I think that's in focus hey guys welcome
back to another VFX tutorial today we're
gonna be taking a look at how to create
magic energy ball VFX inside a HitFilm
now you can do this inside of
HitFilm Express but we're going to be
using the particle simulator so you'll
need the 3d particles add-on if you want
to follow along so here's the set up for
the final shoot I've got the camera here
in the kitchen and then about maybe 10
15 feet away is this other equipment so
I've got the fan to get some atmosphere
going I've got a reflector to bounce
light onto my face
which is coming from the window left a
green screen which has a green light on
it and this orange one provides sort of
a side light here and that's pretty much
it and it's pretty cramped in here but I
think it'll do so we're not going to go
over how I did the green screen because
we've done that in tutorials before and
the background was created using stock
images and Unreal Engine 4 the focus of
this tutorial will just be the energy
ball VFX but if you have any questions
about the other techniques I use - feel
free to leave them in the comments below
let's open up HitFilm and get started
the energy ball that you see in the
final VFX shot is made of basically
three different parts let's create the
first one now what I'll do is come up to
new composite shot and I'll call this
energy ball core and the final project
was in 4k but I'll go ahead and make it
1080p
then I'll make the height 1920 so that
it's a square and hit OK let's go ahead
and bring in the particle simulator and
you can see if I hit play that we've got
a spawn of particles in the middle come
over here to the controls panel on the
left and under emitters change the shape
to circle basically what this means is
that the particles will come from a
circle shape instead of a single point
you can increase the size of that circle
if you want under trajectory I'll change
it from random to explode so that the
particles go outwards and then I'll go
into the particle systems under movement
and set the speed to something much
higher around 2000 this is going to
cause the particles to fly off-screen to
create that sort of back and forth
motion between the particles I use a
force so let's go ahead and add that
using the plus icon here
under the force settings change the type
to attraction because the force has a
center of zero zero zero that means it's
at the center of the screen so the
particles will first explode outwards
and then be attracted to this force
which is in the center which will cause
the back-and-forth waving motion the
particles are dying a bit soon they're
kind of reaching the edge but then
they're popping off screen so let's go
ahead and go into the system and
increase the life to maybe something
like three or four there we go so now we
have a back and forth motion to the
particles they are still popping in and
off screen which I want to prevent
select the particle system then come
over to the lifetime panel come down to
alpha and then change the type to
gradient this gradient represents the
transparency of the particles over their
lifetime so right now it's white the
whole time which means it's going to
have a solid opacity throughout the
entire lifespan if I come in here and
click to add a point at the beginning
and end this will make the particles
fade in and out as they're born and as
they die which makes for a smoother
transition now for the texture I'll come
into the appearance section and change
the texture source to built-in for the
texture I'll use fire ferocity one now
let's introduce some variation in the
particles by coming down to the
appearance variation section I'll
increase the texture angle per second
this will make them spin over time and
then I'll set the texture angle to one
this means that the particles can be
rotated in any degree from zero to 360
then I'll come down to movement
variation and maybe adjust the life and
the scale a little bit and maybe the
speed as well these settings are up to
you but they introduce variation in the
movement of your particles I'll go ahead
under general and add a few more
particles per second so that we have
some more on screen and then in the
transform properties I'll just lower the
scale of the whole system so that it
stays within the box I'll increase the
scale of it under movement and fine-tune
the particles per second to match cool
so that's pretty much set now if you
want to introduce more variation what
you can do is duplicate this particle
system since you
ready have it set up and then come down
into general and change the seed this
will make a different simulation and
then you can change the texture you can
change basically whatever you want and
it will have a lot of the settings that
we've already set up so maybe I'll
choose a more subtle texture like
shockwave and maybe I'll increase the
life so that they last a bit longer you
can add as many of these particle
systems as you want to introduce
variation now what I'll do is add a
distortion so you have four that you can
choose from energy fluid heat and smoke
I'm going to use heat in this case but
you can use whichever looks best to you
and then I'll play with the settings a
bit to distort the particles so that
they're not as uniform throughout I
might also add a diffuse as well to
soften them up and don't forget to turn
on motion blur down here because the
particles are moving so they should be
quite blurry and that's pretty much it
for this first section of the particle
system now we can move on to the next
one which is creating the light rays
that come off of it so I'll come back
into the media panel and select new
again and I'll name this one energy ball
starfish because that's what it looks
like so for this what I'll do is create
a new plane layer and onto this I'll
drag the light flares effect in the
controls panel I'll drop down the
hotspot position and set it to zero zero
so it's perfectly centered then I'll
change the flare type down to micro
particle streak and you can see we get a
lot of extra bits on the side here in
this case I don't want those to appear
so I can turn them off by going into
other elements and setting the
brightness to zero this will leave us
with just the rays next I'll drop down
the hotspot and decrease the brightness
almost all the way but then increase the
brightness of the rays themselves all
the way up so that we're left with less
of a hotspot and more of just the light
rays
now I'll drop a hue saturation and
lightness effect and drop the saturation
all the way down to zero
so the shape is there but it's a little
bit sharp if i zoom in here you can see
that the texture itself is very sharp so
I'm going to decrease that a bit with a
radial blur effect and since that
happens in the center that's where it
will take place you can increase this as
much as you want to soften the effect
maybe I'll also add a another diffuse as
well to make this flare spin over time
what I'll do is come down into the ray
section again and keyframe the rotation
so I'll activate keyframes at the start
skip to the end and then set this to one
times over now to introduce variations
similar to the particles what I'll do is
duplicate the flare and then offset the
rotation by something a little bit more
random and then I'll increase or
decrease the quantity scale basically
you just want to make it look different
from the first flare so that when you
play them together they appear to move
