Greetings, filmmakers!
I’m Simon Jones from HitFilm.com, here with an extended look at the portal effects from
Ryan Connolly’s film PORTAL COMBAT.
If you want to know how the Dimension Rift effect works in HitFilm, you’ve come to
the right place.
If visual effects and compositing is all-new to you, don’t worry - this is a great effect
to start with.
Here’s the shot we’ll be looking at . In PORTAL COMBAT, we created complex portal designs
but we’ll start off by using the standard portal created by HitFilm’s dimension rift
effect.
First up, make sure you’ve downloaded the project files.
There’s an info card on this video which links right to them, or you’ll find them
on the HitFilm website or in the YouTube description.
Once you’ve downloaded and unzipped those files, open the project file inside HitFilm.
In the Media panel you’ll find everything you need, Open up the Composite Shots folder
and you’ll find three composite shots.
Double click the ‘Portal shot’ composite shot to open its timeline.
If you’ve already done some editing in HitFilm, you’ll immediately notice that composite
shots are somewhat different.
Whereas editing is all about creating a sequence of clips one after another, compositing is
about creating a stack of layers.
By combining layers in interesting ways you build up a cool visual effects shot.
That’s the essence of compositing right there.
So the interface layout I’m currently using is designed primarily for editing.
This seems like a good time to introduce the Workspaces.
On Windows you’ll see this icon up top.
On Mac you need to go to the View menu, then Workspaces.
There are several built-in layouts and you can make your own as well.
For now, select the Compositing layout.
This reorganises all the panels to provide a faster way of working when doing visual
effects.
Feel free to switch workspace and re-arrange panels whenever you want, according to your
preferences and screen size.
Feel free to explore the pre-made composite shots in the project at your leisure.
But right now, let’s start over and build up the shot from scratch.
First we need to make a new composite shot.
There’s a bunch of different ways to do this in HitFilm.
What I’m going to do is find the ‘Silo’ video in the Media panel, then choose Make
Composite Shot from its menu.
This opens up a window with the specification of the new composite shot - you don’t need
to worry about any of this, because it’s all based on the Silo video.
Hit OK and you’ll be greeted with a brand new timeline containing that video layer.
Let’s add our portal.
It’s time to explore the most exciting panel in HitFilm: the Effects panel.
Here’s you’ll find a library of over 100 effects, all of which are highly customisable.
Remember: 100 effects in your library doesn’t mean you can only do 100 things in HitFilm.
You can combine all of those effects in unique ways to design completely new visuals that
we’ve never thought of.
Think of it like a toolbox - you might only have 30 tools, but you can use them to build
a house.
You can browse through the folders, but an easier way to find something if you know what
it’s called is to type into the search box.
In this case, type ‘Rift’.
The Dimension Rift effect is what we’ll use for the portal.
Effects can be dragged from the Effects panel onto your timeline layers.
So the obvious thing to do is drag the effect onto the Silo video, right?
Well, you can do that, but then you don’t have an easy way to position the effect in
3D.
Instead, I’ll remove the effect from there and go to the New Layer menu down on the timeline.
This is where you can create special layers right inside HitFilm.
Select the ‘Plane’ option.
Planes are simple coloured rectangles, but they’re massively useful.
Rename it to ‘Portal host’ and hit ‘OK’.
Your screen’s gone black, but don’t panic - that’s because we just created a large
black rectangle, which is now the top layer on our timeline.
Higher layers obscure lower layers.
If you click and drag on it in the Viewer you can move it around.
Click the Undo button to put it back to its original position.
Drag that Dimension Rift effect from the Effects panel again, and this time drop it onto the
Portal host layer.
In HitFilm, every layer can be fine tuned and customised.
Clicking the little triangle opens up the layer to show more controls.
If you head over to the Controls panel you’ll find the controls there too.
OK, with the Portal host layer selected, go to Controls panel and open up the Effects
group by clicking the triangle.
Inside you can see the Dimension Rift effect, and clicking the triangle next to it shows
the effect’s controls.
Right at the top you’ll see that ‘Wall image’ is set to ‘none’.
This means that we’re just seeing that black plane rectangle behind the portal effect.
What we want to do is see the side of the silo, so click the menu and select the Silo
layer.
Now comes the clever bit.
So far you’ve got a couple of 2D layers on the timeline.
It’s time to explore HitFilm’s 3D compositing capabilities.
On the timeline you’ll see a chequered square on each layer.
Clicking this reveals the dimensional options.
Switch the Portal host layer from 2D to 3D plane.
You’ll be asked if you want to add a 3D camera.
Without hesitation, Hit YES.
OK, at first glance not much has changed, other than funky green and red lines up in
the Viewer.
Open up the Transform controls for the Portal host and you’ll see that the position and
rotation properties now have three settings.
These represent the X, Y and Z axes - width, height, and DEPTH.
Click and drag on the rotation (Y) wheel.
As you do, watch the layer rotate in the Viewer.
You can now see that the dimension rift effect is actually rendering a 3D surface on the
portal.
Pretty neat.
OK, to get the effect on the correct angle for the silo wall, the easiest thing to do
is type in values directly.
So click on the Y value and type 14, then hit enter.
Then for the Z rotation change it to 2.
The effect is too large currently.
Adjust the Scale value to shrink it down.
62% works pretty well.
To move the effect into place, the most intuitive way is to use the controls in the Viewer itself.
