Welcome back to another HitFilm tutorial. With the next Fantastic Beasts movie coming
out very soon, we're excited to tackle these Harry Potter magical effects. You can download
the plate we're using in the description below. We're also giving 50% off to the first 20
people to purchase the 3D: Particles pack. Let's go ahead and get started.
Here's the shot of Oli blocking and casting a few spells. For this tutorial we're just
going to focus on the first blue spell. At the end I'll show you how to change a few
settings to get a different result. Begin by bringing in the Particle Simulator effect,
and placing it at the point you want it to start.
In the Controls panel, drop down the Emitter settings and change the Trajectory to Disc.
Set the X Rotation to 90 to have it facing the camera. This will make the particles move
out from the center point. Search for speed in the bar up top, and set that to around
2000. Search for Life and change the value to .2 seconds, and the variation to .1 second.
The particles are continuing to spawn, so search for "per second". Activate keyframes
on the first frame of the simulation, and set the value in the hundreds. Skip a few
frames forward and bring it down to 0. This will result in a quick burst of particles.
Change the Texture Source to Built-In and choose one you like. For my scenes I used
the Fire Ferocity textures. Checkmark Align to Motion. Right click the layer and set the
Blend to Screen.
To make the particles fade out, select the System and come up to the Lifetime panel.
Choose the Alpha property, and change the Type to Gradent. Click below the white line
to add a black point at the beginning and end. This means that the particles will start
transparent, fade in to opaque, then fade back out again.
Duplicate the particle simulator layer. I'll hide the bottom one for now so that we can
see what changes are being made. Add the Atomic Particles effect onto the second simulation.
Under Particle Placement, Number of Particles, increase the X and Y values to the max.
Under the Fractal dropdown, increase the Displace Strength to somewhere between 100 and 300.
Lower the Wavelength to below 10% to see an effect. You can get very different looks just
by changing the number even by 1%, so try a few to see what works.
Let's add a Zoom Blur to make it less sharp. I'll position the handle in the middle of
the particles, then increase the Strength. Here's what the particles look like together.
Remember to turn on Motion Blur for more realism.
Once you've got the particles in a good place, select the two layers, right click, and make
them into their own composite shot. If you're done tweaking the spell hits, you can Pre-Render
this composite in the Media panel to speed up your workflow.
Back in the main comp, set the Blend of the layer to Screen. Drop on the Color Vibrance
effect. In the Controls, I'll change it to blue. Because this effect is made of light,
we'll need a few Glow effects. I like to use multiple of these, with different Thresholds
and Radius settings. Stacking the Glow effects instead of using just one results in a more
realistic falloff of light. Depending on how bright I want the spell to be, I also might
set the Blend of one to Add instead of Screen.
To create some distortion under the spell, I'll create a Grade layer and add the Head
Distortion effect. If the spell is a smaller one, you might want to mask out the Grade
so that only a portion of the scene is affected. In the Controls, I'll keyframe the Opacity
of the Grade layer to start at 0 before the spell is cast. Move the timeline forward and
raise the value as you see fit. Then bring it back down to 0 after the spell is gone.
I'll also use a Curves effect on that same Grade. This can add some brightness to the
base footage, as well as tinting it the color of the spell to get it to match better. Because
it's on the same Grade as the Heat Distortion, the Opacity is already taken care of.
This is how I created the spell energy for the whole scene. If you want your character
to be casting a spell rather than blocking, there are just a few settings you need to
change. I'll just do this as a quick example to what we've already created.
First, you'll want to use a Cone Trajectory rather than Disc. This will make the particles
move in one direction. You can increase or decrease the Radius to change the spread.
By adjusting the position and Trajectory of both particle simulations, I can retime this
spell to happen when Oli throws his arm forward.
We'll be covering the disapparition effect next week, so be sure to subscribe and ring
the bell so that you don't miss out. Thanks for watching and I'll see you all in the next
video.