Leanne
Stone
Working in Blender
Modelled, Textured and animated in blender
Learning vfx in after effects
After getting After effects I decided to start learning some simple VFX. I found a tutorial on YouTube for this. My first attempt I had trouble when using the liquefy tool making the fire look realistic to the hand. Overall I am happy with how the first effect on this programme has turned out. I've started to learn how to work with different layers inside after effects. I am messing around with the different distorted effects and started trying to use the pen tool to create masks. I ended up not keeping this in as the exposure had appeared wrong but will try and do this in my next effect.
This is a video of a quick effect using solids, keyframes, masking, feathering and a curve effect to create a realistic lightsaber effect. I am very proud of how this turned out and am now considering doing a saber duel in my final major project. I think this is the best and most effective effect I have done so far, and I can in future experiment now with the different colours of the saber and how I can use practical effects to better the lightsaber effect.
Here I tried a new effect where I attempted to do a lightning effect from the fingertips. This is a clip of where I got up to. I was unable to get the curve effect to get the right glow or colour of the lightning effect. If I were able to try this again and figure it out I would get a bigger glow and a blueish shade. I would also manipulate my face a little to show the effect of the lightning on my face and how the light can distort the appearance of my face, I would like to try this later again.
This is a quick effect I tried. I got to try using a plugin for after effects for the first time. This made making the blaster shots a lot easier as it created the actual bullet almost completely by itself with just a few additions to the effects panel. I used the pen tool to put the bullets in place and the solid moved to this. I then animated the bullet with keyframes to move the bullet across the screen. This is an effect I would like to use in my FMP. I could also practice the physics for bouncing the bullets off the walls to make this more effective.
Since downloading the saber plug-in when doing the blaster shots I have been playing around with different ways I can use them in my VFX. Using this for laser eyes meant I got practice with keyframes and also the pen tool and some additional effects such as curves and exposure. Next time I would add some environmental effects because of the lasers, maybe make them move more and add some glow effect to my eyes to show where they are coming out from better. However I am happy with this.
To the left is my first attempt at the force pull effect and on the right is my second attempt. I tried this twice as I was unhappy with the first one. I had noticed a couple of things I could practically film better. The first being my reaction, in the first it was way too big for what was happening and also my hair moved about quite a bit creating a dodgy jump cut as too much had changed. I am happier with the second one however, I still think I could improve as the second one it's still jumpy. My hair moves a lot, however it's still better. The lightsaber however I am not concerned about as I added it for extra visual impact although the positioning and keyframing could be better.