So with the layer selected, you’ll see three arrows.
Clicking and dragging on the Red one will move the portal horizontally.
This looks super awesome, right until I play the shot or move the playhead.
Suddenly it becomes clear that the effect is staying in the same place while the camera
moves around behind it.
We need to get us some tracking.
HitFilm comes with built-in feature tracking, which is perfect for a shot like this.
We need to track the Silo video, so back on the timeline open up the Silo layer and look
for the Tracks section.
You should be able to see a Plus icon.
IF you can’t see it, try dragging the divider between the layer listing and the timeline
to make more room.
Clicking that Plus adds a new Track to the layer.
You’ll also see that the Viewer has switched to the Layer view.
The Layer view is designed to show you ONLY the selected layer, without any other distractions.
This is really handy for tracking, when you just want to see the layer in its original
form.
Right in the middle of the frame you’ll see two boxes.
This is your first tracking marker!
You use this to tell HitFIlm what you want to track.
The orange box defines the feature you’re tracking, while the green box is the area
in which HitFilm will search for it on each frame.
So on fast moving shots you’re going to need a larger green search box than on slower
shots, right?
This shot is great for tracking because there’s a lot of nicely defined detail.
Click and drag one of the corners of the orange box to enlarge it.
Then drag inside the orange box to reposition it.
There are lots of good places to track, but I’m going to go for this corner here.
Now, there’s a lot of wobbly movement in this shot.
Using a single tracking point like this is great if the movement is only horizontal or
vertical, but we’ve also got some rotation.
For HitFilm to work that one you need to give it some additional data.
Soooo….in the Type menu, switch to Double Points.
This adds a second tracking point.
The important thing to note is that this is still for the same track.
HitFilm will compare the data from both tracking points to figure out the rotation of the shot.
I’ll stick this one a little way away, so that there’s a separation of movement between
the two.
OK, let’s track forwards by clicking the play button up on the Track panel.
This will quickly go through the frames tracking those features.
It’s now time to head back to that New Layer menu.
This time select the ‘Point’ option.
This adds a point layer to the timeline.
Point layers don’t really do anything at first - they’re simply reference markers.
But back in the Tracker - you might need to find the Silo layer on the timeline and select
the Tracker again - we can now go to the Layer menu and selec that new point.
Make sure Rotation is also selected, then hit ‘Apply’.
This will take the tracked data and add it to the point layer.
Up top, click the Viewer tab to switch back to the main view.
Then scroll up the timeline, find the new point layer and select it.
If you move through the timeline you’ll see that the point layer is perfectly attached
to the movement.
The benefit of applying tracking data to a point layer is that you can then use that
point layer to control multiple other layers.
Although we’re not going to get that detailed in this tutorial, it’s a good habit to get
into as it gives you lots of flexibility to combine layers and effects together.
What we do need to do is link our portal layer to our tracked point layer.
On the timeline every layer has a parent menu, which is initially set to ‘none’.
Find the Portal host layer, open its parent layer and select the New point layer.
So the way it works is that a parent layer controls a child layer.
It’s that whole parent-child thing.
Everyone knows how that works, right?
Aaaand, our portal is now magically attached to the wall, and you know how to track - something
you’ll use over and over again in all kinds of VFX shots.
Right now we have a disconnected portal.
Select the portal layer and head back to the Controls panel.
Check out the Expansion slider - moving this opens and closes the portal, complete with
some cool distortion of the background.
Increasing the Connection dissolves the portal surface, revealing the View.
Currently this is just a hole, looking through to the Silo layer.
What we need is to see the shot of the Thug.
Dimension rift makes this really easy to do.
In the Media panel, locate the Thug video and drag it down onto the timeline.
Once it’s there, we’ll actually disable its visiblity by clicking the eye icon next
to the layer.
This makes it invisible, without removing it from the timeline.
Although we can’t see the layer directly, we CAN still reference it elsewhere.
So back in the dimension rift controls, in the View section, I’ll set the Image to
the ‘Thug’ layer.
And there he is, perfectly composited inside the portal.
The depth and exact position of the thug relative to the portal surface can be further adjusted
if you want.
As with pretty much everything in HItFilm, there’s a bunch of extra controls for customising
the dimension rift.
I do encourage you to go play around.
Remember that you can undo everything, as HitFilm tracks your actions via the History
panel.
Don’t be afraid to experiment - that’s when most of the best VFX shots happen.
We’ve covered the fundamentals for creating portal shots in HitFilm.
The project files you downloaded also include the more advanced version of the portal used
in PORTAL COMBAT.
Now that you have an idea of how layers and effects work in HitFilm, take a peek into
those composite shots to see how they hang together.
One particularly interesting aspect of the Portal Shot Advanced composite shot is that
it actually has another composite shot embedded inside it.
Check out the Orange Portal layer.
If you double click on the layer name, it’ll open up the composite shot containing the
portal design.
As you can see, it’s combining the dimension rift effect with some custom flame elements
to create a more complex result.
As you can see, the portal alone is made up of 10 layers.
By grouping them all into a specific composite shot, it helps to keep the main composite
shot nice and tidy.
Visual effects is a huge subject.
We have lot of tutorials on our YouTube channel and you’ll find lots of friendly people
on the HitFilm.com forums more than happy to answer questions and share techniques.
If you’re just starting out on your VFX journey, you’ve got exciting times ahead.
Until next time, I’m Simon Jones, and many thanks for watching.