hello everyone i'm zach alan from the youtube channel zach alan productions
today i'll be showing you how to create scarlet witch energy effects using hitfilm
this way i'm using hitfilm pro but you can follow along and express
if you have the 3d particles add-on and the motion audio visual add-on other additional
add-ons are required to recreate my exact steps but aren't necessary to achieve a similar result
start by importing the video footage and making it into a composite shot to create an organic energy
effect that follows the hand movement duplicate the footage layer and add a difference key effect
select the original footage layer as the source then shift
the current layer on the timeline by a few frames
hide the main footage layer for now to see the effect the difference key effect will
show any difference between the two layers and because the camera isn't moving the only
thing that is really different is the hand position adjust the key settings to better
isolate the hand then use an animated mask to make sure that nothing else is visible
use a fill color effect to make it white add a blur effect to soften the result
and expand it then brighten up the effect with a crushed blacks and whites effect
this still doesn't look like energy so add an atomic particles effect increase the x
and y resolution to the max then increase the size slightly and reduce the random settings
open up the fractal settings increase the display strength
and decrease the wavelength to distort the shapes
also increase the iterations and the speed setting
scrubbing the timeline you can now see what looks like energy trailing the movement of the hand
i don't like being able to see the individual particles
so add a small blur effect to make the energy appear sharper again
add a subtle displacement effect this will push brighter pixels in a certain direction pinching
the bright spots of the energy to add even more detail and motion add a heat distortion effect
finally add some color to the effect i chose to use the color vibrance effect but if you
don't have this effect in express you can use another effect such as gamma or curves
add multiple glow effects increasing their radius each time to make the glow fall off more realistic
unhide the footage layer and set the energies blend mode to add
to create the more intense energy effect that builds up to the energy beam
we'll use the particle simulator this effect will need to be attached to the actor's hand
so use hitfilm's tracking tools to track the motion check out the tutorial linked in the
card on screen if you are unfamiliar with tracking drag a particle simulator onto the
timeline and in the emitter settings attach it to the tracked point layer
trim the start of the particle layer so it starts when the energy buildup will start
the emitter behavior is already pretty close to what i want
as the particles are being created at a point and moving outwards in random directions
in the particle system movement settings increase the speed and decrease the life
so the particles move quickly and disappear before getting too far away from the hand
under appearance select a texture for the particles i like the look of the aurora borealis
texture i also chose to enable a line to motion so the particles angle towards the direction they are
moving in set the blend mode to add and increase the particles per second i found that a value of
500 worked well at the start i then animated this value to increase over about a second
tripling the particles per second making it seem like the energy was building up over time
i also enabled motion blur the particles still pop in and out of existence and look way too bright
open up the lifetime panel and with the particle system selected open the alpha
parameter set the type to gradient and add a black point at the start and end of the gradient
also lower the brightness of the middle point until the particles are no longer too bright
i chose to add some movement variation to the life scale and speed to make the particles less uniform
set the layers blend mode to add to introduce a more interesting movement to the particles
i added a heat distortion effect
copy and paste the displacement heat distortion
color vibrance and glow effects from before and adjust the settings
i found that the effect became too bright so i lowered the intensity of the
glows i also added a diffuse effect to soften it
create a new black plane and add the custom light flares effect
use the track point layer for the hotspot position then open up the options dialog
i like the look of the anamorphic spiked preset but i adjusted some
of the colors to be red to match the energy
animate the intensity of the flare to increase when the particles start
emitting and to increase again closer to the end of the shot
you can also add some flicker to the light flare by adding
more keyframes to the intensity or scale or by adding a flicker effect
one finishing touch to help the bright energy effects fit into the scene better is to add
some interactive lighting ideally this would be done on set while filming using a red light
but it can be done with vfx as well to create this effect duplicate the footage
layer and make it red i did this by using a luminance key effect and a tint effect
mask this new layer to show up where the energy would be casting light such as the actor's face
set the layers blend mode to add
i also chose to add a slight flicker effect to match the quickly changing energy
and to animate the opacity of this layer to increase as the energy brightness increased
to bring everything together and polish the shot add a new grade layer
i used multiple curves effects to create the final color grade i brightened the image then
made the dark areas of the image cooler and more blue and the bright areas warmer and
more red i also used various lighting effects to enhance the bright energy such as glow lens dirt
and anamorphic lens flare
if you're using hitfilm pro or have the vfx neon lights add-on for express
it is very easy to create great looking energy beam effects
create two point layers tracked to the hand position and the target position
on a black plane add the light sword ultra two-point auto effect
setting the hilt and tip positions to the corresponding point layers
decrease the width settings to create a thin beam
keeping the end closer to the camera slightly wider
increase the distortion on the core and adjust the distortion
settings to make a fast moving energy beam that looks like lightning
set the glow color to white and add some fast-moving distortion to it as well
then duplicate this layer multiple times changing the seed for the distortion's noise
and changing the overall width create the effect of energy particles firing along the beam
i duplicated the effect again remove the glow
increase the distortion amount change the noise type and increase the animation speed
once again i duplicated this effect and changed the seed to fill out the beam more
to make the ends of the energy beam appear to emit from and target their point layers
i added bulge effects tracked to the points to pinch the beam at each end
finally give this energy beam the same treatment as the other energy effects adding color glows
heat distortion light flares and interactive lighting
and that's how you can create your own scarlet witch effect in hitfilm
feel free to explore the project file provided in the video description
and to leave a comment if you have any questions or if you learned something
new subscribe for more tutorials like this and be sure to give this video a like see you next time