We now have the core of the Iron Man HUD effect but it's looking a little plain and boring
right now.
That's because a huge part of the effect comes in the grading, when you add glows and other
lighting effects.
In the effects panel you'll find all of HitFilm 4 Express's effects and presets.
There’s over 120 in there, so do take some time to explore after you’ve finished checking
out the rest of this tutorial.
HitFilm can do a LOT more than heads-up displays.
Before we start adding effects, we’re going to group our HUD elements into a new composite
shot.
To do this, in the media panel I’ll click the New button and choose composite shot.
I’ll rename it to HUD.
This creates a brand new, empty timeline.
Check out how we have these tabs along the top of the timeline - we can use these to
switch between the different timelines, just like changing tabs in a web browser.
So let’s switch back to our Tutorial composite shot.
Click on the top layer, then hold down the Shift key and click on the 2nd layer to select
everything except the main video.
Now I’ll choose Copy from the menu, and then switch back to the HUD timeline.
In here I'll right click on the empty timeline and choose paste from the menu, and there’s
our HUD.
Doing this means we can mess around with this and grade it to look like whatever we want,
without affecting Kirstie’s face.
With this new HUD composite shot, we can very easily change the look of all the HUD elements
in one go.
To do this, go to the New Layer menu again and choose grade.
This creates a grade layer which is a special layers which you can use to alter every layer
underneath them.
So with this Grade layer sitting on top of all our HUD pieces, head up to the Effects
panel and search for the Glow effect in the bar at the top.
Once you've found it, drag it down from the list and drop it onto the grade layer.
In the Controls panel we can now dial in the settings we want for the glow.
I dropped the threshold all the way down to 0%, which means EVERYTHING will generate glow,
put the radius to 32 pixels, which controls the size of the glow, and then I set the intensity
to 0.5 so that it wasn’t too extreme.
After that, search for the Color temperature effect and add that to the grade layer as
well.
This is a really quick way to push the HUD towards blues or reds.
In The Avengers, you see Stark’s HUD go from its normal cool blue to an intense red
as the Chitauri begin their attack - that’s nice and easy to do with this technique.
The Vignette exposure effect can be used to easily darken down the edges of the HUD, which
focuses the audience’s attention on the center of frame, where your actor’s face
will be.
Last but not least, check out the Action Cam Lens Distort effect.
This was originally developed to make it easy to work with GoPro footage, but it is also
perfect for adding some lens curvature to your HUD.
For example, note how this horizon line is perfectly straight.
That’s what the original design looked like.
Thing is, if you were really filming this with a real lens, you’d almost certainly
get a bit of curvature distortion.
That’s what the Action Cam Lens Distort effect can be used for - keep an eye on that
horizon line as I increase the FOV.
A natural curve is introduced to the HUD, making it look more natural.
Of course, this is rather extreme, so I’ll drop it back down to something more subtle.
With all these effects, it’s entirely up to you how you set them up.
Everything is fully customisable.
And don’t forget you can mix and match ANY effect from the Effects library.
There’s a lot of power right there.
Your HUD should be looking pretty great by now.
But it's always the subtle, near-subliminal details that sell an effect to an audience.
Currently our HUD isn't illuminating Kirstie's face.
So, lets go into a quick trick we can use to do just that.
We put a lot of time into carefully lighting Kirstie, as you can see in the behind-the-scenes
video.
However, we still see too much of the back of her head and her neck - in the Marvel films
Stark’s head drops away into darkness as soon as you move away from his actual face.
To replicate this look, I’m going to go back to my Tutorial composite shot.
Remember how we earlier copied and pasted our HUD from here into our dedicated HUD composite
shot?
That means I can now select all these leftover HUD element layers and delete them.
We don’t need them anymore.
Make sure you keep your point layers and the camera though, as we’ll be re-using those
in a moment.
So, in the New Layer menu, create a new Plane.
Make sure you set it to be Black using the quick color preset.
I’ll also rename it to Face mask.
Make sure you’re on the frame where Kirstie is looking straight at the camera - right
at the end of the clip in this case.
Again, if you’re shooting your own footage, try to get a moment where your actor looks
at the camera as it’s a good reference point during compositing.
I’m going to increase the scale of the layer to 110%, to make sure it’s always covering
Kirstie’s face.
Then I’ll switch it to 3D, and link it up to our Head pivot track.
OK, now we want to draw a mask around Kirstie’s face.
Except we can’t actually see her face right now.
So turn off visibility for the face mask layer and then select the Freehand mask tool up
in the viewer.
Make sure you’ve got the Face mask layer selected and then start clicking around the
edges of the face to draw out the mask.
You can use the mouse scroll wheel or the menu in the bottom right of the viewer if
you need to zoom out to get a better view.
You don’t need to be especially precise for this shot.
Once you’ve gone round the whole face, click back on your first point to close off the
shape.
Now turn visibility back on, and you’ll find that we’ve got our shape but it’s
the wrong way around.
We want to invert our mask, so click the invert button on the timeline or up in the Controls
panel.
This will switch it around so that the mask cuts a hole in the black plane.
In the mask’s shape properties, increase the roundness to create a curved shape, and
increase the feather strength to soften the edge.
Expansion can be used to shrink or grow the shape, if needed.
Because we’ve already linked our entire face mask layer to the head pivot, our mask
now stays nicely tracked onto Kirstie’s movement.
As we move through the video we can see that the mask isn't actually covering all of Kirstie
for the entire timeline.
To fix this I'm going to change the layers scale to 130% and then I'll just readjust
the masks expansion to compensate for this.
Because this mask can be nice and loose and has a feathered edge, that’s all we need
to do to make this work.
OK, let’s add our finished HUD back into the shot.
In the Media panel you’ll find your HUD composite shot.
Drag it from there onto your timeline, above the face mask layer.
In the HUD’s layer properties, switch the blend mode over to Screen, which will remove
the black background.
The final step is to color Kirstie’s face to match the HUD.
There are many ways to do this, but I chose to use the Color balance effect.
This way you can adjust the shadows, midtones and highlights individually, while preserving
the overall luminosity so nothing gets too bright.
For a blue look, it’s as simple as boosting up the blue setting in each group, and making
sure you have Preserve luminosity activated.
And we’re done.
Now don't worry if that seemed a little complex.
Working with multiple timelines can be a bit intimidating if you're used to working with
less powerful editing software.
HitFilm is designed to be flexible and powerful, while still being easy to use and we've got
a whole load of other tutorials ready to help get you up to speed.
Now this tutorial has been about a very specific effect but HitFilm can be used to make anything
you want.
So, what is it you want to make next?
Let us know!
If you're interested in designing your own HUD then do check out our HUD design video.
And we've also got a behind the scenes video which goes into the filming aspects of this
shot.
We put out new filmmaking and visual effects episodes every Tuesday so subscribe to our
YouTube channel if you don't want to miss anything.