Gunblasts in AE

CookFX Productions

CookFX Productions

Well-known member
I've tried some old fashioned 8mm tricks with camera's, and also sizing down a few bursts of flame, but I'm not getting the right look or feel. Does anyone know of a good tutorial on how to make gun blasts? All I use is painted air soft guns and you cant tell the difference once you add the sound but if you don't have the muzzle blast some times it tends to look bad.

Brian "sinister" Cook
 
remember.. not all guns have a muzzle flash (unless ur looking directly into the barrel.. i have a springfield xd9 9mm and i never notice muzzle flash when im shooting. although if your trying to mimic a 44 or 45 or 357 then yah..
 
You can do a search for muzzle flash graphic online (they're basically just pre-key stills of gun flash), or just pm me and I'll send you some. The actual "look" of the flash doesn't matter, because if you freeze frame on one then all muzzle flashes looks incredibly fake. The trick is the duration of the flash itself, which has to be very short, usually a split second so that the audience doesn't have time to look too closely at it. Practice with keyframing and get the timing right, then it'll look real.
 
Thanks

Thanks

I can see where I've been going wrong, and what I can do to correct it. Jade you were right in what you said about it can look fake the demo's that i watched on a website if i can find the caliber of gun fire in a picture, and then take that, i shouldnt have a problem if i keyframe it out from there and add some barrel smoke. You guys are great help. I have been looking for a place to call home for my film ponderings and i think i might have found it.

Brian "Sinister" Cook
 
Muzzle flashes are incredibly easy to draw in Photoshop and composite in AE. One frame only usually. Just remember to also give some highlights to the surroundings closest to and facing the illumination of the shot.
 
Gunblast designing in PS

Gunblast designing in PS

I looked at andrew action movie essentials, and watched a preview to the tutorial dvd, and it showed a little how to draw it out, but color it and so on, I mean i've fired a 9 mm and thats about it and I didnt have my face at the end of the barrel to see what the blast look like, i know your talking orange/yellow/whites/even a little blue, im guessing but shading all that, in is what im curios about. And I want the double set of dvd's andrew mentioned has anyone picked those up?
 
CookFX Productions said:
And I want the double set of dvd's andrew mentioned has anyone picked those up?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got them and they're great. The tutorial really helped me understand AE a lot better and I especially love the blood burst on the Action Essential disk.
 
Working on Something

Working on Something

OK, So I'm the type of person who has always done things different and thanks john for the free page because it made see something on how they do there barrel flashes, or the trick, I think, it looks like a blow torch on a black background, so im going to experiment with mine and see how that works out. And if it does i'll post it for sure, and Jade those blood composites are great I want them for exit wounds, but I use compressed air 150+ pounds of pressure, a home made vest with different size tubes, not very big with valves in that hook up to some other home made specialty's and I have a blood fest with out the computer and it sprays more I love that effects, messy and a little hard to clean up at time but I like it. I like combining old fashioned special fx with what im slowly learning with visual FX and motion graphics. I'd know more but my school closed. But doesn't keep a determined fulltime worker from spending his whole life savings an an AG-DVX100A, and G5 Powermac quad-core, It was worth it after losing 2 years of school.
 
It's nice to see Andrew Kramer on this site now. I bought his Serious Effects and Compositing DVD and it's done wonders for me. Just wanted to say thank you Andrew. I HIGHLY recommend these DVD tutorials to other people.
 
zakaree said:
remember.. not all guns have a muzzle flash (unless ur looking directly into the barrel.. i have a springfield xd9 9mm and i never notice muzzle flash when im shooting. although if your trying to mimic a 44 or 45 or 357 then yah..
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say this is true. It's just that you might not notice it while shooting in certain light (you're concentrating on the target) and even that the flash itself might just be less noticable to anyone in that lighting. I find it makes sense to match the muzzle flash to the TOD and environment. If your characters are shooting in a dark room with little to no ambient light, you will not only want strong muzzle flashes, but you want those muzzle flashes to effect the environment around the room. I would use either camera mounted strobes or studio strobes facing the actors to get the lighting effect and then composite strong muzzle flashes in post.

Outside, midday, during the summer, the muzzle flashes would be much less noticable and the flash wouldnt affect the lighting of the environment. I would insert a muzzle flash, but would make it almost entirely transparent.

There is a thread regarding muzzle flashes in the SFX section. Here are a couple still I posted, taken from 24p DVX footage of a couple guns being shot in bright sunlight, midday.

HK P2ooosk (40cal)
61010466.jpg


Sig 239 (I think) (9mm)
61010813.jpg


I have some indoor HK MP5 9mm footage I've been promising but I have a boatload on my table right now.

Hope this helps.

-GageFX
 
Got my Action Movie Essentials now from from Andrew Kramer's www.videocopilot.net and they are perfect! Andrew is a very kind and helpful person. Thanks a lot Andrew (also for the extras!!!).

Ruediger
 
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