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  • Fading “echo” trail

    Posted by Tim Fay on March 2, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    Hey.

    I’m just trying a little experiment and I simply can’t seem to get this to work!
    What I’m trying to achieve is a moving ‘trail’ behind an actor dancing across the screen. This is black and white, character against a black background (so can be luma keyed etc). Basically rather than having a smooth video movement I’m taking the footage at around 200/sec shutter speed so that I get clear concise frames, then I’m taking every fifth frame or so (using Posterize time), having done this I’m trying to get an echo of the previous, say, two or three frames. I want these to be faded, as the actor moves to a new frame the last one should fade out as the new one fade in.

    The effect I’m imagining is something like a trail of previous frames that fades gently out at the end.

    I’ve tried mucking about with echo but that just kinda cuts-to the next frame rather than fading out. I tried multiple layers, each a step out of turn and luma keying/blending them together but that obviously doesn’t give the fade effect.

    So! I turn to creative cow for help

    Thanks in advance!

    Joey Foreman replied 15 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Joey Foreman

    March 2, 2011 at 4:45 pm

    CC Time Blend is what you want.

    Here’s a great tut.

    Use Time Blend FX if you want to give the trails an interesting color, motion, etc.

    Joey Foreman
    Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist

  • Tim Fay

    March 3, 2011 at 1:58 pm

    Legend, I fiddle with the Time FX filter but couldnt get what I wanted. The tute will no doubt help 🙂

  • Joey Foreman

    March 3, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    I wouldn’t call myself a legend, but I appreciate the compliment;)

    CC Time Blend will give you no result at all if you just apply it to the footage. Definitely watch the tut, as its operation is counter-intuitive to say the least.

    The gist, though, is that you apply the effect twice. The bottom copy you set to Copy, the top copy set to Paste.

    Then start adjusting the parameters of the top one.

    Joey Foreman
    Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist

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