Jordy here for Cinecom.net
and last week we made a video about a laboratory
in which human experiments took place to create a device that would help people
take safe distance from each other.
It was really fun to make that video and if you haven't seen it yet,
there's a link there,
here or everywhere.
Now, because the video took more time to produce,
we separated the skit and the tutorial.
Now, we might do that more in the future, it all depends on your feedback.
So, definitely let us know in the comments what you think of this.
But anyhow,
let's have a look at how we created that video
and of course give you guys a tutorial on how we created the visual effects.
Or better yet, how Yannick made the visuals.
Hey! Yannick here and let's start with the laser eyes.
Well, of course before you can do anything, you need some footage.
We just made a side shot of all the action happening.
Gilles comes in,
Jordy pretends to shoot some laser beams
and Gilles reacts to it and runs off screen.
Super simple.
And then you just need an empty background
so you can remove Gilles when the laser hits him.
But we forgot ours.
And yeah, that happens sometimes.
However, we have an easy fix.
Just duplicate your footage and start looking for the empty parts.
Here you can freeze-frame your shot and mask out the part you want.
Keep doing this until you have enough to remove Gilles from the shot.
On to the laser,
which is just an animated saber effect from Video Copilot.
Now, when you have animated the laser,
we are going to make Gilles burn up.
Place your makeshift empty shot on top of the original footage,
then animate a mask opening up,
starting from where the laser hits and ending completely removing Gilles.
Now also add a turbulent displace effect to the animated empty shot.
This will make it look like Gilles is crumbling.
Next up, the burning edge glow on Gilles.
For this we are going to use the saber effect again.
Just make some animated mask to follow the edge of Gilles burning up,
then set the preset to fire and the core type to layer mask.
Set the blending mode to add and you already have a burning edge.
Damn, we're almost done with this effect.
Next up are a ton of stock clips I used to create the smokey debris explosion.
I purposely didn't went for the fire explosion because it didn't seem right to me.
However, I did use some embers because it adds some extra to the burning effect.
Now, of course, you can find all these stock clips on the internet if you spend hours looking for them.
But if you use Storyblocks Video you have an unlimited amount of stock clips right at your disposal.
Search for whatever you want and they have it,
from HD stock videos to 4k overlay clips.
Perfect to help you with your special effects.
And to make your search even more easy,
they have stock clip collections.
Here they bundle a bunch of videos under a certain team, which makes it a lot easier for you to find.
From modern day dinosaurs to artsy the After Effects templates.
And the best thing about Storyblocks Video is the fact that you only have to pay one price per year
for unlimited downloads.
So if you want to start downloading right away,
go to the first link in the description below.
Ok, the last thing I now want to do is some extra glow on Gilles and some lens layers.
For the glow, you just need to duplicate the original clip.
Make a small mask on the laser hit point and with the lumetri effect make it more brighter
and more red.
Then for the lens flare you can of course use some stock Clips,
but I went for the Red Giant Universe knoll light factory effect,
with this effect you can choose from a wide variety of flare presets.
I combined two flares for my end effect and also linked this to a tracked null object.
That way they perfectly follow Jordy.
That was effect number one.
Now, let's not waste time and start with the next one:
the ultrasonic sound waves.
You say sometimes we always use the same camera framing.
So again make a shot of all the action, and this time you don't need an empty shot.
The first thing you can do is track you're emitting source,
which for us is Jordy's head.
Now let's create the waves.
On a solid layer we are going to add the radio waves effect.
First of all, link the producer point property of the radio waves to the tracked null object.
Then play around with these settings until you have something you like.
I animated a frequency from four to three to zero over time, making the waves disappear.
Next up, add the fast box blur effect to the radio waves layer
and blur it, making the wave wider.
Now select the null and the radio wave layer and pre-comp them.
This pre-comp we will use as a displacement map.
Create an adjustment layer and on this, add the caustic effect.
From this effect we are only going to use the water properties.
For the water surface, set it to your radio wave layer and also to the effect and masks.
Then you can use the settings that you like,
it's a personal taste, of course.
But very important, set the surface opacity to zero,
otherwise you will have a blue tint over your footage.
Now a last step is to make it more 3d light.
Let the waves interact with your floor.
Take the bulge effect and add that to your radio waves layer.
Increase the radius, the bulge height and the taper radius a bunch and place it at your actors' feet.
Then a last detail,
which you can skip if you want,
but I added a prism displacement from Red Giant
This will give you a small chromatic displacement.
