Help to create an effect

im.away wrote on 7/12/2010, 5:15 AM

Just when I thought I was getting good at creating my own effects, I have stumped myself with this one.....

I would like to have an image of a calendar showing the date 1829 on it. I would then like the page to tear away (and preferably fly off into the distance) revealing another page showing 1830....and so on until the year 1863 is reached.

The timing is less important than the actual technique. Once I have figured out how to do it I'll play around with the duration of the scene and see what fits best in the project.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Russ

Comments

richard-amirault wrote on 7/12/2010, 5:29 AM

I would like to have an image of a calendar showing the date 1829 on it. I would then like the page to tear away (and preferably fly off into the distance) revealing another page showing 1830....and so on until the year 1863 is reached.

The "page peel" transitions in Vegas will do this except for the "fly away" part. There is a "fly away" transition, but the page remains flat during the initial "peel away" and tumble as it flys off into the distance.

I would do this in still photos rather than video. Seems it would be a lot easier to create calendar pages in Photoshop than shoot a real calendar. Do you need "authentic" calendar pages? With the correct numbering for those dates? Do you want 12 pages for each year or only one per year?

im.away wrote on 7/12/2010, 6:03 AM

I want to keep it simple while still giving the impression of time rolling on, so one page per year is going to be OK. I see where you are coming from with the page peel. Maybe I should try a few stills made with Photoshop and see how they look? The dates for each month could be suitably blurred, so long as the actual year is clearly visible. Thanks for the idea.

To explain further...what I want to have is a map with a shaded area expanding as the years on the calendar tear off, representing the spread of a Colony over time. I think I'm onto something with your idea.

Cheers

Russ

farss wrote on 7/12/2010, 7:10 AM

Depending on how good you want this to look you may strike a snag. The Page Peel, Page Roll etc transitions in Vegas and other NLEs show the back and front of the page as the same thing, kind of like the paper the page is made from is transparent.

The only solution I've just found to this is in After Effects and even then to me it looks a bit unnatural as you can only control the color of the back of the page, no texture or such. There's probably some complex way to do this but this is now layers of complexity past your goal of "keep it simple".

If anyone is interested I did find this tutorial that could be adapted to give the effect you're after: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/flip-book_motion/.
I only mention this because a few years back how to do this was a hot topic that I don't think we ever found an answer to apart from using a 3D application.

Bob.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/12/2010, 8:17 PM

I'd say the easiest way would be a 3d app. You could do one page ripping & then layer that animation to do more pages.

The flipbook could be done relatively easy in Vegas, but I assume it's not the look you're looking for.

Opticus wrote on 7/12/2010, 9:37 PM

I did this to remove the image on the backside of the page peel:

1. Create a video clip of the page, such that initially you see the calendar page, and then transition to white (or the paper color) using a linear wipe.

2. Render this clip and place it on the timeline and apply your page peel transition, positioning the peel so that the wipe on the clip syncs with the peeling of the page. You will have to experiment with the speed, angle and soft edge of the linear wipe, this may take a few tries. On your page peel, set the opacity to 0% and the "light color" to white or light grey.

Here is a link to the result:

http://www.opticuserver.com/MiscVideo/PeelTest01.wmv

Cal

im.away wrote on 7/13/2010, 5:01 AM

Thanks for all of the replies. I'm getting somewhere with the page peel but it's not quite what I'm after. Still, I'm not known as a quitter so I'll keep plugging away. Thanks for the tip Opticus, re: white reverse side of page.

Cheers

Russ

rs170a wrote on 7/13/2010, 6:55 AM

I knew I'd seen it on here somewhere :-)
Page Peel Question
There's a link to a zipped file (3rd post from the bottom from Chienworks) in the thread that may be useful.

Mike

Earl_J wrote on 7/13/2010, 10:42 AM

I remember years ago seeing the simple effect of just having the page tilt to the left (or right) a bit, as you would view it if you grabbed the bottom corner and simply tore it down and away; and then it just drops straight to the bottom ... you never see any fingers or anything like that ...
* * *
If you have a map underneath that continues to change, perhaps you could create the passage of time by having the calendar fill one third of the screen (centered vertically with a bit of transparency) and have it march across the screen - each successive year moving slightly to the right ... and fading in and out ...

Good luck with the effect; let us know how it ends up ... and perhaps posting the final clip online for us...

Until that time ... Earl J.