[Graham Quince]

The easiest route to these type of spells would be to use the lightning effect, you can change the colour, width, and start and end position.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

All the Serious Magic (now part of Adobe) products use Vector Keys, which combines Difference and Chroma keys to get a good result.

If your project is at the low end of the scale, Visual Communicator does a pretty good job.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I agree with Steve, it sounds like a case of uncompressed files. you coould always render out both an uncompressed version and a Dv-codec version. Edit the DV version into your file, taking notes of an and out points, then when you’re happy swap in the new uncompressed fx.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Instead of tracking the monitor, can you export the AE project using Maxon’s free plugin. You’ll get camera data which you’d be able to use to locate the video layer in 3D space. It would be a lot simpler than using corner pin.

Then rendered C4D footage will be as 2D, but if you retain the 3D camera and switch on the 3D properties of your swappable video layer, you should have an easy job.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I think I can possibly beat most of you…although not all.

Last year we bought 10 copies of visual communicator for our ten best IT-friendly teachers. No problem until Adobe buy out Serious Magic. Actually no problem for another six months, then they retire the Serious Magic activation page.

I rebuilt my laptop this week, and have seven days to activate VC2 and it seems no one at Adobe Europe even knows Adobe own this product. Admittedly the UK sale has been pushed back and back, but it’s out in the USA.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’d probably use a still of his hand and animate that going into his nose and using bezier warp to enlarge the nostril to take the hand. Truly gross by the way.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

I’ve blown up a few cars in post and i’ve seen the BBC Series Spooks do a post blow up in their series opener. Truth be told, you can always tell, but if you keep your edits short.

In the past, I’ve had the guys film the car, then drive it out of shot and film the background. Cutting the car out in photoshop, i prepare a final, blown up version and use an explosion to act a transition between the two shots.

Little tricks like blowing doors out of shot can be achieved if they’re done quickly. I do like Zaxwerks for throwing something towards the camera too.

The trick I’ve found is to have lots going on to distract the viewer and keep the shots short so that the audience doesn’t pick up on it.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

My personal preference for this sort of thing is to use ‘invisible’ buttons prepared in photoshop. I’ll create a DVD menu in after effects with the buttons appearing, then prepare the buttons from a still in Photoshop, using a rectangle to makr out the button. Before I save this file though, I turn off the rectangle layer, as I would for any highlight layer too.

Once in Encore, the software picks up the shape of the rectangle and turns the whole thing into a button

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Many thanks for your advice Darby

I know hat you mean about bringing things down in quality. I’d rendered out using the Microsft DV codec for similar reasons, but it’s own, that’s not been enough.

Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films

[Graham Quince]

Personally, and this is just for me, I work by:

1) Editing together a rought cut in Premiere Pro
2) Exporting the project as an AAF file.
3) Import that into AE
4) Find the effects sequences and then pre-comp those sections, so I can add all the effects I need.
5) Render those sequences out as lossless and then import them back into PP.

Because the new files are the same length as the old un-FX versions, I drop them on top of the old video and can render out the final file with FX.

Hope that makes sense
Graham

https://www.quinceweb.com – web design
——–
https://www.shiveringcactus.bravehost.com – Free FX for amateur films