Hi everyone, today we're going to be taking a look at how to create the lightning effect
from our latest short, Assemble.
If you haven't seen it, do check it out from the link below.
We made this short to celebrate the release of the all new version of HitFilm Express,
which is our free video editing and visual effects software.
Grab your copy from the website and let's jump right into the tutorial.
The first shot we'll focus on is this one with the rays of light appearing behind the
hammer.
It's pretty simple to do this, so let's get started.
I've got my clip in a composite shot, so I'll go ahead and create a new white Plane.
If you want, trim the beginning off this layer so that you can see where the light rays will
start.
Turn the Opacity down to 0 so that you can see through.
Grab the freehand mask tool and draw your shape.
Depending on the complexity of the object in your scene you might need to use multiple
masks.
Once you're done drawing the shape, come into the Controls panel and drop down the Transform
settings.
Activate keyframes for the Path and Position properties.
Skip through the timeline and rotoscope out your actor.
One of the new features with masks is the ability to highlight and move multiple points.
With my pen tool active, I can click and drag these points around Oli's hand here.
I can move them all at once, as well as rotate or scale if needed.
Hover your mouse for a second over one of the controls to see a tooltip for this.
Your rotoscope does not have to be pixel-perfect, but it does have to be pretty close in order
to work well.
Rename this mask "Arm".
Click the Invert Mask button, then turn the layer's Opacity back up to 100%.
Select the Ellipse mask tool and draw a shape near the bottom of the frame.
Set this mask to the Intersect blend mode.
Now we have a circle shape, with a mask cut out for Oli's arm.
Let's feather this circle in the Shape dropdown.
Now add the Zoom blur effect to the plane.
Move the control point down and out of view.
In the Controls panel, increase the Strength to see the light rays.
The color of the Plane will determine the color of the rays.
If you want to change it, use a Fill color effect before the blur.
Increase the feathering of the original arm mask to soften the edges.
The higher this number, the less defined the light rays will be.
In the final sketch I simply keyframed the Opacity of this layer to come in at the right
time.
Let's move on to the shot of Oli getting struck by lightning.
The first thing we need to do is track the hammer.
Create a new Point and name it Hammer Track.
In the Controls panel for the main video layer, click this plus icon to add a new Tracker.
Click and drag to position the red and green outlines over Oli's hand.
Track forward once it's in place.
You don't have to track the whole clip, just until the point when the lightning will turn
off.
In the Apply To Layer section, select the Hammer Track point under Layer.
Hit Apply, then come back to the Viewer screen.
Select the Point layer and press play- you should see the Point attached to Oli's hand.
Now create a New Plane.
Add the Lightning and Electricity effect to it.
Right-click the layer and set the Blend to Add or Screen.
Drop down the controls for the lightning.
First thing I'll do is turn off the Glow- we'll add that back in later.
In the End section, select the Hammer Track point under Use Layer, and zero out the position.
This will make one end of the lightning stick to the hammer.
Use the control point in the Viewer to raise the Start of the lightning offscreen.
The lightning effect has numerous sliders and settings, and this gives you a good amount
of control over how it looks and moves.
The first thing I did was lower the Twitch scale- this makes it appear less distorted.
I then raised the number of Trunks to 2.
The Wave Scale adjusts how much the lightning moves side to side.
I'll move forward in time to where the lightning is supposed to end.
In the Start dropdown, activate keyframes for the Growth property.
Skip forward 2 or 3 frames and raise that to 1.
You can see that this property makes the lightning disappear along the lines.
The Branches dropdown allows you to customize the amount, length, and other properties for
the pieces of lightning that come off the core.
These settings will be dependent on your scene and the way you want it to look.
Let's add a Glow effect.
In the settings, change the Blend to Add.
Lower the Radius and decrease the Intensity so that it's more subtle.
Duplicate the Glow and raise the Radius.
Using multiple Glow effects results in a softer and more realistic falloff.
I usually find that 3 is enough to get the look I need.
Drop on a Hue Colorize effect to add some color.
Raise the Saturation to see the result, then adjust the Hue to your liking.
I'll make it blue to match the movie.
Finally I'll add a Radial Blur effect set to .5 to soften the edges.
This also helps fake the appearance of motion blur.
Because we tracked the Hammer and applied the data to a separate point, it's easy to
add a lens flare to the end of the lightning.
Drag in the plane from the Media panel and add the Light Flares effect.
Again, set the plane's Blend Mode to Add or Screen.
In the Light Flare controls, zero out the Position and attach it to the track from earlier.
Choose a flare type from the dropdown here.
There are dozens of options.
I'll go with this one, Microparticle Streak.
With most flares you have control over which parts are visible.
So if I don't like the way this spiky center looks, I can come in to the Hotspot dropdown
and turn down the Brightness.
Then I can duplicate this flare and reset the settings.
Now I can choose a new flare that better fits my scene, and it will be overlaid on top of
the streaks.
This technique of building light flares allows you to create a wide variety of different
effects.
So Oli is supposed to be getting electrocuted in this shot, but there's only one lightning
effect coming from the top.
Let's go back into the Lightning plane and duplicate the first effect.
To speed up my workflow, I'll turn off the effects I don't need.
I want this lightning to go from the hammer to around his shoulder.
Drop down the settings and this time, parent the Start point to the hammer track.
Unlink the End point and place it wherever you like.
The Seed property at the top randomly generates a new instance of the lightning.
Change this for each effect so that they aren't identical.
Increase the Radius to spread out the tips of the lightning.
In the final shot I ended up using several more lightning effects, but the process was
the same as you've seen here.
And finally we're going to add some smoke coming off of Oli.
In the Quick 3D section of the Effects panel you'll find a Smoke effect.
Drag that onto the timeline.
Coming into the Controls panel I'll lower the Gravity Strength to around -30, then increase
the Linger so that the particles last a bit longer.
Under the General dropdown is where you'll find controls for Position.
If your actor moves, you'll want to keyframe this property.
Depending on how well the smoke is fitting in your scene, you may want to set the Blending
Mode to Screen or decrease the Opacity.
Be sure to download the latest version of HitFilm Express and stay tuned to this channel
for more Assemble content.
Subscribe, hit the bell icon, and until next time, thanks for watching.