Welcome back to another tutorial in our latest masterclass, Rise of the Dark Side. Today
we’re going to be showing you how to create Force Lightning effects using HitFilm Express.
This effect comes from a trailer we released not too long ago which, If you haven’t seen
it, you can check it out from the card onscreen.
If you haven’t downloaded HitFilm Express already, you can get it for free from the
link in the description as well as the footage we used to follow along. Let’s go ahead
and get started.
It may not be too visible in the final shot, but we actually had Calvin Serrano animate
a flickering skeleton over the actor. He did this by importing a 3D model into HitFilm,
which had separate sections for each body part. He created Points for each section and
parented them to each other. This is because it can be easier to animate a Point, and they
can be parented to other Points. Calvin then went frame by frame and keyframed each Point’s
position and rotation to match up with the real footage. A few effects were added to
make it flicker and glow, and the result was overlaid onto the footage.
To create the lightning, the first thing we need to do is create Point layers for all
of the fingers and for the areas where we want the lightning to connect with our actor.
Go to New Layer, Point and rename it to correspond to the area you’re tracking. In the Controls
panel, click the circle next to Position so that it turns blue. This activates keyframing.
Double click the property to open it up in the timeline.
Now move forward in time and move the Point to the correct position. When you change where
the Point is a new keyframe will be created. Depending on how much your actor moves, you
may have to go frame by frame.
The reason this movement can’t be motion-tracked is because there’s just too much of it.
It’s too twitchy and all over the place, which is the performance we wanted, but can’t
be tracked by the computer.
Do this for all of the other fingers in the shot, plus another two on each side of the
actor’s head. Be sure to name all of the layers - they can quickly become confusing.
Create a Plane from the New Layer panel, right-click and change the Blend to Add. Now drop on the
Lightning & Electricity effect. In the Start dropdown, set the Start Point to 0, 0, and
the Use Layer to the Left Temple Point. Drop down the End section and set the Use Layer
to the Left Thumb.
This might seem backwards. The reason I’m doing it this way is because I want the thickest
part of the lightning to be at the contact point on the actor’s head, not on the finger.
In the Core section, turn up the Feather to soften the lightning. You can adjust the Lightning
parameters to fit your scene. The Wave Scale changes how much the electricity will arc.
The Twitch Scale affects how distorted it is. There is a Branches dropdown to change
how many will appear, and customize the way they look. I’ll lower the Glow Opacity and
Radius to turn it off completely. You can adjust the controls in the Animation dropdown
to make the lightning more or less jittery.
Once you have the first lightning effect set up the way you want, duplicate it as many
times as needed. You’ll need to change the End point to each individual finger Point.
Use the search bar up top to narrow down the results and make it quicker. Once finished,
search for Seed and change the number on every effect. This will result in different looking
electricity.
Now we’re going to stack a few Glow effects to make it brighter and give it color. Add
the Lightsword Glow Only effect directly onto the layer. I’ll make both the Inner and
Outer Glow white and keep them quite subtle with a low Radius and low Alpha. I’ll also
change the Blend to Add.
Duplicate this effect and increase the Radius value for both. The goal here is to soften
the falloff of the light, which will make it more realistic. I’ll do it one more time,
but make the color blue.
Once finished, I’ll add a Blur and a Diffuse, which is like a Blur but you can lower the
opacity of it, and an Angle Blur.
A while ago we gave out a free pack of 20 lens flare presets. Let's take a look at how
to use one of them in our scene right now.
Go to Import, Composite Shot, navigate to the Radiance 3.0 folder, and open the Cybertron
flare. Because there are multiple light flare effects at work, the position is controlled
by this Point. Highlight both of these imported layers and cut or copy them into the main
composite.
Parent the Cybertron Position Control to one of the previous points, in this case I’ll
do the Left Temple Point. Reset the Cybertron Point to place it directly where the Temple
Point is. Adjust the parameters of the flare to fit your scene.
A final Grade included Curves to darken the footage and add contrast, Exposure to create
flashes at certain points, and Heat Distortion.
That’s it for this tutorial. If you do have any questions, leave them in the comments
section down below.
We’ve got more Rise of the Dark Side tutorials coming soon, but we also have a few available
for you to watch right now- check the playlist onscreen.
And if you haven’t already, you can download HitFilm Express for free by going to our website.
Thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.