Hey guys, today Zach Alan Productions is going to be showing you how to create this portal
effect from Avengers: Infinity War.
Hello everyone, my name is Zach Alan from the YouTube channel “Zach Alan Productions.”
I’ve recently been working on recreating the Thanos portal effect from Avengers Infinity
War. I shared my progress on the HitFilm forums and received loads of feedback. Now I’m
going to show you how to make it.
The first part of creating this effect is the base shape for the portal. This can be
created in a variety of ways, but I liked the look of using masks.
Start with a 2000 by 2000 composite shot. Create a new white plane and call it "Portal
Shape". Then add a new camera. There will be no 3D work in this comp, but the floor
plane added with the camera will help in centering the masks.
Use the circular mask tool while pressing Shift and Alt, and with the plane selected
to draw a nice circle in the centre of the frame.
Now open the mask properties and enable keyframing for mask scale at around 1 second. Back on
frame 0, scale the mask to 0. This creates the basic portal opening animation. Repeat
this process to close the portal at the end of the shot.
When I made this comp I left the duration at 30 seconds. Because of this, I can simply
drag the second set of keyframes and extend the length of the animation.
Set the feather to "Out" , and change the strength to get the look you want. Make sure
that the feathered edge stays inside the frame.
Duplicate the mask, set the blend mode to subtract, and decrease the expansion until
you get the desired portal thickness. Also set the feather to "In".
Once you are happy with the base shape of your portal, create a new composite shot.
This is where we will make this white circle look more like a portal.
Drag in the portal base comp and set the blend mode to screen. Add a fractal noise effect.
For the first of several layers of the portal, try a smoke fractal noise type and make it
a grey-brown color. Animate the seed property so the noise slowly shifts and changes.
Duplicate the layer several times. Each layer will have a different fractal noise effect
to create a dynamic looking portal.
On the second layer, try a different fractal type. Play around with the different settings,
such as scale. Make this one a faded purple color.
Because the layer's blend mode was set to screen earlier, they should all blend together
nicely to create one portal.
On another layer, make the fractal noise smaller and more detailed. Make the color blue. Scale
down the layer so it sits inside the main portal.
Copy the blue layer's fractal noise effect and make a composite shot. Drag in the white
plane from before and paste the effect on to it.
Create a rectangle mask near the top of the frame. Set the feather to "Out" and increase
it. Now add a polar warp effect. Set the range to 90, and the wrap x to "Reflect". This will
warp the noise into a circle and remove the seam in the middle by reflecting it.
Bring in the blue portal layer from the previous comp for alignment.
Scale the rectangle mask up and down so the blue circle is close to the same thickness
as the other circle. Adjust the “end radius” in the polar warp effect so the shape fits
over and just inside the other blue portal.
Open up the mask properties again. Animate the mask’s Y position so that this layer
opens and closes in the same timing as the previous layers.
In the new fractal noise, adjust the axis scales to restore the proper dimensions of
the noise texture. Animate the fractal noise Y position so it goes towards the center of
the portal.
Bring the composite shot we just created into the Portal Build comp. Set the blend mode
to “screen” and scale it down even smaller than the other blue portal layer. You can
also add a zoom blur to pull in the centre to make it look more like a tunnel.
Continue duplicating the portal layers and changing the fractal noise. This time we will
make it look like lightning.
On the next duplicated layer, set the fractal type to Energy. Make the seed change faster,
change the scale, and play with the exposure and offset sliders until it looks like many
small lightning bolts.
You can even add glow effects to add to the lightning appearance. Try changing the “Per-Channel
intensity” controls to add some color to the lightning.
This portal looks too perfect. No, I'm not bragging about my VFX skills. The portal shape
is a perfect circle. The Thanos portal has a much more random and distorted shape.
To fix this, add a new grade layer, and apply the heat distortion effect. Change the scale
and distortion amount until you're happy with how it looks. You may even want to animate
these values to create a more distorted look as the portal opens and closes. I also chose
to set the speed to 0 so the distortion doesn’t animate and to set the diffusion properties
to 0.
