special effects

fleeper wrote on 4/27/2004, 5:50 AM

How can someone learn about special effects? There are a couple that I am interested in.

1. A fellow was walking down the street..and he just disappears. It did not sem to be just a simple fade transition---he was the only element of the film to fade--the rest of it appeared the same.

2. I believe the term is rotoscope. It is when you highlight something--it is the same effect as the star wars light saber. If anyone has any tips where or how I could do either of these that would be great.

thanks,

fleeper

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/27/2004, 6:17 AM

The easiest way to make a person vanish it to Chromakey him into the scene and then fade or cut him out.

This can get pretty sophisticated, depending on how real you want it to look and if there is camera movement, etc.

The process is as simple as shooting the person against a neutral (usually blue or green) background and then shooting the street scene. Naturally, you want to match the lighting, etc., and, if there's camera movement, make sure it's the same in each shot. (In theatrical films, they actually use computerized motion control to sync this up, so it's a lot easier if you avoid camera movement completely.)

Then you lay down your background video track and lay down the video of the person on the layer above it and, using the chromakey feature, eliminate his background. Now you can bring him into our out of the scene at will.

Your second is a bit more complicated (if you're talking about locking a video effect onto moving object). If it's any consolation, the basic effect for the light saber in the first Star Wars film was done simply using a highly reflective surface for the saber and then adding sparks and sound effects to make it seem electronic.

Technically, rotoscoping is an animation process in which live action is traced, frame by frame, in order to give it realistic movement.

Hope that helps! Have fun experimenting!

Former user wrote on 4/27/2004, 7:19 AM

If your camera is locked down (like on a tripod) you can have someone walk into a scene and disappear by doing a dissolve between the scene with the man and the scene without.

Experiment with yourself by setting up a chair and a room and shooting the chair empty and not. Then dissolve between them.

Dave T2

Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/27/2004, 8:02 AM

Dave is absolutely right. (In fact, if you use an interesting dissolve and add sounds effects, you can actually do a "transporter" effect!)

The advantage of my chromakey way, though, is that the background doesn't have to be stationary to make it work. In fact, you can even have people walking by end even reacting to the person's sudden disappearance!

Not that there's ever a wrong answer when it comes to special effects...

fleeper wrote on 4/27/2004, 7:48 PM

What type of dissolve should I use? I tried to do this but the dissolves come in froma black or dark scren so it doesn't really seem as if the person dissolves away. To me it looks as if the whole scene fades out then back in with them gone. Any tips?

fleep

ADinelt wrote on 4/27/2004, 8:19 PM

If you want to do just a straight dissolve from one clip into the other so it appears the man slowly disappears, try overlaying one clip onto the other by a second or two.

To do this:
1) Put your first clip (with the man) on one of the video tracks.
2) Put the second clip (without the man) on the same video track, but after the first clip.
3) Slowly drag the second clip to the left until it starts to overlap the first clip. You will see a box with an X appear as the two clips overlap each other. As the first clip is fading out, the second clip is fading in. This is what gives you the dissolve effect. Providing your background was static, you should see the man slowly disappear.
4) To speed up the dissolve, reduce the amount the clips overlap each other. To slow down the dissolve, increase the amount the clips overlap each other.

This is one way to do a dissolve, and I am sure there are many others.

Hope this helps...
Al

Steve Grisetti wrote on 4/28/2004, 6:28 AM

Fleeper took the words right out of my mouth!

But there's no need to be satisfied with a simple dissolve. Experiment by dropping a couple of different transitions onto the overlap. As long as the background remains the same in both clips, the person who vanishes will appear to be the only thing dissolving.

And, as I said earlier, try adding a sound effect to it to enhance the special effect. (Star Trek transporter sound effects, for instance, are available all over the internet.)

Experiment! Have fun! Half the fun of this program is making it do things that even the programmers might not have imagined!

JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/28/2004, 9:27 PM

If you want to get into rotoscoping, check out AlamDV. It is simple to use and the results are spectacular.

~jr

ADinelt wrote on 4/30/2004, 4:34 AM

Hi Fleeper...

My son and I finished off the Transporter Effect clip we were working on and uploaded it to Chienworks web site last night.

Thanks Al

fleeper wrote on 4/30/2004, 5:19 AM

Great job ADinett--can yu post how you did it? I am still getting a "black screen" for a brief moment as I dissolve between my stationary screen and the scene with someone in it.

And JohnnyRoy, thanks for the site.

Fleeper

ADinelt wrote on 4/30/2004, 5:45 AM

Let me clean up the project folders and put together a read-me file. I will try to have something done over the weekend.

