Imaginary Fireflies

Yeah. I used after effects to make them using lens flares and minimizing them down. I changed the brightness to -37. Maybe that was too much after applying the nighttime effect in magic bullet.
 
It looks cool, but they dont look like fireflies. Fire flies, should light up, then go out, then light up again in a different place. I have a plug in for after effects to make fireflies. I will look into it if your interested, just cant remember off the the top of my head what it 's called.
 
All right. I think I'm getting there. I made the lights flash on and off. When I moved them into different positions I just brought the brightness all the way down to zero, moved to a new position and brought back up. I also decreased the brightness by only minus 8. Hopefully this looks a bit better. But I'm always open to more advice. That's how things get better.

http://www.vimeo.com/18859982
 
The fireflies are still not bright enough. Id try a wiggle expression it will make it a bit more random.
 
you should use sub picture to define speed and light. it would make it more real, submitted to some wind.
You could define a grayscale picture with big spots and use a formula to define speed of particle from that picture.
another layer with same kind of picture, but smaller spots to define the intensity of the fireflie.
you can even play with color, by adjusting in the amount of red in the formula.
 
Fireflies seem to fly in a very shallow upward sweeping arc - lighting very briefly as they sweep upward. The glow is akin to the color of a yellow highlighter. When the light goes out, it is fully out and the insects completely disappear when viewed against dark backgrounds like the low foliage they prefer for cover.
 
I don't know if this helps at all, but I would use Magic Bullet's Power Mask utility to its highest potential - make the background as dark as youd light, and realllllllly brighten those fireflies up. you can even set it to go up and down in brightness, but either way you should have the fireflies significantly brighter than your background. Just my opinion.
 
unfortunately I haven't worked with it much.. I believe if you make a seperate adjustment layer for each firefly and then mask around each one individualy throughout the whole video w/ keyframing that should work?? it'll take forever but hey, thats animation for ya
 
Yeah. I attempted the adjustment layer. I think I can do it that way. I was just hoping for an easier way. But then again I just started and I need practice with those layers. Luckily I won't be filming the actual firefly footage till summer when the trees are full again. Plenty of time to work on it.
 
All right. So it’s always the little things. I pulled a knucklehead move the first time. I added the color effect after the lens flare which diminished the light. This time I added the nighttime effect in magic bullet to the footage first and then I added the lens flares. I tried 2 different types – ones a darker red and ones a bit lighter.
For the first clip I applied magic bullet nightime look first. Then I added the lens flare...then I lowered brightness to -9. Finally I added magic bullet look Sultytron. I like the way Sultrytron adds a bit of softness to it and seems to make the lights pop a bit more. These are supposed be a flashback as well so it kind of suits the feel of it.
For the second clip I did all the same steps except I didn't lower the brightness.
Hopefully this looks a bit better...


http://www.vimeo.com/18920508
 
Several things:

The color should be more yellow/gold.

They should go faster and more erratic loops.

They are not round, but oblong, and this should affect the light pattern.

More flicker, and quicker more intense bursts.
 
All right. I'm officialy losing it. I swear I see fireflies when I close my eyes now. Here's the last pass at it for a while. Hopefully it's an improvement. Thanks again for all the feedback. It was very helpful. Feel free to give more. It's appreciated.

http://www.vimeo.com/18927410
 
it's starting to look really good! the only thing I would change is (and I know this tendency cause I do it myself) that you should change the paths of the fireflies. they look much more realistic now, with the varied speed and direction, but they all seem to end up at a vertex at some point and cross over eachother. If you can make them spread out a little more it'd be more realistic. Also... the fireflies should be A LITTTTTTTTTLE more bright =\ don't kill me just trying help you make the best product possible!
 
It's all good. Thanks for the feedback. Just gonna lay off it for a few days but I'll get back to it. I appreciate all the advice people have given. Very helpful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top