You good? No.
Hello everyone! I’m Zach and welcome back to another HitFilm tutorial. Spider-Man: No Way
Home has just been released, bringing back some iconic villains from the other Spider-Man films.
Today we’ll be looking at how to turn yourself into Electro using visual effects in HitFilm.
To start off this effect we filmed a video clip of Tom in front of a green screen.
This made it easier to replace the background and make him appear to float in the air. He stood
with one foot on a sandbag covered with green cloth to help look like he is flying instead
of standing on the ground. Small RGB lights were used to add flickering yellow light,
creating some interaction with the lightning VFX. This interactive lighting is an important detail,
and practical lighting on set tends to look much better than adding it in post production.
The downloadable project files include this clip of Tom with the green screen already removed.
We’ll want the lightning effects to stick to Tom and follow his movement,
so I’ve also done a 2D point track. To learn about green screen and tracking in HitFilm, check out
the tutorials linked in the cards on screen. With Tom placed over the background, I copied over the
tracked point and parented it to the footage layer. I then adjusted the scale and animated
the layer’s position to add some more floaty motion and to make him fall down at the end.
Let’s turn our actor into Electro by adding some cool lightning effects!
Add a new black Plane layer, then apply the Lightning and Electricity effect.
Set the layer’s Blend Mode to Add to remove the black. This effect comes with a lot of settings
to control the shape of the lightning, so play around with them to see what they do and create
a look that you like. The lightning bolts seen in the trailer are less wavy and have less movement,
so I tried to replicate that. When you are happy with the general shape of the lightning bolt,
reduce the width and alpha of the built-in glow to disable it. We’ll apply our own better looking
glow to all of the energy effects at the end. Attach the Start Point to the tracked Point layer,
then adjust the position to place it in the scene. To make the lightning bolt appear,
animate the End point’s Growth property to increase over a few frames.
To make it disappear, animate the Core Opacity value to decrease over a couple frames.
Now that we have a single lightning bolt, we need to duplicate the effect,
change the position, change the Seed control to randomize the shape,
and move the keyframes so it starts and ends at a slightly different time.
Repeat this process to fill out the shot with lightning bolts.
You can make some of them snap on or off in a single frame to add more variation.
Once all of the lightning effects are placed, we can apply some additional effects to add more
detail. I used a Heat Distortion effect to break up the straight lines and some subtle movement.
Heat Distortion also adds some diffusion, which slightly blurs some areas.
I also used a Zoom Blur effect to fake the appearance of motion blur.
Besides the comic accurate color scheme, another update to Electro’s appearance is
the star shaped face mask. The mask needs to follow the movement of the actor’s face.
I did a planar track using Mocha HitFilm as it tracked some of the perspective changes. If you
are in HitFilm Express and don’t have the Add-On, you could do a 2D point track. For a more detailed
guide on tracking with Mocha check out the tutorial linked in the card on screen. Click this
button to make the planar surface fill the entire frame. This means that on the current frame,
no transformations will be applied, which will make it easier to line up our mask in HitFilm.
Export the tracking data using the HitFilm Corner Pin option, then import that data into HitFilm.
Copy and paste the imported Plane layer into our main comp, then set the Plane’s color to black.
Parent it to the actor layer and reset its transforms so it lines up.
Use the Freehand Mask tool to draw the star shape,
trying to match the perspective of the person’s face.
To make the mask look like energy, apply a Neon Path effect. Set the effect’s blend mode to None.
Make sure to place the Neon Path effect before the Quad Warp effect. Make the End Width the same as
the Start Width, and adjust the Extension and Evolution to place the line in the right spot.
Remove the built-in glow on this effect as well. Now open up the Core properties and add some
Distortion. I used the energy Type, and increased the animation speed to make it more energetic.
Neon Path is part of an Add-On if you’re in HitFilm Express. You can achieve a similar result
by drawing the mask shape on a white Plane, then duplicating the mask and setting it to
subtract. Reduce the Expansion, then add another mask set to subtract to cut out the bottom.
Add a Heat Distortion effect. By default the distortion is limited to the current layer’s
alpha, so we need to select another solid layer as the Distortion’s mask.
We have the main pieces of this Electro effect in place, but let’s add a few extra
details. One detail we can add is some smaller energy surrounding the actor.
Duplicate the actor layer and apply a Fill Color effect set to white. Add a Fractal Noise effect,
and adjust the Scale, Exposure, and Offset to create some bright and dark spots.
Animate the Seed value so the pattern changes over time.
Next add a Curves effect. Go to the Alpha channel and edit the curve to be dark at
both ends and bright in the middle. This is remapping the Alpha channel,
causing the transparent edges to be opaque, and the solid core to be transparent,
creating an outline effect. Now add a distortion effect, such as Energy Distortion, or Heat
Distortion if you are in Express. We want the distortion to extend outside the actor’s outline,
so select another solid layer as the distortion’s mask. After adjusting the distortion settings,
we now have some small energy bolts surrounding our actor.
Let’s make all of these energy layers into their own comp to make them easier to work with.
I want a copy of the actor layer to stay in this comp, so I’ll duplicate the layer. Select all the
energy layers and make them into a Composite Shot. Make sure the actor layer is above the lightning
layer and below the mask and other energy layers. Then add a fill color effect set to black.
Back in the main comp, set the energy comp’s blend mode to Add. Now we can
apply some Glow effects to make the energy brighter and give it some color.
I used the Super Glow effect because it’s easier to get more realistic results,
but if you don’t have HitFilm Pro you could also stack a few regular Glow effects.
When Electro enters the scene there are some bright flashes, and the lightning
changes color to blue. We can easily change the color of our energy using a Hue Colorize effect.
Animate the Hue value to quickly change color for a few frames,
and animate the Hue Strength value to bring back the original color.
To create the bright flashes we can drag in a Plane layer and add a Radial Gradient effect.
Adjust the Outer Radius Color and Opacity, then set the layer’s Blend Mode to Add.
Trim the layer to only last for one or two frames,
then duplicate it, move it by a few frames, and change the color.
Finish off the shot by adding a color grade and some lens effects like Lens Dirt and Film Grain.
And that’s how you can create your own Electro style lightning VFX! Be sure to check out our
other Spider-Man inspired tutorials. Leave a comment and hit the like button if you learned
something new. Remember to subscribe for more tutorials like this. See you next time!