Watch this little breakdown on the visual effects work I did to find out.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, November 28, 2008
What's wrong with me!?
Okay, I guess you all will have noticed by now that I've haven't had any updates in months. First, I was just being a bit lazy. I didn't post every tutorial or video I did here - check my Youtube-channel for all my stuff - and I've also lost my hard drive a few months ago. First, everything was completely gone. Then, I was able to recover some stuff. Then, I had to find out that a lot of stuff I could recover doesn't work anymore. Which means that I only have very, very few working videos or project files left, which has put my work to a complete halt, of course. Plus, I don't even have After Effects anymore. I haven't had a chance to retrieve AE yet and it's gonna take quite a while until I will.
So, sorry folks, but I'm afraid you will have to stick with what I already got for a while.
So, sorry folks, but I'm afraid you will have to stick with what I already got for a while.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
"Sorry, guys, I gotta sit this one out!" - Peppy Hare
I've got some bad news today.
Remember when I announced that I would enter the Lightsaber Choreography Competition VI? Well, in a nutshell, I am officially out due to a handful of reasons like running out of time, having troubles constructing the lightsabers, and stuff like that. Also, it was kinda hard to motivate my crew for this whole duel thing while they're busy at university.
I am considering filming a lightsaber duel short film later this year and releasing it apart from the whole LCC-thing; but I am not too sure what I can come up with. However, it won't happen until summer anyway, so there's enough time left for me to think this through.
I am also playing with the idea of doing a collaborate short film that's not Star Wars-related at all with a fellow filmmaker and good companion of mine, BenMcEwan. But we'll just have to see about that, and again, it wouldn't happen until summer anyway.
So no LCC-entry from me this year. Maybe 2009? We'll see. However, there is some good news as well: I set up an account over at funpic.de to host my files on and am now able to permanently offer you the After Effects project files for various effect tests I'm bringing you. You can already download the first two project files for my latest fx tests, the burnmark and the fireblast, at http://petergerri.pe.funpic.de/projectfiles/.
In future, I'll try to offer the project files along with the effect tests in every new post.
Remember when I announced that I would enter the Lightsaber Choreography Competition VI? Well, in a nutshell, I am officially out due to a handful of reasons like running out of time, having troubles constructing the lightsabers, and stuff like that. Also, it was kinda hard to motivate my crew for this whole duel thing while they're busy at university.
I am considering filming a lightsaber duel short film later this year and releasing it apart from the whole LCC-thing; but I am not too sure what I can come up with. However, it won't happen until summer anyway, so there's enough time left for me to think this through.
I am also playing with the idea of doing a collaborate short film that's not Star Wars-related at all with a fellow filmmaker and good companion of mine, BenMcEwan. But we'll just have to see about that, and again, it wouldn't happen until summer anyway.
So no LCC-entry from me this year. Maybe 2009? We'll see. However, there is some good news as well: I set up an account over at funpic.de to host my files on and am now able to permanently offer you the After Effects project files for various effect tests I'm bringing you. You can already download the first two project files for my latest fx tests, the burnmark and the fireblast, at http://petergerri.pe.funpic.de/projectfiles/.
In future, I'll try to offer the project files along with the effect tests in every new post.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
another burn mark fx test
Hey there,
yeah, once again, I gave those burnmarks a shot. Featuring a nice, moving video footage where I used AE's built-in tracker to motion track the camera pan and apply it to the animated burnmark. Plus: digital sparks to help sell the effect.
There was no kind of practical effect involved in making this video. No pyrotechnics, no trackmarks for the burnmarks or such, and not even a lightsaber prop, which made the process of doing the lightsaber quite a long and painful experience.
New: [download the AE-project file for this effect]
yeah, once again, I gave those burnmarks a shot. Featuring a nice, moving video footage where I used AE's built-in tracker to motion track the camera pan and apply it to the animated burnmark. Plus: digital sparks to help sell the effect.
There was no kind of practical effect involved in making this video. No pyrotechnics, no trackmarks for the burnmarks or such, and not even a lightsaber prop, which made the process of doing the lightsaber quite a long and painful experience.
New: [download the AE-project file for this effect]
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
digital fire blast test
Hey there,
I was out shooting some stuff on sunday, so I now have some footage to play around with. One effect I am currently working on is digital fire, inspired by the effects in the X-Men movies.
