Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Graphics Media Software

Simple Special Effects? 44

Posted by Cliff from the not-so-simple-10-years-ago dept.
hdurdle asks: "I'm helping a teacher friend with a project to demonstrate some simple TV and Movie special effects to some of his students (14-16 year olds). I've already recreated the lightsaber effect (every geek has done that before, right?) and I've tried the Goauld eyes from Stargate, so now we're looking for more inspiration. What SFX shots would Slashdot readers like to recreate given a few DV cameras, copies of Premiere and Photoshop and lots of time? I intend to write up any HOWTO information, and of course display the footage we shoot!"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Simple Special Effects? More

Simple Special Effects?

Comments Filter:
  • Haha, this is funny. The bright glowing lightsaber is throwing a shadow on the wall ;)
    • If a lightsaber can obscure a light source, then it would cast a shadow.
    • I worry more about where the lightsaber is coming from & being put away to. He seems to just tuck it in his pants, fully lit.

      I'm sure there's something in their instructions that tells you not to do that. Unless jedi are all eunuchs or something, and this is part of their initiation...

  • Did you say TV and/movies effects? :) (Score:3, Informative)

    by bikochan ( 247109 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @12:58PM (#10918587) Homepage
    http://effectv.sourceforge.net/index.html

    This _LOOKS_ like a good start. ;)
  • I've tried the Goa'uld eyes from Stargate
  • Shatner explained during an interview that the early transporter shots were done by shooting someone standing still on a glass plate and shooting a blank shot and then adding some colors to the film.

    Fade together the blank and the standing still and there's an image of someone appearing from nowhere. =)

    Since you've already done lightsabres, this might be fun =)

    • Re:Simple StarTrek Fade (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) * on Thursday November 25, 2004 @01:23PM (#10918787) Homepage
      I did something similar using Premiere - take a shot from a still camera of someone standing, then have them walk off the shot, and leave the camera rolling for a bit.

      In premier, cut out the bit where they are walking away, leaving 2 films, and add one of the transition effects between the 2 films.

      The person will then magically disappear using whatever effect you selected.

      You can have the 'beam' back in the same way. Much easier than rotoscoping a lightsaber too.

      T.
    • A complex StarTrek fade involves having Rick Berman beat it to death over a number of years.

    • I have been experimenting with creating compositing software lately, and the engine works,. it has high bitdepth, and some effects, interesting do occur when combining multiple atoms though. EffecTV has this same effect the chameleon tv effect, this version [gimp.org] might also give a few hints about how the effect is made.

      I don't have much time to work on this software, essentially what I've got is a fully working engine for video editing/compositing, but not time to get the ui really going.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Scanners! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @01:18PM (#10918743)
    Re-create the best special effects shot EVER MADE in the entire history of film! Yeah, you all know what I'm talking about... that part in Scanners where the guy's head explodes! ROCK! ... or just do some Superman flying-type stuff. You couldn't do worse than the 50's TV show, where it looked like Reeves' fat gut was just lying on an camouflaged cart being pushed in front of a painted backdrop. (Wait, I think I've just told you how to do it!)
    • Exploding head fxs are physical, though. I remember reading how they were done in Fangoria years ago... All it really is is a plaster model of the head of an actor, filled with whatever you can think of for brain/blood matter. Then throw in a couple squibs in the middle and SPLAT!
  • My friend has a DV setup with FCP and Shake, would it be fairly easy to do the lightsaber editing with these product? I'm still learning the basics of them...
  • UHF [amazon.com] has some classic special effects many of which don't need any high quality video editing software. The movie was made in 1989 on a low budget. While the movie tanked when it first came out, it was one of the hottest DVDs in 2002. (I think it was ahead of its time) This movie has proved that low-quality special effects can be the best.
  • Sprint at the speed of light! You want to become the Wizard of Speed and Time.

    http://wosat.remulak.net/repository/Trailer.mov
    • SUCH A GREAT MOVIE!!!

      I saw it on a bootleg VHS many many years ago. My quest to find that movie on a newer format has failed. Someone needs to put it on VCD or DVD... I'd certianly buy it.

      -Tim

      • It can be found on laser disc. 3000 pressings exist/existed, of which I have one. There has been talk about moving it to DVD, and as prices to do so drop, either Mike will do it, or a fan will.

        There's at least 2 VCR cuts (of which Avon, of all people, was selling 10 years ago or so), and the laser disc version.