Again, use the radio waves as the displacement source and set the settings to your likings.
Now the last effect of today is a super cool forcefield effect,
which is completely made without extra plugins.
It is
operational.
You may run to me.
For the footage you need your action and an empty shot.
We also did the part where Gilles runs into the force field
and flies away.
To do this, just let your actor run forward
and when he hits the force field, let him jump up.
Nothing more.
First, let's make the actor fly away.
On the point where he jumps, make a cut and freeze-frame the clip after the cut.
Create a rough mask around the actor and animate him off screen.
Now, don't forget to also create a shadow with a solid layer and animate it,
and that's it.
Now, duplicate the actor layers and pre-comp the duplicates.
In the pre-comp we are going to create a new solid layer
and add the fractal noise effect.
Animate the offset so that effects moves from one side to the other.
Also animate the contrast and the brightness
so the fractal noise comes in and out.
Now pre-comp the fractal noise layer and add the CC sphere effect.
With the settings you can make the ball as large as you want.
Again, pre-comp it and then we are going to use this pre-comp as a displacement map.
So create an adjustment layer in the pre-comp layer with the duplicate footage of your actors.
Add a CC blobbylize effect to the adjustment layer
and use the fractal ball as the blob layer.
Then adjust the softness to your likings.
Now go back to the original composition,
and here we are going to add a fractal ball pre-comp layer.
Place it on top of everything and set the blending mode to screen.
We are going to use this layer for the extra chromatic aberration effect.
Look for the VR chromatic aberration and drag that to the fracture ball layer.
Again, choose your own settings,
but with the point of interest shift the effect to one side.
Then duplicate the effect and shift the point of interest to the other side.
We had the problem that the chromatic aberration wasn't spreading enough
and this fixes that.
Now, a last detail is the interaction of your actor and the floor with the force field.
Again, we did this with the bulge effect.
Inside the fractal ball pre-comp
you can add a bulge effect for the floor, like we did with the ultrasonic sound waves effect.
And in the main composition you can add an animated bulge effect on the forcefield
to make a dent inwards when the actor hits it.
For the cool ripple effect we just used a solid with the radio waves effect on it.
Again, this solid needs to be in the fractal ball pre comp layer.
It is
operational.
You may run to me.
And that was it for the three effects.
Now before you guys are gonna run off,
let's have a look at the studio and how we've build the sets.
Now, creating the laboratory was really fun to make.
We have this very clean, clinical room, but we'll get into that later.
First, we have this safe zone, where the math scientists are taking notes.
Now, to make this a little bit more scary we went for a fluorescent look.
So we've put this fluorescent gel in front of the aperture 300X,
which is brand new, really cool.
And on the bottom we have this aperture light storm panel,
which also had the same gel over it.
And that way we got this lights coming from below,
having that ugly look.
And this way we also have a beautiful contrast
with the clinical or clean room right in here , which is white.
Now, right in here we used the aperture 120D
and over them we have the space light modifiers,
which is nothing more than just a white bag.
But coming from the top this creates a very soft lighting
for the overall scene.
As you can see, there's no hard shadow
and everything is lit out very clean and soft,
which is exactly what we need.
Of course we want this to be a little bit cinematic
so what we've done is broke that very soft white lighting a little bit
with these practical lights over here,
which have a very warm and orange lighting tone.
And then here on the bottom we've put blue gels over the spiffy gear specular lights,
which are just some bars that you can click into each other
and that way we're gonna have this
orange, blue and white and clean look in this space.
So yeah, that's it's for the lighting.
And a very big plus about this lighting setup is that we can move the camera and the actor
to any spot without having to change the lighting.
That's right. So this saves us time a lot as we don't need to move around
tripods, light stands or whatsoever.
Now, our studio is painted black entirely
so that is why we have these white walls over there.
But that creates a hard shadow from that side,
because it's just dark over there.
Which is why we have these
moveable white walls to also create a white wall on this side.
These are not so beautiful, so we don't film these
but they do function as a reflector and that way I have actually the same lighting
on the two sides of my face and we also have the feeling more
that we're standing in this complete white room.
And that was it.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Thank you Storyblocks for the support and as always...
Stay creative!
Hey, Yannick.
Do something crazy.
Leave me alone.
Hey, Lorenzo.
Do something crazy.
Hey, Jordy.
Yes?
Do something crazy.
Hey, Gilles.
Do something crazy.
Say no more.