Cool light effect

[Mike Gamble]

Hey everyone, glad you enjoyed our video.
I’m going to hand this question over to my VFX guy, Tom Wood, to explain the tech behind the creation.
Hopefully it will make more sense to you all. He’ll respond as soon as he’s able too.
We’ll be dropping a video explaining all this in the near future also.

Thanks again!
Mike

[Graham Bernard]

Thanks Mike. Much appreciated.

* Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Thomas Wood]

Hi Dale and Creative Cow’ers,

All great ideas on how we achieved the final effect. Right on the money with LED’s on the wheel. We tried a couple of different setup’s, but stick-on strips with battery packs taped to the spokes worked the best.

Thankfully the light trails were not all done in post, but in camera, 2 cameras to be precise. We had a Sony FS700 and a Nikon D800 rigged on a straight bar as close together as possible. While the Sony captured the video, the Nikon was set for a long exposure. After a bit or trial and error, we got the timing and exposure technique dialed.

In After Effects I used the puppet tool on the long exposure plate to morph and compensate for the parallax shift of the 2 cameras. With the video plate as a guide, I could match the path’s of the wheel from both assets. Then, using a rough luminance key and various rotoscoping techniques (tracking and keyframing) I revealed the light trail as the rider crossed the frame.

With some simple color correction to maximize the light effect, we had the finished product.

We are working on a full behind the scenes write up with more detail.

Tom Wood – VFX creator for Light Cycles
https://www.thomas-wood.co.uk

[Graham Bernard]

Two cameras! Of course.

* Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Dale Estes]

Thanks Thomas,

That was a great explanation, looking forward to the BTS video soon. So is each scene a single long exposure on the Nikon, then the technique you describe to “reveal” the light traces? Everything looks seamless, well done.

[László Kovács]

2 cameras… never would have tought on that :))))

Best regards

László Kovács