object. That is not how it works.

A light sweep effect crops itself using the transparency of the clip you drop it on. So:

• If the clip is already the cut-out object (transparent background), the light stays inside the object. ✅
• If the clip is normal footage, there is no silhouette to crop into and the band sweeps across the entire screen.

That second case is not “broken” — it actually looks great as a transition or to animate a background. But if you want the logo to shine, you need the logo cut out first.

Step 1 — Get the cut-out

There are three ways, from easiest to most laborious.

Case A — You already have transparency

If you are working with a PNG with a transparent background, a Resolve title, or a graphic exported with an alpha channel, it is already done. These clips carry their own cut-out. Put them on a track above your video and skip to step 2.

By far the cleanest route. If you can ask for the logo as a PNG, ask.

Case B — Cut an object out of footage with Magic Mask (requires Studio)

When the object is inside your footage:

1. Duplicate the clip: hold Alt and drag it to the track above (V2)
2. With the V2 clip selected, go to the Fusion page
3. Add a Magic Mask node between MediaIn and MediaOut. In the viewer, draw a stroke over the object and hit track forward
4. Add a Matte Control node. Connect MediaIn to its Background input (yellow) and the Magic Mask output to its Foreground input (green). In the Inspector: Combine = Combine Alpha and Combine Op = Copy
5. Connect the Matte Control output to MediaOut
6. Back on Edit, right-click the V2 clip → New Compound Clip

That compound clip is now just the object, with everything else transparent.

Case C — Cut it out by hand (works on the free version too)

Same as case B, but instead of Magic Mask you use a Polygon mask (drawing the outline point by point) or an Ellipse if the shape is simple. It connects to the Matte Control in exactly the same way.

Slower, but no Studio needed.

Step 2 — Build the sweep

With the cut-out ready, the mechanics of the effect go like this. In Fusion:

1. A Background with the colour of the light, usually a warm white
2. A narrow, elongated rectangular mask, rotated about 25-30 degrees. That is the classic ad angle
3. A Blur or Soft Glow on that band so the edges are not hard
4. A Merge compositing it over your object
5. And the important part: a Matte Control or alpha mask limiting the light to the object’s silhouette

Step 3 — Animate it

Here is the tedious part. To make the band move you animate its horizontal position with keyframes: one at the start, off the object to the left, and one at the end, off to the right.

If you want it to loop, you either duplicate keyframes or get into expressions.

The settings that make the difference

After making a few of these, these are the values that tend to work:

Use	Width	Angle	Intensity
Premium product	Thin (0.10)	30°	2.5 with a wide halo
Logo or text	Medium (0.18)	25°	1.8, looping
Single flash	Very thin (0.08)	30°	4, no loop

And two tips:

• A double band — a second thinner line behind the main one — is what gives the glass feel instead of metal
• If the shine covers the object, lower the overall opacity rather than the intensity. You keep the glint without losing the logo

Common problems

“The light sweeps the whole screen.” The clip has no transparency. Go back to step 1.

“There is a hard edge.” You need more softness on the band’s edges.

“It moves too fast.” Think in frames, not in feel: at 25 fps, 48 frames is nearly two seconds, and for a logo that is usually a good starting point.

If you would rather not rebuild it every time

Everything above is perfectly doable, and worth understanding at least once. What wears you down is repeating it on every project: wiring the nodes, placing the keyframes, recalculating the speed when the shot length changes.