hello everyone i'm zach and welcome back to another hitfilm tutorial today i'll be showing
you how to create this time freeze effect inspired by the matrix films i'll be using hitfilm pro
because it includes foundry's camera tracker if you want to follow along in express you'll need
to get a 3d track either by filming with cam track ar or using the mocha hitfilm add-on you'll also
need the 3d model render add-on the motion audio visual add-on and the color looks add-on speaking
of add-ons if you'd like the chance to receive an express add-on pack of your choice for free
leave a comment with the name of the add-on within the first two hours of this video going live you
can find the project file for this effect in the video description if you'd like to follow along
the first step in creating this effect is to create a 3d camera track
we filmed this footage on an ipad using our free ios app camtrackar which records 3d camera data
along with the video footage the tracking data from camtrackar worked perfectly for matching
the digital environment created in unreal engine with the movement of our scene giving us great
flexibility to customize the background i've already gone ahead and keyed out the green
screen click the card on screen to learn more about virtual production with camtrackar to track
the visual effects elements onto the gun prop we used foundry's camera tracker in hitfilm pro this
tracker worked perfectly for these small details as it included Oli's slight movements in the track
allowing the effects to stick right onto the gun click the card on screen for a detailed guide
on using foundry camera tracker with our points tracked our camera solved and our scene created
we can select a tracking feature on the barrel of the gun prop and create a 3d point layer from it
to check the quality of the track i'll import a cylinder 3d model that i exported from blender
this model is included in the downloadable project file
uncheck center anchor point as i've already set the anchor point where we want it
drag the model onto the timeline then parent it to our 3d point layer
reset the model's transform so it snaps to the right position then scale it to be the right size
i'll add a wireframe effect to see through it now we can adjust the
position and rotation of the track point to align the cylinder with the prop gun barrel
check the alignment on various frames throughout the shot and adjust as needed
if we play this back the result still isn't perfect but the cylinder model sticks onto
the footage quite well you can manually animate the point layer to improve the track further
the track doesn't have to be completely accurate as none
of the objects we'll be adding will be as precisely aligned as this cylinder
a key element of any gunfire effect is a muzzle flash these usually last for only a single frame
but this frozen time effect will give the viewer a good look at the flash so it has to be more
detailed i'll create a custom stylized 3d muzzle flash using the atomic particles effect start by
creating a new white plane use the freehand mask tool to draw a rough muzzle flash shape
add the atomic particles effect then add a new 3d point layer
select this new point in the particle's transform from drop down
now this 3d point can be used to transform the particles in 3d
position the muzzle flash by parenting the particle control point to the tracked point
and resetting its transforms after adjusting the position rotation and scale you may also
have to adjust the atomic particle size increase the twist value to give the shape some depth
set the blend mode to add open up the fractal settings and adjust the
display strength and wavelength to add some flame like details
then adjust the opacity and size to control the brightness and look of the effect
to give the effect some color add a color vibrance effect and choose the flames preset
an additional trick to really make this look like fire is to add a displacement effect increasing
the displacement values pushes the pixels around and pinches the bright spots making the effect
look sharper and more like flames you can also use glow effects to add to the bright appearance
i'll set the speed to zero to freeze the effect but you could
leave this at a low value for some slow movement
one final effect to enhance this muzzle flash is to use a custom light flare
add the effect to a black plane and set the blend to add
then attach the flare to the particle control point
choose a preset and adjust the color if needed
i chose to animate the flare scale as it got closer and farther from the camera
we'll be using 3d models to create the slow-motion bullets i use this free 9 millimeter bullet model
from sketchfab.com download the gltf model file and import it into hitfilm
we want the bullet to be separate from the shell so set the shell's material opacity to 0.
also set the alpha mode to guess and the illumination model to form to make it fully hidden
hit ok then duplicate the model in the media bin
open up the model properties and make the shell visible and the bullet invisible
drag the bullet model onto the timeline parent it to the track point and reset its transforms
scale rotate and position the model to be firing from the gun
repeat this process for the shell model placing it to be ejecting out the side of the gun
you can animate these objects to slowly move if you don't want time to appear completely frozen
to make the models look more realistic add
3d lights and place them to replicate the practical lighting in the footage
then select the background environment layer to be both model's environment map
for more details on integrating 3d models with live action video
check out the tutorial linked in the card on screen
i created the matrix style bullet trails by 3d modeling them in blender
to create the model i started with a sphere object and flattened it out
i then duplicated the sphere multiple times changing the scale to create one segment
this segment was then duplicated many times to create the long trail
you can find the model in the downloadable project file back in hitfilm import the bullet trail model
set the shading to cook torrents
then adjust the material colors and roughness to create smooth lighting on the model
drag the model onto the timeline then duplicate the bullet model
and place it at the center of the bullet trail
scale and position the trail to match the bullet which was already correctly scaled
relative to the gun in the footage
parent the bullet model to the trail model we can now place this bullet trail in 3d space
it may be helpful to use multiple views for easier control of the objects
duplicate the two layers parent the new bullet to the new trail
and move them somewhere else to create additional bullet trails
one of my trails is supposed to go behind ollie so i'll add a
set matte effect sourcing the keyed video footage
you may need to use additional set matte effects if other objects cross in front of a bullet trail
these bullet trails will be used as a displacement map to distort the footage
for this to work properly we need to add some detail to the trails with some lighting create
a new light layer setting the type to spot turn it to the camera layer then zero out the position
move it forward slightly on the z-axis we now have a spotlight attached to the camera
which brings out the details of our model no matter where the camera is
increase the cone angle to make the lighting more even across the frame
i also chose to add a directional light pointing straight down for some variation
we can bring out even more detail in our bullet trails by enabling ambient occlusion
you can adjust the sample radius and other settings to fine-tune the result
place the trail models and lights at the bottom of the layer stack
then add a new grade layer above them i'll rename it to displacement map
add the displacement effect to another grade layer above the footage
then select displacement map as the source layer
increase the displacement settings to see the effect
cool we now have some matrix style bullet trails
to finish off the shot let's add a green tinted color grade to match the feel of the matrix films
add a new grade layer at the top of the layer stack then add a curves effect
drag the bottom point of the red channel to make the shadows green
then add a curve in the blue channel to add more blue to the shadows
use a levels histogram effect to achieve your desired brightness and contrast
you can further tweak the color on the curves effect
and can also add a hue saturation and lightness effect to bring out certain colors
i increase the red saturation to bring back some of the skin tones and fire
when we are happy with our colors we can add various additional effects to tire shot together
lens dirt chromatic aberration and film grain are all great effects to add some detail
and imperfections to the shot finally this effect was created in a 60 frames per second
project to make it play in slow motion first export the final comp as an image
sequence import that exported sequence back into hitfilm
open up its properties then select 24 or 30 fps
drag the shot onto the editor timeline making sure it matches the new frame rate then export again
and that's how you can create your own matrix style bullet time effect in hitfilm
feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions or if you learned something new remember
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