Special Effect: Bullet Richochet/Discharge
 

How do you create a bullet effect? I'm speaking of the effect of shooting at a person, but the bullet misses the individual and kicks-up dust/richochets (spelling)? And how 'bout the gun muzzle effect where the camera captures the smoke/discharge effect from the gun's muzzle? Perhaps that's three questions, but is there a plugin/tutorial available?

I'm a Vegas user w/After Effects, FX, Combustion.

I am not sure but it might be more common to put stock photo. However I have found this software http://fxhome.com/effectslab/ and I am thinking of getting me a copy of that or their big product called VisionLab HD. I am a After Effects user to. But with EffectsLab I added very nice muzzle shots in about 15 minits without knowing the software or reading the manual. It was pretty easy and looked fairly good. And browsing through the preset-gallery gives a pretty nice impression to.

The bullet strike - dust kicked up, sparks on metal, etc - is usually done using a squib, a small, electrically fired explosive charge. Strikes on people are done with a protective underlayer, then a squib, and a blood pack on top. These things are dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

Squibs must be employed by a licensed technician. They qualify as explosives.

This subject has been covered many times before in this forum. Please do a search for 'squibs', 'gun effects', 'flare', 'blood effects', any synomyms.

rent Desperado 3 aka once uopna time in mehico and u'll hear rodriguez tell u how its done, everything is CG baby. Ricoche bullet hits, and smoke all CG. Simple and safe!

The economy way i use to get the bullet puff of smoke/dirt is to use a "party popper" - one of those plastic novelty things shaped like tiny bottles, where you pull the string, it goes bang and paper streamers pop out the end. Simply remove the streamers, then put in a small amount of dirt/earth, hide it behind some furniture or something, then get an assistant to pull the string at the appropriate moment. Its pretty safe too, although I would still recommend eye protection and a degre of common sense...

get those chinese firecracker things.. the ones that spark and pop when you throw them on the ground.

A safer, more economical way (well...hopefully more economical) is to use compressed air. If you remember or know, thats what they used in band of brothers for explosions, bullet hits etc. due to it being much safer. All you need is a compressed air source, a release valve or some kind of trigger, and a tube/funnel/pipe to focus it (for the simplest version of course). For ground hits you can dig and hole and put dirt on top of the opening. I've messed around with this myself with pvc pipe, a hand pump, and valve all for a couple bucks. Its lots of fun :)

One standard, in special effects is to employ a 'sweeney gun',
which is an compressed air fed gun that shoots something akin to a
paintball membrane with whatever medium you chose to load into the
sweeney. Also this is used to deliver bug splatter on windshields etc.
A friend of mine in special effects, where I work also has had good effect
with a simple paintball gun, with a co2 cartridge used for propellent as apposed to the Sweeney which is pretty expensive and has hoses leading back to the rather large cylinder making the whole contraption a big
production.