Tornado Effect ala “The Mask”

[Steve Roberts]

Think like a 2D cel animator. How would that effect be done in a Bugs Bunny cartoon?

[Kevin Camp]

i would think that having your 2d cutout rotating around it y axis in 3d with a lot of motion blur, then composited over the same 2d cutout, not rotating, would give a decent illusion of the mask effect… particularly if you speed up the footage as part of the transition.

Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Darby Edelen]

Yes, I would recommend also looking into creating several instances of the individual to be rotated in 3D space, rotated at even intervals to one another (2 instances at perpendicular to each other for example). Then look at a box blur for hiding some of the hard edges, and a compound blur perhaps to blur the higher (and usually wider) parts of the person a bit more.

Also, I recommend pre-comping the footage as 3D layers fading from one to another and rotating instances of this pre-comp in your final composition (fade up the duplicate instances after the rotation has started). This gives you an added benefit, if you duplicate the pre-composition and turn the original layers to guide layers (they won’t be rendered) you can create whirly swooshes that follow the layers rotating (turn on collapse transformations for the pre-comps in the final comp).

If this all sounds a bit confusing I’d be willing to send you a sample .aep =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Eric Goldstein]

Thanks to everyone for thoughts.

I’ve been pursuing a similar, but slightly different approach, creating blurred shapes in Photoshop from the before and after images and using BCC’s cylinder to make them into circles. I’ve used radial blur to enhance the spinning quality. I’ve animated the various rings (long render time with the blur). I’m pre-rendereding the spinning effect to make it easier to work with the main comp.

I’m rotating the cut out figures of the man in 3D space, also using some blur along with motion blur. This will be combined with prerendered effect I mentioned above.

I’m still open to ideas. I’d certainly appreciate a sample, Darby if you don’t mind. I’ll let you know how this version comes out.

Thanks again,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Eric Goldstein]

A final word on the Tornado effect. I ended up combining elements created in Photoshop with Boris’ cylinder effect and combining this with the figures rotating in 3D with motion blur. It worked out pretty well.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

I have to present Adobe AE CS3 at Promax, and this question gave me an idea for that.

You can use the puppet tool for this- Create several points, and then give each puppet point a wiggle expression. Turn on motion blur and watch it fly.

If you precomp the still image, and then fade from one to the other, you can have some pretty nice crazy blurry motion.

And to get control over the expression so that it starts and stops when you want it to, use expression controls (as I did in part 3 of the Expression Controls tutorial).

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com

—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911

[Eric Goldstein]

Hi Aaron,

I’d love to hear more. Will you post your tutorial at some point?

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

Once AE CS3 is released, I hope to do a bunch of tutorials on the puppet tool, and if so, I will include that in there somewhere.

The short of it is – add some puppet points in a straight line from head to toe, and then use the wiggle expression in each puppet point. Makes the character wobble a lot – if the motion blur is on and the wiggle hefty enough it gets very blurry. Then just animate the layer’s position and/or scale as needed.

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com

—————————————-
Click the link below to subscribe to the Creative Cow After Effects Podcast, and get free AE video tutorials:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=111087911

[Eric Goldstein]

Aaron,

Thanks again.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Jimmyb Boyton]

Hi I would like the aep file as i am looking to use a tornado spin effect in a current project I’m undertaking.
Thanks
JimmyB