Hi guys, today I'm going to be showing you how to create the flying Captain America shield
effect from our latest short, Assemble.
"Yes!
Huh?"
*Screams* If you haven't already, grab your free copy
of HitFilm Express from our website.
This tutorial is going to use a 3D model of the shield, which is now possible thanks to
the 3D Model Render add-on pack available for the HitFilm Store for use in Express.
Let's jump right in and get started.
I've got my footage in its own composite shot, but I haven't yet set up my 3D model.
Let's do that now by going to Import, 3D Model.
It'll open up a file browser, and I'll go into the Cardboard Shield folder.
The file we're looking for is in Assets.
Double click the .FBX model file to import it.
You might not see anything, and this can happen with some 3D models.
In the Materials tab, search for Opacity.
Raise all of the sliders to 100%.
Search for Diffuse Color, click the top box and select white.
Increase this fourth number as well, which determines the Alpha, or Opacity.
Use the eyedropper tool on the other 5 materials to get the same result.
Do the same with Ambient color.
This will come into play later when we light the model.
Now we can begin texturing the shield.
In the search box I'll type diffuse map.
Click this folder icon to browse for the first file.
Go into Source Images, Textures, then into the corresponding folder.
We're looking for the Shield Plate V1 texture, so I'll go into there.
The Shield Plate Default Base Color is the one we want.
Same process for V2, I'll back out of the V1 folder and find the correct image.
Repeat this process and assign all of the textures to the pieces of the shield.
Next up is the Normal maps.
The purpose of these maps is to add the appearance of more texture without actually increasing
the polygon count.
I'll put normal map into the search bar.
This is almost the same process as before, but I'll select the Default Material Normal
image for each piece.
Once you're done, hit OK to import the model.
Drag the FBX file from the Media panel into the timeline.
Create a new Camera as well.
Click the model, and come into the Controls panel.
Let's push it back in Z space and put the shield around where the starting position
should be.
We'll do the rotation and spinning later, for now let's just make sure that the animation
is correct.
Activate keyframes for the Position.
Skip forward in time and drag the position of the Shield to be right up against the tree.
Remember that technically it should just be the edge of the shield hitting it, not the
center.
Move to the end of the timeline and position the model to fly offscreen towards the audience.
I'll start by setting the Z position back to 0.
It's too far right, so move the X position over to the left.
Looks like 0 isn't quite offscreen.
Adjust the Z position again to until it passes the camera.
Depending on how you want the shield to appear in the scene, raise or lower the Y Position
as well.
Let's take a look at what we have so far.
The shield doesn't appear to be ricocheting off the tree, it's sort of curving like a
boomerang.
This middle keyframe is what's causing the problem- right click it and under Spatial
Interpolation, select Linear.
To demonstrate what's happening here I'll change my camera view to top.
Use the controls in the top right corner to move the view until you see the shield.
If necessary, turn off the floor plane and turn on the Motion Path.
Here is what the path looks line with the middle keyframe set to Linear.
Here is what it looks like set to Auto Bezier, which is what it was before.
HitFilm is trying to smooth the motion and make is less sharp.
This is usually good for most animations, but in this case we want the shield to bounce
off the tree.
You don't have to set the Interpolation to Linear to get this motion.
You'll notice that the middle keyframe has handles here.
I can click and drag these individually to adjust the curve into something more direct.
In the end it's whatever best fits your scene and results in the animation you like.
Now that we've got the position down, let's add in the correct rotation.
First we'll make it spin throughout the shot.
In the Controls panel, activate keyframes for the Y Rotation value.
Skip to the end of the timeline and set it to about 5 times over.
If you want it to spin slower, choose a smaller number.
Let's move on to the X Rotation, which turns the shield away or towards the camera.
At the beginning, I'll have it start in this rotation.
Turn on keyframes again and move forward in time.
After the shield bounces off the tree, I'll adjust the X Rotation to have it pointing
more directly at the camera.
To make the shield appear more unsteady, introduce some Z Rotation into the properties.
You don't have to keyframe this value, just change the number to anything but 0.
You can see that this makes the model appear to shake as it rotates.
And finally I'll adjust the Z Orientation so that the shield isn't perfectly parallel
to the ground.
This also helps match the angle of the bounce.
Now that we've got the animation down, we can start compositing.
First I'll mask out the areas where the shield would be going behind the trees.
Select the model layer, grab the freehand mask tool and draw a shape around the left
bushes here.
Make sure the mask contains the shield inside of it, and close the shape.
Click the Invert Mask button.
In the Shape dropdown, feather the mask as needed.
The shield would also go behind these trees here, so draw another shape around those.
Depending on where your mask is positioned, you might have the slight problem of it affecting
the shield later in the shot.
Let's back up in time to where nothing is affected and go into the mask's Transform
properties.
Activate keyframes for the Opacity, skip one frame forward, and set it to 0.
Let's create a new Light.
In the Transform properties, I'll raise the Y Position and move it off to the left, where
the sun is in this scene.
Lower the Intensity if needed to avoid the shield appearing too bright.
I'll add another Light and change the Type to Ambient.
This fills in the dark spots of the shield to ensure that nothing falls into complete
black.
The reason this shield is standing out so much is because the color is wrong.
It should match both the actual prop shield from previous shots, and fit into the color
of the current scene.
Add a Hue, Saturation and Lightness effect directly onto the model layer.
I'l drop down the Master controls and lower the Saturation to around -40 or 50.
Now drop on a Grain effect.
This step depends on your background footage.
Checkmark Monochrome if you need to, to make the noise black and white, and adjust the
Amount to match your shot.
When you're ready to export, be sure to turn on motion blur.
The stock footage came from the ActionVFX Bullet Hits collection.
I used several of the Wall Hit Front and Side elements.
For more information about removing the black from stock footage, see Josh's previous tutorial
on just that.
Because this shot did not require motion tracking, I just had to position and scale the elements
in my scene.
Make sure that the stock layers go under the shield model layer.
That's it for this tutorial.
Visit our channel for more Assemble content and leave your questions or comments down
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