Chetal Gazdar shows how you can get a great light rays (god ray) effect in After Effects using only Ae native tools.

The tutorial overs creating the light rays, however, the foundations are core.

Chetal notes that the basic concepts behind this tutorial are really all about the importance of Pre-Composing in After Effects, as well as working with greyscale images to derive effects.

Using the CC Radial Fast Blur effect to create the light ray effect, Chetal also shows how to colorize the final piece using Colorama.