Comments

bakerja wrote on 5/24/2002, 8:21 AM
If you can find some footage of the lightning on a dark sky (preferably black), you could chroma key it over existing footage.
Former user wrote on 5/24/2002, 9:07 AM
You would need software that allows "rotoscoping" which is animating frame by frame over existing footage.

Dave T2
johnmeyer wrote on 5/24/2002, 10:57 AM
I think Adobe After Effects does what you want (expensive though). Check out this link:

After Effects
Cheesehole wrote on 5/24/2002, 1:21 PM
I don't think you need AfterFX for something like lightning, as long as you keep it simple. you can use any decent paint program, like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to create a still frame of a lightning bolt. I know Photoshop has plugins that can generate great looking lightning. all you need is a few frames worth of lightning, in different positions.

lightning often strikes in doubles or triples or much more. each bolt will be in about the same place, but the branches will be in different configurations.

once you have a few frames, you can save them as PNG files with a transparent background and then flash the frames on and off in Vegas by having them show in rapid succession with very short durations.

too enhance the effect, add a track on top and add screen-wide flashes (with solid color generator) to simulate the bright flash effect. experiment with the "compositing mode" (Add/Overlay/etc) to get the right effect.

some experimentation with the timing and you'll end up with great looking lightning.
Luxo wrote on 5/24/2002, 1:43 PM
AlamDV is a rotoscoping tool that will produce the lightening bolt and set your forest ablaze, all without any chroma keying. The only problem is you have to use uncompressed AVI, since the program has trouble reading the SF DV codec. Rotoscoping is also slow and tedious.

http://www.csb-digital.com/alamdv/

Check out the movie "The Test" in the samples cinema. Wow! Let us see what you end up with.
Luxo
Stiffler wrote on 5/24/2002, 3:32 PM
Great ideas...all of them.

This will be a short clip, not very complex (I'm hoping to not spend any $$).

I could not get "The Test" to play, but I'll try it again (all I got was audio).

Next I'm going to look for some thunder sounds.

Thanks, and keep the ideas coming!

Bonefish wrote on 5/26/2002, 8:19 AM
Sonic Foundry has a very inexpensive ($15 bucks, I think) collection of 1001 sound effects that are a lot of fun to use in your projects. I believe there is a thunder clip or two in there. Also, do a web search for sound effects and you'll find several other sites with free sound files including several with some good thunder recordings. Sorry I don't have the url handy, but I found the sites very easily using Google.
SonyDennis wrote on 5/26/2002, 2:27 PM
Some great ideas here! I'd also try using the "Add" compositing mode on the lightning overlay track, since light is additive. Just find a nice lightning strike against a dark background and Add it over the top of your tree. If you're not looking for a pro-level result, the 5-minute solution will fool most people.
///d@
Chienworks wrote on 5/26/2002, 5:16 PM
Sometimes you can even capture the real thing. http://www.vegasusers.com/vidshare/ I just uploaded a 9 second title that includes a lightning strike. I set the camera up facing out the window during a recent lightning storm and let it run for 20 minutes. I got one good strike, but that one was enough.

The sound effects come from Sonic Foundry's CD, but i couldn't find thunder. I used a metal crash, slowed it down about 30%, and added some EQ and reverb. I'm sure if you compared it to real thunder it wouldn't sound good, but by itself with the wind it sounds impressive enough.
Stiffler wrote on 5/26/2002, 8:25 PM
Wow Cheinworks...that looked very realistic. :) I am planing on doing some time-lapse stuff of summer storms anyway (I've got a great view at my work), so I'll see what I come up with.

I have found some good thunder sounds. Findsounds dot com...I'm puting that in my favorites list.

I looked into AlamDV, and that opened up all kinds of possibiities that I could play with. Alot of people seem to use it for doing Star Wars spoofs. This video hobbie of mine has turned into a habit! (a good one).

Thanks...I'll let you know what I come up with.








Stiffler wrote on 5/27/2002, 1:57 AM
Cheesehole...I'm looking into Photoshop 7 now, but it looks like it is $450?? Is there a scaled down version?

Another thing I could do is just scan a picture of lightning, (but that may cause some copyright problems).








tserface wrote on 5/27/2002, 2:18 AM
PhotoImpact from ULead has a great lightning effect and it only costs around $89.95.

Also, PhotoShop has a little brother called PhotoShop Elements which has most of the stuff that is in PhotoShop if you don't need professional color separation, vector drawing, and a few other things. It's under $100 as well.

Tom
Cheesehole wrote on 5/27/2002, 1:54 PM
yeah $450 is insane, but ps7 is the first version of photoshop for many years where I'd say it's well worth the $$ just because of the amount of useful stuff they finally added. but only if you intend to learn how to use it.

as long as the light version supports 3rd party filters I'd say go for it, especially if you are going to do more of this stuff. PS7 is a good tool to make titles and special FX, and masks for Vegas (but I'm not familiar with the light version so make sure you can still do all the important stuff)

also remember that the lightning filter for PS is additional $$, but you can draw the bolt yourself and use photoshop's built in effects to give it all the extra glowing and stuff that it needs. there is a somewhat steep learning curve involved, but PS is a worthy tool to know.

it's good to be aware of copyright issues too. I once used a copywritten closeup of the guts of a CPU in a project that wasn't going to be seen by many people, but they liked it a lot... and then it got more attention... and then I had to replace that graphic in a bunch of places and that was a huge pain! so even if you don't expect your project to see the light of day, you should be careful cuz you never know how popular it will become!
Luxo wrote on 5/27/2002, 7:46 PM
Cheesehole,

I know this is getting a little off topic, but can you briefly list the new features of photoshop 7 you like so much?

Luxo
Cheesehole wrote on 5/27/2002, 8:34 PM
>>can you briefly list the new features of photoshop 7 you like so much?

yeah I can try... I'm usually critical of Adobe because they don't seem to pay nearly enough attention to the interface, but it's evident in PS7 that they took a re-look at a lot of baggage that's been carrying over version to version and fixed it. Image Ready (the partner program that is more for web graphics) also is hugely improved and may even replace Fireworks for me.

- text is much improved with spell check and auto-hyphen
- brush selection is fixed so each tool retains it's own brush settings and choosing/re-sizing brushes is streamlined
- paint engine got a huge technology injection :D
- most tools got a make-over to put important options up front
- liquify tool is polished up so it doesn't feel like a cheezy add-on!
- interface is a bit less *mode based* which allows you to do more at once
- can hit Save even when using the text tool!
- built in explorer window just like Vegas
- layer FX are sweeter than ever

a lot of it is stuff that should have happened before, but has finally happened now! I'd say its the biggest upgrade since "layers" came out :D

this is still adobe though, and most stuff will appear to be exactly the same as previous versions. dig a little and you'll find version 7 to be a new animal after all. I always used to feel like I needed Illustrator to complement previous versions of PS but that is no longer the case.

you can go here and get the company line:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/newfeatures.html