        I don't know if you ever followed any of the history of that movie, but Mike got screwed in real life much like the producer was trying to screw over the character in the movie. IIRC, Mike was b

  • a la Pleasantville? It's simple on stills in any reasonably featured photo editor. probably a time consuming PITA on film, though, but the principle would still be the same.

    Split video into frames, copy the frames, change mode to b/w, change mode back to color, add alpha channel, add layer, paste the original as the background layer, and 'erase' the areas on the upper (b/w) layer to show color, flatten image, export to frame. Lather, rinse, and repeat about 30 times for each second of video.

    like I sa

    • To do this you may want to try the filmstrip fileformat. Both Premiere and Photoshop supports this, dunno about GIMP, so editing video frame by frame gets easier. You get a huge pasteboard with all the frames in the image editor.

      I used this when making a lightsaber clip. Drew the white center by hand on every frame, and applied a few filters, mostly blurs, on the entire pasteboard. No hassle with opening (50 secs x 25 fps) 1250 different images :)

      So in the case of your example only the manual erasing part
      • Yes, but if doing it manually, you need a steady hand. Otherwise the results can be slightly (or very) squiggly-looking. I recommend a graphic pad or a really, really good mouse. Not that it'll matter that much in this case though, as long as the principle gets through.

  • 3d ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @02:12PM (#10919146)
    Why not take a stab at doing something 3d? I remember a web page a few years ago that told how to take 2 screen shots in Quake2, take the red out of one and the green out of the other (IIRC...), set some transparency, over lay them, and you end up with a stereoscopic 3d image - funky cardboard glasses required.
  • In order to spare this guy's bandwidth, here's the link, Coralized for your convenience:

    http://blog.durdle.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/ Go auldTest.jpg
  • Get the kids a copy of Maya 6 Personal Learning Edition, everything in there is SFX. Try doing some lightning effects, they're the easiest Dynamics effects to create, there are even some easy presets.
  • These people [par-t-com.net] might inspire you. They just won an internship with mtv [mtvu.com].
  • Do some Bluebox/Bluescreen stuff a'la Sky Captain & the world of Tomorrow. Also, some raygun.
  • You could make your eyes move in different directions, a la my stupid wiggle video KillaKid.com [killakid.com]

  • Speed / scale (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MarkusQ ( 450076 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @11:45PM (#10921933) Journal
    This may be more subtle than you're interested in, but it's one of the oldest special effect in the book: dimensioned values (speed, size, viscocity, acceleration, etc.) to not all scale together. By messing with them, you can make things appear larger/smaller/closer/stickier, etc. than they really are. It's most obvious in old model work where this wasn't done correctly--the minature dam bursts, and the water rushes out at full speed, rather than the proportionaly slower rate it "should" have, and the effect instantly looks fake.

    For ideas, check out the second chapter of Drexler's Nanosystems [foresight.org], google for Reynolds Number [avkids.com], and look around...

    --MarkusQ

  • You could try some Indiana Jones type stuff and make people out of jello and watch them melt!
  • Build a green screen or a blue screen or just use a wall painted one of those colors. A plain white wall can work if you use a luminance key (not quite as good as chroma but still cool).

    With that you can do all sorts of effects from changing the background to teleportation effects to vaporization of people/objects effects. The possibilities are endless.

    Another effect that is fun to mess with is overlaying the same footage over itself but timeshifted a few seconds. As long as the camera is sitting still o
  • Not sure how difficult these actually are but they look cool.

    SG1 - Entering the stargate. Passing through portals or mirrors is a cool effect. The reverse side is nifty too. Having a face or body suspended in space as it peers through a portal but doesn't crossover completely.

    SciFi General - Energy barrier or effect. A Shield covering an archway or deflecting something.

    GhostBusters - Proton Packs and their light streams. I think those were actually done with artist/paintings overlaid on existing shots bu
  • Ghost effect or twins
    Set up camera on tripod and film the same person twice as if he is two persons interacting. Now add the two shots together with a wipe or fade stuck at 50%
    Flying person
    Have a person continuously jumping, now edit out the parts where his feet touch the ground. Jou can move around like this too. Very funny effect.
    Reverse
    Film somebody walking backwards around town. Now reverse, it is like he is the only normal person in a reversed world
    Jumpcut
    Have somebody perform an action (say dri

Slashdot Top Deals

"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." - Martin Mull

Close