Hey guys, today we're taking a look at how to create a Fallout 76 inspired vintage video
effect. You can download the Pip-Boy plate we're using in the description below. Because
the goal of this tutorial is to distort the footage, we're giving 50% to the first 20
people to purchase the VFX: Damage pack. You can find the link for that in the description
as well. Let's go ahead and get started.
We'll begin in a new composite shot with our footage. The first thing we need to do is
convert this to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Come up and select the Rectangular Mask tool. Position
your mouse in the center of the screen, hold down the Alt key, and click and drag outwards.
The reason I use a mask instead of the Letterbox effect, is so that I can adjust the roundness
and feathering. In the Controls panel, drop down the mask properties and adjust those
two settings. Set these to whatever looks good to you. I'll also bring the Expansion
down until the top and bottom edges become feathered.
Once you have that set, go into the Composite Shot properties and lower the Width. This
will make it easier to place this video into the device later.
To begin distorting the footage create a new Grade and drop on the TV Damage effect. Search
for 'Enabled' in the bar up top, and uncheck everything except Electrical Interference.
Under Placement, increase the Area Width to cover the whole screen. I'll customize the
lines further by increasing the Quantity, so that there's more, and raising the Amount
of Gaps. When you're happy with how these look, copy the mask from the original video
onto the Grade.
A Bilateral Blur effect will smooth fine detail but retain the edges in your video. I'll add
this to the Grade and make it more subtle. Now drop on a Heat Distortion effect. This
is good for adding random spots of blurriness. Turn the Distortion and the Diffusion Bias
to 0. Adjust the Diffusion Strength to your liking. If you want less of the video to be
affected by the blur, raise the Diffusion Bias.
Next up is Bleach Bypass this will crush the shadows and make the detail less visible.
I'll reduce the overall color with a Hue, Saturation & Lightness effect. Lower the Saturation
in the Master dropdown.
I'll quickly use a Curves effect just to reduce the darkness of the shadows- there isn't any
spot that should be pure black.
Now we're going to add another Curves effect, and this is where you can start messing around
with color. If you look at old vintage video, there are a wide range of colors going on.
You can get a lot of interesting combinations by messing around with the curve for each
color.
Now add a Film Damage effect. Drop this down and you'll find several types of distortion
that you can customize. These settings will be dependent on the look you're going for,
so I'll just show you what they do. Grain is basically noise. You can set it to be colored
or black and white. Stains creates these round, coffee-stain textures. These flicker in and
out on screen.
Dust is similar to Stains, but the textures are more solid black and have softer edges.
Scratches creates vertical lines on screen. Shake makes the video look as if it's skipping
vertically.
Vignette creates a dark shadow around the edge of the frame. Flicker makes the brightness
of the video move up and down randomly. And Defocus blurs the video at multiple points.
Now I'll add a Scan Lines effect. To make this more subtle, I'll increase the Frequency
and Sharpness.
Last thing we're going to add is some static. Create a new Plane and add the Fractal Noise
effect. Activate keyframes for the Seed property and skip to the end of the timeline. Change
the Seed to make the noise move. Now drop down the Transform properties and lower the
Scale to 1. In the Axis Scale settings, increase the X to 800%. Right click the Plane and set
the Blend to Color Dodge. Lower the Opacity if you need to make it less noticeable.
And that's how you can use multiple effects to age your video. You could stop here, but
now I'll show you how to place it into the Pip Boy device from the beginning.
Here I have that plate in a new composite shot. I'll drag down my vintage comp from
earlier, and add the Quad Warp effect. This will place 4 points on each of the corners
of the video that can be manipulated freely. It will adjust the perspective of the shot
as you move them, so it's great for placing images into paintings, onto walls, or replacing
TV or phone screens. I'll place the vintage comp into the Pip Boy using the controls.
Once that's done, right click the layer itself and set the Blend to Screen.
To help the edges blend better I'm going to add a Vignette effect. Depending on how the
Quad Warp affects your footage, you might have to recenter the Vignette onto the video.
Next I'll add a slight reflection onto the screen by duplicating my original plate. Right
click the layer and set the Blend to Screen. Scale it down in the Controls panel and position
it so that a light area is in the right spot. Select the rectangular mask tool and draw
a shape to isolate the reflection to the Pip Boy screen. If it's too sharp, add a Blur
effect. In this case it's not needed, so I'll just lower the Opacity of the layer itself.
With my footage in place, I added a few more effects to bring the shot together. This included
a lens flare on the Pip Boy where the power light would be, some light rays on the left
side of the screen, and a final grade using a variety of color correction effects.
In case you missed it, be sure to download the free 10.0 update for HitFilm Pro and Express,
which includes some text enhancements so that you can really get in and customize it the
way you want. For more vintage video tutorials check out the community made cards onscreen.
Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you all in the next video.