I came up with a method that allows you to create some nice-looking fire blasts and balls from the scratch, based on any kind of b/w matte, even on a simple stream of particles. This is what I threw together yesterday:
Took me some time to animate the particles so they'd do the right kinda movement, and to mask my hand in front of it out. But I think it ended up not too shabby, except for the sound effect maybe, which was just a slightly altered force rumble-sfx I threw into the composition right before rendering the whole thing. Kinda cheap, I know, but it couldn't be helped.
New: [download the AE-project file for this effect]
I was out shooting some stuff on sunday, so I now have some footage to play around with. One effect I am currently working on is digital fire, inspired by the effects in the X-Men movies.
I came up with a method that allows you to create some nice-looking fire blasts and balls from the scratch, based on any kind of b/w matte, even on a simple stream of particles. This is what I threw together yesterday:
Took me some time to animate the particles so they'd do the right kinda movement, and to mask my hand in front of it out. But I think it ended up not too shabby, except for the sound effect maybe, which was just a slightly altered force rumble-sfx I threw into the composition right before rendering the whole thing. Kinda cheap, I know, but it couldn't be helped.
New: [download the AE-project file for this effect]
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
[tutorial] how to do that damn interactive lighting
Hey there,
yeah, you're right: I'm going to show IT to you. How to do that famous fake digital interactive lighting for light cast by a lightsaber. w00t!
It's not exactly complicated, though. I hope you will still be impressed by the awesome video tutorial nevertheless. Have fun.
yeah, you're right: I'm going to show IT to you. How to do that famous fake digital interactive lighting for light cast by a lightsaber. w00t!
It's not exactly complicated, though. I hope you will still be impressed by the awesome video tutorial nevertheless. Have fun.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
r2d2-style hologram effect
Hey there,
looks like it's a good week for updates, because I just keep 'em coming. Actually, I won't bring you anything new today, so those of you who have already examined my YouTube-account a bit might be a bit disappointed, as well as startled that I turned out to be a fan of ATLA. However, those of you who didn't might be interested to see a (rather old, but oh well) effects test of an animated, kinda 3d-hologram.
Note that impressive interactive lighting on Artoo and the wall. Took me more than three minutes to think of a way to do that (and three days to notice that I forgot to animate it along with the hologram, but then again, nobody seemed to care).
looks like it's a good week for updates, because I just keep 'em coming. Actually, I won't bring you anything new today, so those of you who have already examined my YouTube-account a bit might be a bit disappointed, as well as startled that I turned out to be a fan of ATLA. However, those of you who didn't might be interested to see a (rather old, but oh well) effects test of an animated, kinda 3d-hologram.
Note that impressive interactive lighting on Artoo and the wall. Took me more than three minutes to think of a way to do that (and three days to notice that I forgot to animate it along with the hologram, but then again, nobody seemed to care).
Monday, January 28, 2008
[tutorial] animated force lightning, dooku style
Hey there,
it's been more than two weeks since my last update. To make up for that, I now present you a new video tutorial: how to do force lightning in After Effects.
The tutorial provides instruction on how to recreate lightning in a similar look to Dooku's lightning in Attack of the Clones; you'll also learn how to animate it and how to give it the proper glow.
I hope you like it and it will turn out useful to you.
As a side note:
This tutorial actually contains copyrighted content from the Star Wars-movies. But don't think of an infringement affair right now; this should be perfectly fine thanks to the terms of fair use. If you think differently, feel free to contact me in leaving a comment or send me a message at Youtube, and I'll be willing to discuss this matter with you.
it's been more than two weeks since my last update. To make up for that, I now present you a new video tutorial: how to do force lightning in After Effects.
The tutorial provides instruction on how to recreate lightning in a similar look to Dooku's lightning in Attack of the Clones; you'll also learn how to animate it and how to give it the proper glow.
I hope you like it and it will turn out useful to you.
As a side note:
This tutorial actually contains copyrighted content from the Star Wars-movies. But don't think of an infringement affair right now; this should be perfectly fine thanks to the terms of fair use. If you think differently, feel free to contact me in leaving a comment or send me a message at Youtube, and I'll be willing to discuss this matter with you.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
a cloning / replication effect
Hello there,
I'm presenting you today a new effect I've kind of invented during the post production. What started to be a "regular" cloning effect, turned out more complex and appealing than I would have expected when capturing my footage.
°°° A short vfx breakdown on this effect:
Achieving this effect required several steps. First of all, capturing the footage. As you may have guessed by now, I placed my camera on a still position and captured my performance for the two of mine.
