I searched and found a script and a video tutorial on this topic.
Script - Lightning Bolt
Video tutorial - A Gimp Animated Lightning Text Effect

Very good find Akros. Who is the funny guy who loves purple with the nice voice?
Nice tutorial Wallace

I know who that is.
It's unfortunate, but this script, Lightning Bolt. That creates an animated lightning bolt; doesn't work with Gimp 2.8.

Thought I recognized the face. lol

Nice tut; too bad there's incompatibilities with the tools used for 2.8.

Thats too bad Wallace, I was looking forward to doing that tute, I even downloaded the script. Let us know if you want to leave this thread in or remove it. (pm sent)

EDIT:
I just tried the script Wallace and it worked for me on gimp-2.8.10 . Haven't tried the tute yet though.

The script has also worked for me Wallace.

There was a line in the script that needed to be changed. I did this and it now works with my Gimp 2.8.

I'm not sure if that tutorial can be followed as it is. In the tutorial I used the "Combine" scripts that came with the Gimp GAP package. This GAP package, to my knowledge, is no longer available for Gimp 2.8.
Can the combine scripts be found elsewhere? That would be the "Combine Background" and "Overlay Background" scripts.

Edit...
I'm mistaken, these scripts can be found in the "FX-Foundry" under "Animation", if you have this installed.

Combine background and Overlay background come together as a package by saulgoode.
http://gimpscripts.com/?s=combine+background

I wasn't aware of this, but I have them in FX-Foundry. Could these be the scripts by saulgoode? The ones I used for my tut were provided by the GAP package.

If you right click on the script and open in an editor, it should say who it is by. I don't think Sauls are under FX-foundry
In your gimp the two Saul scripts will be found under Filters > Animations

Thanks Molly for the link, now I have this under Filters > Animation as well as the FX-Foundry menu.
You are welcome, I dumped FX-Foundry and everything in it 3 years ago. Too many old scripts in there that have never been updated.

Thanks Wallace, I cant find my version, but it had a different result.
This looks pretty good though

Thanks Wallace,
I dumped my FX-Foundry 3 years ago and everything in it. I found that there are too many old scripts there that need updating.

No problem.

The old script is named, "sf-will-lightning.scm". I just remover the "sf-" for the file name and changed the line that needed to be changed in the old script.
I found this information at the Gimp Plugin Registry in the comments pertaining to this script.


That's funny, because I just added it to my Gimp.

Hey Molly, he looks familiar, I think he must be a famous artist. I'm trying to remember in which movie I should have seen him.

Did you see the effect that text "illuminances"?
Came out pretty well ... would he do a tutorial about this effect?

With more time I'll try to play the tutorial;

Wallace Thx! Very well explained!

Yes his work is great and flawless, don't tell him I said so.