If you are still unhappy with the portal shape, you can add distortion effects to the shape
comp. Remember to ensure that the portal edges don't leave the frame.
Try adding a grade layer with the waves effect. Decrease the frequency and increase the amplitude.
Doing this will create much larger waves and make it less obvious that a waves effect is
being used.
Animate the displacement angle so it rotates slowly over time, creating a more uneven,
wobbly portal. You can even duplicate the effect and change the values at each keyframe
for more random distortion.
This Portal still needs a center. Duplicate the “Portal Base” comp and rename it “Portal
Center”. Remove the first mask from the plane and set the second mask’s blend mode
to “Add”. Now apply the “Fill Color” Effect. Set the color to black and the blend
mode to 100 percent. Drag this new comp in as the bottom layer in the “Portal Build”
comp.
To finish creating the portal opening and closing animation, create a new point layer
called "Portal Control". Parent all of the portal layers except the grade layer to this
point. Now you can animate the scale of the point so the portal opens past the edge of
the frame, and slowly starts to collapse before closing. It can also be used to reposition
the entire effect if needed.
Now to use this with some real footage. Drag the portal build comp into a new comp with
your background footage in it. Add the light wrap effect to the portal to get rid of the
dark edges. Set the blend to add and increase the radius. Choose the source footage as the
source layer. This helps blend the portal with your shot.
The edges of the portal still seem a bit dark, so duplicate the portal layer, put it underneath
the first, and change the blend mode to add.
You can also use color correction effects to make the portal match the scene better.
I like using curves because of the huge amount of manual control it provides.
The next step is to key out your actor. They need to be recorded on a plain background,
usually you’ll find this done on a green or blue screen, then cut out with one of HitFilm’s
keying effects. Click the card on screen or the links down in the description for tutorials
on using keyed footage.
I have my actor footage already cut out and in its own composite shot. Drag this in as
the top layer.
Go to a point on the timeline where the portal is almost completely open. Trim your actor
footage so that the actor is already walking at this point. Cut off any of the footage
before this point.
Now drag on the color balance effect. This gives control over the colors in the shadows,
midtones, and highlights. We want our actor to look like they are emerging from a dark
portal, so we will add more blue.
Go to the point where you want the actor to have fully exited the portal and enable keyframing
for Blue and Green in all three sections. Back to the first frame of the layer again,
increase the Blue and Green to get the desired effect. You may want to use different values
for the shadows, midtones and highlights.
Next add the YUV Color Correction effect. This effect also gives control over the shadows,
midtones and highlights, but instead of changing the color, we will change the brightness.
In the same timing as the previous keyframes, animate each brightness value independently
to increase over time, ending up at 100 percent. I chose to have the highlights start out brighter
than the other values so the actor’s face emerges through the portal first.
Now the actor pops into the portal and then brightens and changes color to match the surroundings.
Animate the actor layer’s opacity to increase from 0 to 100 to make this a smoother transition.
Now the actor appears as if he is emerging from the portal.
Time to add some finishing touches.
If your actor is in focus in the video, there is a good chance that the portal might be
slightly out of focus. There’s also a good chance that there is some film grain or noise
in your video footage. Try adding a very slight blur and even a noise effect to sell the illusion
that the portal was captured in-camera.
A great way for the portal to interact with the video footage is to have it displace the
background. Duplicate the portal layer and hide it. Add the displacement effect to the
footage and select this layer as the source. Set the input modes to "Alpha" and adjust
the values to your liking. Scale up the portal source layer so the displacement appears around
the edges of the portal effect.
Also add some blowing dust by copying one of the fractal noise effects from the portal
and adjusting the settings. Try changing the color slightly, and increasing the scale to
make the effect more subtle. Keyframe the position to make it blow across the screen
and fade it in and out by animating the opacity.
And that’s how you create the portal effect from Avengers Infinity War. Now don’t just
stop here. Play around with the different effects and make it your own. If you want
to see more tutorials like this, remember to subscribe to the official HitFilm YouTube
channel, as well as my own channel Zach Alan Productions.
Be sure to check out our latest short film, Assemble, for more Avengers-style content.
I'll see you all in the next video.