Is it possible to make a curve have a noise animation on it? Like if I make a straight line curve, and make it glow, could I then give it a noise effect to make it look like electricity? My first guess would be that I could add a modifier that makes the points on the curve randomize there location, but I couldn’t find anything. Thanks.
There’s the noise modifier
I don’t have that modifier, what version of blender are you using?
You can add Hook modifiers to the curve at it’s vertex individual points and then animate the targets for the Hook Mods. I am not sure this is the best way to go for electricity - like lightning strikes, but it might be worth a try.
Here’s a curve object - the black spring - with two Hook Mods to move it as the ratchet rotates:
Add them in Edit Mode and assign the required vertices to each hook mod. To animate it set a movement over a small number of frames. like a jump in Z, then add a Cycles Modifier to the Keyframes in the Graph Editor in F-Curve Mode. This repeats the keyframed animation over and over depending how you set the Cycles Mod.
Cheers, Clock.
Here’s an example using Hooks Modifiers on the Curve and Noise Modifiers on the F-Curves:
And the blend file:
lightning.blend (494 KB)
It’s just thrown together quickly, but it should point you in the right direction.
Cheers, Clock. 
EDIT:
I didn’t add any Glare or Fog, etc. in Compositing Mode, I guess you know how to do that…
here’s a guy that show how to do this effect…
might be how your wanting to do it… but you might see if you can get some ideas out of watching it…
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here’s another really cool way to do it…
This one really shows you how to mess around with the noise in the Graph Editor to get a nice ‘Electric shock’ effect…
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