Simon Bonner
Forum Replies Created
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Hard to say. It’s on greenscreen? So are you building a cave in 3D, or in AE from 2D layers arranged in 3D space? Or will the cave be ‘invisible’, with essentially a black background?
First thing you will need to do is track the torches (this might have been easier if the torches were on). It now occurs to me that by torch you might not mean what we British think of as a torch – i.e. a flashlight. If you are using Indiana Jones style torches you will have a lot more trouble – you will need to create a flame and have the light flickering. There is very little chance this will look real, as you will probably want to have the torchlight interacting with the surface of the actors’ bodies, creating light and shadow on a 3D surface.
If you are using flashlights, however, you could probably parent a lens flare to the torch, and maybe also make use of a plug in from the Foundry called T-beam: https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/pkg_plugins.aspx?ui=7EB882D6-AFE1-4CCA-B28D-B20DB7A46E7A
All in all though, this sounds like a good example of a scene that can never really be fixed in post without a Michael Bay size budget.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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https://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2008/06/fix-quicktime-gamma-shift/
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Unless everyone has been keeping secrets from me, there is no way to do this. It might seem odd if you’re used to working in a 3D programme, but you don’t really need to see fully rendered objects outside of the frame, because your viewers won’t see them.
You can change the camera view to make these objects visible. Or you can create a new camera, pan around, then delete it when you’re done.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Hi Roy,
You should be able to upload an image – the icon above the message box that looks like a camera.
You might want to check out this tutorial by Eran Stern. It doesn’t deal directly with the effect you’re talking about, but I’m sure it will give you some ideas.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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At first glance I thought it must be the sun shining through the windows (or portholes?) but after closer examination it looks like it was done in post, possibly with masked white solids.
Try a test with a white solid that has a highly feathered elliptical mask on it – play with the scaling and transparency to get the timing of the effect right. You might want to get one of the flashes right, then copy and paste it before resizing it to get a bit of variation.
It doesn’t look more complicated than that. I could be wrong though…
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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I’d echo Kevin C’s recommendation, and I also suggest you check out the podcasts here at the Cow. It’s probably not realistic to expect someone to help you out via IM because there are lots of paid courses out there and also a lot of free internet resources.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Hi Maxime,
Best thing to do is render in the highest possible quality (quicktime animation / photo jpeg), import into encore and let that programme budget your conversion to mpeg. Saves the hassle of doing it yourself.
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Hi Jonathan,
No, I believe this was one of the main advances in v.7
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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For animating, look up keyframes in help. Basically a keyframe is when you tell a property (like scale, position, start, end) to be a certain value at a certain point in time. If you then set it to be another value at another point in time, it will animate between those two values.
Yes, you can set the stroke effect to ‘reveal layer’ instead of ‘on transparent’, but if i remember correctly this only works as expected if the stroke effect is actually on the layer you want to reveal. In this case, it is on a separate layer. So what you want to do it keep it ‘on transparent’ and set the bottom picture layer to use the solid layer as an ‘alpha matte’ To find out how to do that, check the help files for alpha matte (in brief, there is a drop down menu on the layer in the timeline panel – if you can’t see it, hit f4).
Yes, but key out white I meant key out brighter. Be sure to change the threshold or it won’t work. You might have to toggle on transparency (button on bottom of composition panel) to see it working.
Anyway, let me know how it goes. You might find it useful to check out the list of podcast tutorials here at the cow and search for the stroke effect – i think there are a couple of podcasts on that topic. And if you are stuck with the concept of keyframes, check out tutorial number 3 here https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx
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Hi Anita,
Yes, you can do this. Draw your picture on paper (the simpler the better) and scan it in. Then follow these steps:
1: Add it to a new comp.
2: Add the luma key effect, and make it key out white. Change the threshold amount until the white bg is keyed out and only the black ink is visible.
3: Go to the layer menu and chose ‘auto trace’. Make sure the ‘new layer’ box is checked. The other default settings should be fine. Hit ok.
4: To the new layer with all the masks on, add the stroke effect. Set it to stroke all masks, and to stroke sequentially.
5. Set keyframes for the start property, animating from 100 – 0.Voila. You should have something like the video below. You can change the order of the masks if you don’t like the default order AE has chosen. You can also change the stroke colour, width, BG color, etc to your preference. Good luck!
ps, I like your website – best use of animation ever!
Simon Bonner
youtube.com/simonsaysfx