bullet shots?
- Thread starter amoildani
- Start date
J.R. Hudson
Spirit Animal
Re: bullet shots?
I'd post this in the AE forum (more experienced advice)
I'd post this in the AE forum (more experienced advice)
Re: bullet shots?
muzzle flash.. just get yourself a still .tiff or motion AVI of a muzzle flash against a black background for the type of gun that you want to use(like the ones found here: http://www.artbeats.com/prod/product.php?pg=3&id=165 or you can find alot of them them free on the web... like here: http://detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm ), and then key it into the scene using a luma key. position and size it where you want by positioning and sizing the layer.
..word of advice. dont go making muzzle flashes in the middle of the day. its really uncommon for it to be visible when its light out. as it gets darker, youll see it a little, and at night, you can see it for sure, but in broad daylight.. its like showing a car headlight beam lighting up the road under the afternoon sun ..its just not realistic.
muzzle flash.. just get yourself a still .tiff or motion AVI of a muzzle flash against a black background for the type of gun that you want to use(like the ones found here: http://www.artbeats.com/prod/product.php?pg=3&id=165 or you can find alot of them them free on the web... like here: http://detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm ), and then key it into the scene using a luma key. position and size it where you want by positioning and sizing the layer.
..word of advice. dont go making muzzle flashes in the middle of the day. its really uncommon for it to be visible when its light out. as it gets darker, youll see it a little, and at night, you can see it for sure, but in broad daylight.. its like showing a car headlight beam lighting up the road under the afternoon sun ..its just not realistic.
iamloser said:
You can see them even in bright sunshine. I have videoed several pieces involving guns firing, from pistols to assault rifles and have seen the flash on most of them. Often it is lost between the shutter/exposure of the camera.
However I would agree that whenever I have tried to superimpose mussle flashes onto daylight footage, it is near impossible to get the correct look. The problem is if you don't include them, it doesn't look like anything is happening to the audience. You must create what looks "real" to them, not what happens in real life. A year or so ago we used a fully cycling blank firer with silencer. Although it produced no flash, and wouldn't in real life, we had to add one in post because it looked "wrong" without it.
hemophilia
Well-known member
OK here's my technique... a little different...but an interesting effect nonetheless. If you wanted it to look better than this, you could get actual footage of a muzzle flash (as a previous post suggested) and maybe combine it with this technique. My way is a tad cartoony.
1) Make a layer of your footage in AE.
2) Create a 'solid' layer in like an orange/yellow color on top of that. Use the mask or painting tools to vaguely draw a shape of a muzzle flash. Pistols are generally more circular in nature, or they'll have one or two 'arms' to the flash. High caliber/machine-gun type weapons tend to have the fancier star-shaped flashes with many points. Add a fast blur to this layer to smooth out the edges. Alternatively you could import a still (from photoshop or whatever else) of a similar drawing.
At this point the image will look really crappy:
3) Make a third layer on top of the other two. Apply an effect 'ramp' to it, select the type "radial ramp"... and set the effect settings so the center of the radial ramp is the center of the flash... and the ramp goes from white on the inside to black towards the outside. At this point your composition should look like total nonsense-- just a white-to-black gradient with no view of the background. Then switch the layer mode to "color dodge". It should look like a muzzle flash at this point.
For added effect, you can then draw some masks on the third layer (the radial ramp layer) to prevent it from affecting any parts of the image that would not be getting lit by the flash.
For example:
In this picture you can see the flash, along with the masks I drew out to prevent the 3rd layer from brightening parts of the image that are turned away from the gun (like the opposite side of the guy in the center, or the back wall where it's blocked by the shooter).
4) Keyframe the opacity on layers 2 & 3 so that the flash only shows up for a frame or 2 tops. For some reason I like the look of my 3rd layer (radial ramp) lagging one frame behind-- so there's a bit of lingering brightness once the flash is gone. But like I said, mine are cartoony.
To see this technique in motion, check out the short I put it in:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=31399
I hope this helps!
1) Make a layer of your footage in AE.
2) Create a 'solid' layer in like an orange/yellow color on top of that. Use the mask or painting tools to vaguely draw a shape of a muzzle flash. Pistols are generally more circular in nature, or they'll have one or two 'arms' to the flash. High caliber/machine-gun type weapons tend to have the fancier star-shaped flashes with many points. Add a fast blur to this layer to smooth out the edges. Alternatively you could import a still (from photoshop or whatever else) of a similar drawing.
At this point the image will look really crappy:
3) Make a third layer on top of the other two. Apply an effect 'ramp' to it, select the type "radial ramp"... and set the effect settings so the center of the radial ramp is the center of the flash... and the ramp goes from white on the inside to black towards the outside. At this point your composition should look like total nonsense-- just a white-to-black gradient with no view of the background. Then switch the layer mode to "color dodge". It should look like a muzzle flash at this point.
For added effect, you can then draw some masks on the third layer (the radial ramp layer) to prevent it from affecting any parts of the image that would not be getting lit by the flash.
For example:
In this picture you can see the flash, along with the masks I drew out to prevent the 3rd layer from brightening parts of the image that are turned away from the gun (like the opposite side of the guy in the center, or the back wall where it's blocked by the shooter).
4) Keyframe the opacity on layers 2 & 3 so that the flash only shows up for a frame or 2 tops. For some reason I like the look of my 3rd layer (radial ramp) lagging one frame behind-- so there's a bit of lingering brightness once the flash is gone. But like I said, mine are cartoony.
To see this technique in motion, check out the short I put it in:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=31399
I hope this helps!
maverickprods
Active member
Single recordings are available for quite reasonable prices from www.sounddogs.com. Any kind of sound effect you may want.