as two different pieces you can play
with the length scale and the width as
well if you want to get a different look
I might duplicate it once more and make
some smaller flares
all right now I'm gonna go ahead and add
a light rays effect onto the same plane
and change the blend to screen increase
the radius until you start to see the
light rays and then adjust the
intensity to fit your scene when we set
this to screen in the composite not a
lot of it will disappear because not a
lot of the screen is black right now so
what I'll do is add a quick curves
effect and increase the contrast quite a
bit you can come back and adjust this
later if it doesn't work now some extra
things you can add to make it look a bit
more unique are the heat distortion
options so I'll go ahead and do that as
well as maybe a twirl this one you want
to keep quite subtle cuz otherwise it's
pretty obvious and I'll just go ahead
and decrease the scale a bit on all of
these so that they don't reach the edge
as much for the last piece of the energy
ball we're going to use a free stock
video from rocket stock this is a
collection of paint overlays that
they've released for free and which you
can find in the description because this
is a stop video we have to do a bit of
work to make it look seamless
so let's go ahead and do that now what
I'll do is create a new comp and I'll
make this the regular 1920 by 1080 and
I'll bring the paint into that right
click transform and fit to frame width
just so that we can see all of it and
basically the end result that I want to
get is to add a polar warp and have the
paint sort of moving either inwards or
outwards depending on what you're going
for you can see that there are two
problems the first is the scene down
here on the bottom because it's not a
perfect texture and you can see that
both the inner and outer edges aren't
feathered which makes for a bit of a
rougher effect so we want to be able to
feather those and we want the transition
to be seamless so I'll go ahead and take
off the polar work effect
and basically what we need to do is
create a texture that is seamless out of
this video so what I'll do is come over
to the transform properties and adjust
the position so that the crosshair here
is on the exact left side of the screen
and in this case that's negative 960
which is half of 1920 which is the width
of our company then what I'll do is
duplicate it and move that X position to
positive 960 so basically what we've
done is we've taken our video and we've
scooted it over to the left but we've
had the other side of the video come in
on the right now what we can do is
duplicate the footage once more and
reset its position to 0 and then draw a
mask in the center here so I'm holding
down the Alt key to draw from the center
and I'll just position it over the
senior then under shape feather it to
make the blend a bit smoother so it
might not be easy to tell but what we
have here is a seamless texture so if I
select all of these and make them into
their own comp
I'll call this paint seam fix
then if I go back into this comp and add
the polar work effect you can see that
there is now no seam anywhere inside of
the circle now to feather the edges what
I'll do is come up and select the
rectangular mask tool and draw a shape
right here in the center this will cut a
hole out of the center and also around
the edges and if I come in and feather
that shape you can see it affects both
the inner and outer sides of the polar
warp effect you can adjust which part of
the polar warp is cut out by moving the
mask here so if I move it down you can
see that only the outer edges will be
feathered if I move it all the way up
only the inner part will and if I keep
it in the center here we'll get sort of
a doughnut shape that is feathered on
both sides if you haven't already you
can also make the composite a square as
well to keep things neat so now we have
the three parts for our energy ball and
we can actually start building it so to
keep things moving smoothly I'm going to
use a picture of the background instead
of a video because it is quite an
intensive comp to render so let's go
ahead and bring in our core outline and
starfish comps and what I'll do to make
this easier to control is create a new
point layer and we'll call this energy
ball position because that's what it's
going to represent then I'll select all
three of these comps and parent them to
the point so now if I move the point all
of the energy ball comps will move along
with it so this is how you would animate
it to follow an actor's hand or to move
around the screen you would keyframe the
position at this point let's go one by
one here so I'll start with the core and
you can see that it is already
transparent which is good but I'll go
ahead and set it to screen you can also
set it to add depending on how you want
it to blend with your scene so to color
this what I'm going to do is add a
curves effect and I'll go ahead and add
that directly to the core layer then in
the controls panel come down to the red
channel and bring that down quite a bit
come down to the green channel and bring
that down as well if you want you can
also add a little bit of green in the
highlights totally up to you
and now we have our color so let's make
it glow by adding a couple of these
effects onto it if you lower the
threshold more of the energy will be
affected but basically you tweak these
settings as you need them so I'll
increase the radius to make it a bit
softer adjust the intensity maybe I'll
go back and change the color a bit to
fix it make it a bit more blue so that's
a good starting point let's go ahead and
move on to the other ones and we'll come
back and fix it if needed let's turn on
the starfish comp and I'll set the blend
for that to screen again and I'll make
it a bit bigger so that the light rays
are visible on the outside I'll make the
point a bit smaller so that the energy
ball is a bit more like it was in the
actual scene and I'll show you another
way to add color is the color vibrance
effect so I'll add that directly to the
starfish and you can see it takes effect
right away but I'll go ahead and select
a similar blue color the vibrance is
sort of the saturation that it is maybe
I'll add another radial blur effect just
to smooth it out a bit more
let's go ahead and turn on the outline
composite and you can see that already
has a green tinge to it so I'll go ahead
and add a hue saturation and lightness
and drop that down to zero to give us a
good starting point then once again I'll
set the blend to screen and increase the
size as I see fit it's a bit sharp so
maybe I'll add a blur and or a diffuse
and to color this one I'll use another
curves effect
for this outline I also lowered the
opacity so that it's not as visible it's
more of a hint that it's there and
that's how you can create an energy ball
in three steps obviously I did a lot of
tweaking for the sort of light rays and
the color and trying to make it match a
bit better I would recommend adding a
lens flare on top you can also add lens
dirt or more stock footage elements to
help blend it a bit better and again if
you want to move the energy ball around
you can use this single point layer yeah
that's about it for this video if you
guys have any questions feel free to
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tutorials thanks for watching and I'll
see you all in the next video
