In our main visual effects tutorial we covered how to composite the HUD onto a tracked face.
But in this video we're going to rewind a step and cover how you create those HUD elements
in the first place.
We've got project files to go along with this so make sure you download them so that you
can pick apart our designs and recreate them however you want.
So here we have the finished shot.
In our main HUD tutorial we showed how to create the HUD using three pre-animated HUD
pieces.
Each of these was actually created using multiple layers.
This is how we worked for the Heads Up sketch and it meant that each HUD element could have
additional depth.
Going back even further, each of those layered pieces was created from a huge range of still
image assets which were brought in and animated inside HitFilm.
We've made all of those individual images available in the project download so if you're
super hardcore and feeling ambitious, you can dig in and create something entirely from
scratch.
What I'm going to cover in this tutorial is how to create a three dimensional HUD element
that has some actual depth.
If you open up the project file, you'll see that there is a folder called Left in the
media panel.
Inside here you'll find 5 pre-animated HUD pieces.
Right click one of them and choose Make composite shot.
This will create a new composite shot using the HUD element as the template.
Select the other left layer elements and then add them into the new timeline as well.
I'm now going to select all of those layers, right click and change the blend mode to screen.
This removes the black background and blends them all together.
Currently this is just a flat HUD element, just like we worked with in the other tutorial.
And while it's cool that we can still adjust each layer separately, what we really want
to do is turn this into a fully three dimensional HUD piece with real depth.
To do this, I'm going to select all my layers and then switch them over to 3D.
This will also automatically add a new camera to the scene.
The easiest way to adjust the HUD is to change the viewer so that there are multiple views.
2 is enough for this.
So, on the left we now have our main view, and on the right we have a top down view of
the scene.
I'm now going to move each layer forward a little one at a time.
I'll select the layer on the timeline and then drag on the blue arrow in the top view
to move it forward, closer towards the camera.
I'll do this for each layer so that they're all equally spaced.
How much distance you actually put between them is up to you and the look that you're
after.
In our active camera view switch to the orbit tool, then click and drag in the middle of
the view to move the viewer around.
Check out how the HUD now has real depth.
This makes the entire shot much more visually dynamic.
So here's a cool extra trick.
We can now add a new point layer from the new layer menu which I'll switch into 3D.
I'll select all of my HUD layers and parent them to that point.
And then I'll select the point again and go up into its transform settings.
On the scale property, clicking the chain link icon disconnects the three scale values
so that we can adjust them individually.
If I adjust the last one, it'll scale the depth of all those HUD layers from the points
position.
Watch how the layers contract and expand as I adjust the scale.
Just like an accordion.
The HUD pieces in the Marvel films pulsate and animate like this a lot so it's a good
technique to know.
If you create your HUD elements like this, you need to know how to composite them back
into your scene.
So, here we have the shot of Kirstie all tracked and ready to go.
Don't forget to check out the other tutorial if you haven't already to find out more.
Now if I drop the composite shot of my finished HUD piece into here, its going to look a bit
strange and it will have lost the 3D depth.
To bring this back, all you need to do is switch the layer to 3D unrolled.
This keeps it as a single layer on the timeline while expanding its contents back into full
3D.
This can now be attached to the tracking data, just like any other layer, using the techniques
we cover in our main tutorial.
And there we have it!
A fully customisable version of the HUD.
Now of course the techniques that we've covered in this video can be used for all kinds of
motion graphics projects.
Now do check out our behind the scenes video on how we filmed the sketch, and do subscribe
to our YouTube channel if you like this sort of thing and would like to watch more of it.