Al

fleeper wrote on 4/30/2004, 7:07 AM

Thanks a ton. People like yourself make this forum invalueable to the rest of us.

Fleeper

ADinelt wrote on 4/30/2004, 7:50 PM

Hi Fleeper...

Don't thank me yet. I cleaned up the project and when zipped, it is just over 89 meg (surprised the heck out of me)!!

There are three video (.avi) files in the project:
1) Trans_Watcher.avi - 46 meg
2) Trans_Subject.avi - 33 meg
3) Trans_Sparkle.avi - 22 meg

The rest of the project is actual quite small (couple of .wav files, etc).

Not sure how to get this to you. Where abouts are you located (Canada, U.S. or some other continent)?

Thanks...
Al

Chienworks wrote on 4/30/2004, 8:09 PM

You might want to consider putting together a package that includes highly compressed versions of the files, something like 256Kbps WMV instead of DV .avi. The quality will still be more than good enough to illustrate the process and the effect and the complete package will be only a very tiny fraction of the size. Consider MP3 for the sound files.

If you then want to zip them all together with the .veg file into a single file and keep it all under 10MB, you can upload it to http://www.vegasusers.com/vegshare/ for anyone to grab it.

ADinelt wrote on 4/30/2004, 10:10 PM

Thanks Chienworks...

I will give that a try later this weekend.

Al

ADinelt wrote on 5/1/2004, 10:50 AM

Thanks again Chienworks. Your suggestion worked like a charm.

By re-rendering my original .avi files to .wmv files, the zip file dropped from 89 meg down to just under 3 meg.

I have uploaded the zip file to Chienwork's website for anyone who wants to grab a copy of the project. I just uploaded it, so it will probably take a while for it to appear, so if it is not there right now, check back again later.

There is a readme file included that you will probably want to read in order to re-create what I have done.

Have fun...
Al

Chienworks wrote on 5/1/2004, 2:03 PM

OK, it's there now. I think your final .vf file may need some fixing though. It plays parts of the video several times rather than showing the whole thing straight through.

ADinelt wrote on 5/2/2004, 11:00 AM

Hi Chienworks...

Not sure what is happening here. I took the zip file that I sent you and unzipped it to a new directory called TransTest. I renamed my old TransporterDemo directory so the newly unzipped projects would not try to use any of the video or audio files from the old directory.

I then went through each of the projects and created the intermediate video files for use in the subsequent projects. When it came to the final project, things worked the way they should. I will upload a TransporterDemo2.zip file created from the TransTest directory.

If anyone else downloads the project and tries it, I would be interested if they experience the same thing or what they did to resolve the problem.

Sorry if this has caused any problems for anyone...
Al

Chienworks wrote on 5/3/2004, 3:53 AM

Hello Al! I got your "version 2" zip file. Still looks the same though. Here's a screenshot of what i see on the timeline when i open "trans_final.vf"

http://www.vegasusers.com/testbench/screenshots/chienworks-adinelt-trans_final.vf.jpg

The whole process works fine. It's just that the final project file seems to have bits and pieces of the video 6 times on the timeline. *shrug* I dunno. It still gets the idea across and shows how the effect is created.

ADinelt wrote on 5/3/2004, 4:56 AM

I understand now. I thought the clip was repeating when it was playing.

What is happening here is that a single clip has been split into several sections so that the lense flare f/x could be applied. Here is a breakdown of what is going on:

The first portion of the video clip does not have any lens flare f/x applied.
The second portion (the first clip with the green FX box) starts two lense flares going from nothing into a certain intensity in the middle of the subject.
The third portion of the video clip starts the two clips moving vertically. One going towards the head and the second going towards the feet, but only about two thirds of the way. They should be remaining at the same intensity.
The fourth portion of the clip has them continuing in a vertical mortion, but this time fading out to nothing again.
And finally, the fifth portion of the clip does not have any lense flare effects.

Thanks...
Al

P.S. If I understand what I have read, the same thing can be accomplished in Vegas without splitting up the clip, but assigning "key frames" instead. Very cool if that is the way it works.

fleeper wrote on 5/4/2004, 4:59 AM

how did you make the lens flare? is that ust an efect within screeblast?

fleeper

ADinelt wrote on 5/4/2004, 9:16 AM

Lens Flare is listed under the F/X tab within Screenblast.

Like most effects in Screenblast, you can set Begin and End properties so you can animate the effect. You can also set different properties as well, such as intensity, size, colour, angle, etc. (some of the names may not be exact as I am not at my home computer where I have Screenblast installed). There are also different types of lens flares you can apply.

Thanks...
Al