Hey guys, and welcome back to another HitFilm tutorial. Today we're going to be taking a
look at how to create an audio visualizer effect in HitFilm. If you're using Express
you can find a discount code to the add-on pack I'm going to use in the description.
Don't forget to subscribe for weekly filmmaking and visual effects tutorials. Let's go ahead
and get started.
Let's start by making a new Plane. Even though my project is 1920 by 1080, I'm going to make
the plane 1920 by 2500. This gives me extra room on the top and bottom, which will come
into play later when we create the light rays. Drop the Fill Color effect onto this plane.
I'll come into the Controls and change the color to purple.
If you saw last week's eclipse tutorial, this next step will seem familar. Drag in the plane
from the Media panel and add the Fractal Noise effect. Select the Ellipse mask tool and draw
a wide oval shape. Now add the Auto Volumetrics effect. The center point for this effect should
be placed in roughly the same position as the mask. So if I bring the mask down past
the screen, the Volumetrics point should follow. This will result in light rays coming from
offscreen- which is why I made the plane vertically larger. Increase the Exposure and Influence
under subsettings to change the look of the rays.
Under Light Shafts, Light Position, activate keyframes for the XY Position. I'll move to
the end of the timeline and adjust that slightly. This will make the rays move.
Bring down the plane from the Media panel again and add Fractal Noise. In the Preset
dropdown, select Starfield. Down in the Transform properties, activate keyframes for the Rotation.
Move to the end of the timeline and change the number to your liking. This will make
the stars spin throughout the scene. Right click the layer and set the Blend to Add.
Now for the Radio Waves, I'll use the same Plane. Drag that effect down onto the plane.
By default you'll get a pentagon shape. In the Controls, change the shape to Circle.
Under Motion, lower the Frequency so that they're more spread out. I'll increase the
Expansion as well to make them bigger. I want the circles to already be going when the video
starts, so I'll just drag the plane layer itself back a few seconds. Then use the center
point to place it near where my rays are coming from. Right click and set the Blend to Overlay.
There's a very slight grid effect visible in the final shot. This was added for the
sake of more detail, and it's pretty easy to do. Drag down the plane and add the Grid
effect. I'll use the onscreen controls to bring the squares closer together. Then set
the Border Radius to a lower number to make the lines thinner. You can also drop down
the Feather settings and increase both the X and Y numbers to make the lines less harsh.
Set the Blend for this plane to Screen and lower the Opacity to make them more subtle.
For the Neon lights, let's bring that plane in again. Add the Neon Path effect to this
layer, and you won't see anything happen until you draw a mask. Select the freehand mask
tool and click twice to create a line. This will make the first path. You don't have to
close the shape. Click off, then go back and draw another line.
In the Core settings under Distortion, I'll increase it by just a few pixels so that it's
not a perfect line. Drop down the Inner Glow settings and bring in the Width to make the
Glow closer to the line. Open the Outer Glow settings and increase the Width and Alpha
to your liking. Of course, set the color of both to whatever fits your scene. In the final
shot I ended up keyframing the color to change throughout. Set the Blend for this plane to
Add.
Now I want to add a graphic that actually reacts to music and for that, I'll use the
Audio Spectrum effect. I've imported a song from YouTube's Audio Library, so I'll drag
that down into the timeline. Bring down the plane as well, and add the Spectrum effect
to it. Under Audio Input, select that song layer. If one side is too high, adjust the
Start or End Frequency until it gets cut off and they look more even. You can use the two
control points to position the spectrum in the viewer. I'll put mine along this middle
neon path. Lower the height a bit if the waves are still too big. You can change the type
of waves that appear in the settings below; the spectrum can render as points, lines,
filled with color, or the standard bar graph. You're also able to adjust the thickness of
the lines. Similar to the Radio Waves, set the Blend to Overlay.
For the title, go to New Layer, Text. Come up and select the Text tool, click inside
the box, and type your title. The font I used is called Kiona, and you can find the link
in the description. In the Text panel I'll space out the letters a bit more and set it
to the right size. Going back to the Selection tool, rotate and position the text in your
scene. I'll drop on a Glow effect, and keep all of the numbers low. Change the Blend to
Add.
Create a new Grade layer from the menu. I'll start with a Bleach Bypass effect. The default
setting works pretty well- depending on how much light you have in your scene, decrease
the Brightness to add some contrast. A Glow effect can help even out the light, and add
some more color. A high Radius and low Threshold will achieve this.
The Color Balance effect was used to give the highlights a different hue. Drop down
the controls for Highlights and shift the balances around until it looks good. There
isn't really a wrong way to do this- it's whatever color complements your background.
You can also play around with the balances in the Shadows and Midtones, and of course,
these can all be keyframed.
Speaking of audio visualizers we'd like to highlight a community member that's been doing
a really cool job. AA VFX is a channel that creates a variety of motion graphic backgrounds.
You can find a link to his channel in the description. Thanks for watching and I'll
see you all in the next video.