Is there a way to pass a light bar over a keyed text super or graphic with alpha channel to simulate a "gleam" of light as the object moves in 3D space?
You can use the gradient generator to create the bar. That gradient can be used for the mask and the highlight. Use pan and crop to move the gradient bar or motion track to move the bar.
Here is a sample veg that I did a few weeks ago for just this type of thing. you can remove the noise generator to remove the 'glitter' type effect.
this is so funny. that sounds exactly like what I used to do to get a gleam effect on stuff when I did linear editing (I'm sure you kids wouldn't understand...) I had a Ross RVS 416 2ME switcher. On ME1, just do a diagonal wipe w/ soft white border from the graphics source to the same graphics source, sending it to ME2 (downstream), using the graphics file's alpha channel to super the file with the alpha channel. You would think the software would offer some kind of "gleam" or "highlight" option...