Hey guys, welcome back to another HitFilm tutorial. Today we’re going to be taking
a look at how to create Captain Marvel energy effects inside of HitFilm. You can download
the project file as well as the video itself in the description below. Let’s go ahead
and get started.
The first thing we have to do is track and isolate Kirstie’s arm. I’ll do this using
Mocha HitFilm, but if you don’t have that you can get the same effect by using HitFilm’s
built-in masking and motion tracking tools. I’ll add Mocha HitFilm to a duplicate of
the clip, then open it up in the Controls panel.
Select the X spline layer tool and draw a shape around the arm. If it’s a complex
shape, it’s recommended you use multiple splines to cover the area. Click either track
forwards or backwards, depending on where you started the shape. If at any point the
shape becomes inaccurate, you can stop tracking and adjust it as needed. Once it’s done,
we need to export the tracking data. You can do that here. Save it on your computer. Now
Save the Mocha project and close it.
Select the layer with Mocha and put it into its own composite shot. In the Controls panel
under Mocha, checkmark Apply Matte. You should see the mask be applied. Feather it if needed.
Back in the main comp, we now have an alpha matte of Kirstie’s arm, which means we can
restrict any of the effects we apply to just that area. Now let’s get the tracking data.
Go to Import, Composite Shot, and select the file you saved in Mocha earlier.
Copy the Point in this comp and paste it into your main one. It should follow Kirstie’s
arm. Now that we have the matte and the tracking data, we can begin compositing.
Let’s create a new Plane and add the Fractal Noise effect. Down in the Color 1 settings
I’ll change the color from black to a dark purple. This will help it blend better with
the skin.
Right click the Plane and set the Blend to Multiply. Raise the Exposure so that it starts
to break up a bit. Skip back to the beginning of your timeline. Activate keyframes for Seed.
Now dropdown the Transform settings and activate keyframes for the Position. Skip to the end,
and raise the Y value. Change the Seed to a different number. This will make the noise
change over time.
Add the Set Matte effect to the Plane. Select the matte from earlier as the Source Layer.
Set the Blend to Subtract and checkmark Invert. Now that the Fractal Noise has been restricted
to Kirstie’s arm, we can add the Light Wrap effect. Set the Source layer to the original
footage, and the Blend to Add. Adjust the Radius and Opacity to fit your scene. To lessen
the appearance of the edges of the mask, add a Matte Cleaner effect. Increase the Feather
as you see fit.
Lastly for this layer, I’ll keyframe the Opacity to come in at the right time. Let’s
next add some bright orange energy to give it some life. Duplicate the Fractal layer
and change the Blend to Add. Change the Fractal Noise type to Energy, and reset the Color
1 and Exposure settings.
This time we’ll lower the Offset in order to break up the noise. Increase the Influence
to make it look more organic. To tint this energy orange, I’ll use a Curves effect.
Increase the Red channel, add an S curve in the Greens, and lower the Blues. You’ll
probably have to come back and tweak this color after you grade everything.
Next up on this layer is a few Glow effects. Because it’s not very bright, you’ll likely
have to lower the Threshold to see an effect. You can adjust the Per Channel Intensity controls
to change the color. You’ll get a more realistic glow if you use more than one effect, and
increase the Radius a bit with each time. Be careful not to blow out the highlights.
It’s probably be easier to tweak the way the Glow looks if you first do an initial
grade over the footage.
Next up is creating the electricity lines around the arm. Bring in the Plane from the
Media panel and position and scale it to line up with Kirstie’s arm. Then attach it to
the motion tracked point. Right click and set the Blend to Add. Now on this Plane we’re
going to use the Freehand mask tool to draw the lines we want to see. You can leave the
lines open. Create as many as you’d like.
Now add the Neon Path effect to the Plane. This is available in the VFX: Neon Lights
pack for Express. You should see the paths are automatically traced by the effect. To
animate these, I’ll activate keyframes for the Evolution property. Skip to the end, and
increase the number. This will make the Neon Path go around and around each mask. Lower
the Extension if you want the lines to be shorter.
The Core, Inner Glow, and Outer Glow all have their own Distortion properties. Adjust these
to your liking, as well as the color to match your scene. I went with an orange Inner Glow
and a purple Outer Glow.
From here it’s grading the image to look the way you want. I used a lot of Glow effects,
Auto Volumetrics, Anamorphic Lens Flare, and pictures of Lens Dirt set to the Screen Blend
Mode to get it to the final result.
That's it for today. Feel free to leave any questions down below and don't forget to subscribe
and hit the bell icon to be notified of when we next upload. Thanks for watching and I'll
see you all in the next video.