Having the footage brought into After Effects, I started a short, but yet enervating process of masking out my left silhouette so I could blend both parts of the footage together. By then I had figured out that it wouldn't suffice to have my right clone just wriggle out of my left self. So I needed an additional effect to sell this thing.
What I did is that I duplicated my left self, set it ontop of the video, and applied the Liquify-effect to it that I had discovered for my lightsaber wall cuts before. I just used some well placed keyframes to distort my left self to my likings, so that it looked like it was attached to my right clone. Getting this to look right used up quite some time, but it turned out satisfying in the end.
When this was done, I wanted to add a finishing touch: camera movement, so that you wouldn't recognize that this was a still shot, which makes the cloning effect more interesting for the audience. It's not exactly hard to add artificial camera movement in post in After Effects; you can always apply random values for the position of your video using the Wiggler. But that didn't look realistic enough, so I came up with a far better solution: I took my camera again, went to the position I had placed the camera before and recorded the same wall with a clearly visible tracking point attached to it. That way, I got some natural-looking camera movement, which I tracked in After Effects later and applied it to my finished footage. Piece of cake, right?
I'm presenting you today a new effect I've kind of invented during the post production. What started to be a "regular" cloning effect, turned out more complex and appealing than I would have expected when capturing my footage.
°°° A short vfx breakdown on this effect:
Achieving this effect required several steps. First of all, capturing the footage. As you may have guessed by now, I placed my camera on a still position and captured my performance for the two of mine.
Having the footage brought into After Effects, I started a short, but yet enervating process of masking out my left silhouette so I could blend both parts of the footage together. By then I had figured out that it wouldn't suffice to have my right clone just wriggle out of my left self. So I needed an additional effect to sell this thing.
What I did is that I duplicated my left self, set it ontop of the video, and applied the Liquify-effect to it that I had discovered for my lightsaber wall cuts before. I just used some well placed keyframes to distort my left self to my likings, so that it looked like it was attached to my right clone. Getting this to look right used up quite some time, but it turned out satisfying in the end.
When this was done, I wanted to add a finishing touch: camera movement, so that you wouldn't recognize that this was a still shot, which makes the cloning effect more interesting for the audience. It's not exactly hard to add artificial camera movement in post in After Effects; you can always apply random values for the position of your video using the Wiggler. But that didn't look realistic enough, so I came up with a far better solution: I took my camera again, went to the position I had placed the camera before and recorded the same wall with a clearly visible tracking point attached to it. That way, I got some natural-looking camera movement, which I tracked in After Effects later and applied it to my finished footage. Piece of cake, right?
Thursday, January 3, 2008
TFN's LCC VI
Today, the official Lightsaber Choreography Contest VI was announced at the TFN Fanfilm boards. Participants all over the world enter this contest to demonstrate their skills and ideas in the unique art of starwarsy lightsaber combat. This contest was the birth of the legendary internet-phenomenon "Ryan vs. Dorkman" and other excellent pieces of lightsaber choreography as well.
The reason I am telling you this is that I decided to enter this contest together with a friend, for the very first time. The contest starts friday, february 1st 2008 and the deadline is sunday, june 1st 2008; we will start preparations during this month, and will hopefully begin training our choreography at the beginning of february, planning to start shooting after a week of training or so. Chances are that, since we have about three and a half months left after shooting, the video will feature full lightsaber effects if we rotoscope like mad; in that case, we certainly won't miss the chance to add all kind of fancy effects to the thing, especially lightsaber burnmarks will sure be featured in this video.
So, stay tuned. More informations on this project will be brought to you as soon as possible; if we get the video right, we will hopefully be able to offer some production stills, unrotoscoped footage and vfx and choreography breakdowns as well.
The reason I am telling you this is that I decided to enter this contest together with a friend, for the very first time. The contest starts friday, february 1st 2008 and the deadline is sunday, june 1st 2008; we will start preparations during this month, and will hopefully begin training our choreography at the beginning of february, planning to start shooting after a week of training or so. Chances are that, since we have about three and a half months left after shooting, the video will feature full lightsaber effects if we rotoscope like mad; in that case, we certainly won't miss the chance to add all kind of fancy effects to the thing, especially lightsaber burnmarks will sure be featured in this video.
So, stay tuned. More informations on this project will be brought to you as soon as possible; if we get the video right, we will hopefully be able to offer some production stills, unrotoscoped footage and vfx and choreography breakdowns as well.
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