What programs do you use to does these special effects?

Example the Bullet Ripples!

I know it also involves the camera work but what do you think is the best software setup or programs? Even if I can't afford it?

There are many systems that enable you to produce special effects with video. But they all require a very steep learning curve and a great deal of skill and practice to produce professional results. Many also require a great deal of cash. Perhaps the least expensive and most versatile of the software is Adobe's After Effects which ranges from a few hundred to over $1k. Commotion Pro (and Commotion DV) provides basic paint and rotoscoping for around the same price.

From there the sky's the limit. Discreet's Combustion, Maya, etc., etc. For 3D animation many filmmakers have used RenderMan modules to create convincingly rendered characters. Most of the high-end products range from several thousand $ to well over $100k

Look around.

ive done lots of high end effects in my day, one thing i found out

thats is essential to know when starting in the industry is

to start small and work your way up... ....trying to accomplish matrix type

effects is rather difficult but can be done with or without idustry standard

software, but you must crawl before you walk. You can achive this with any

3d software as long as it allows you to do so....Maya wont make you of

a better animator than lightwave will,,,im a 3D max guy and would never

switch. (though Maya is one heck of a time saver.)

A bad musician never blames his instrament....

I think the most interesting effect from the Matrix was the motion freeze combined with a circular pan ("circular pan"...is that the right term?).

On one of those behind the scenes shows, they showed how they did it. Dozens of still cameras were set up in a half circle around the point of action. In place of the first and last still cameras, motion cameras were substituted. At the moment that one of the actors jumps in the air, they all fire. Then, each shot is added as a frame in a progressive series and this is all spliced in between the footage shot from the two motion cameras.

Pretty smart. But out of reach for budget filmmakers unless you have several dozen cameras sitting around.

The original bullet ripple effect is what they call 'Bullet Time'. It's an awesome effect that took them hundreds of hours to create. Basically it involved the setting up of 120 digital still cameras that were set at very high shutter speeds. The captured images were then transfered into the computer where they were manipulated to get te desired effect. The freeze pan was done in a similar way with the cameras all set around the actor in a circle.

The Matrix DVD has a section called 'Bullet Time', where the effects supervisor, I think an Australian(YAY), explains how they did it.

Although it is a very nice effect and had me jump out of my
chair the first time I saw it, it is allmost cliche now. It appears
in a lot of movies now-a-days. That makes you think, why is
it in there? The answer will probably be because they can
instead of it furthers the story. With the Matrix it truly helped
the story.

I saw Swordfish last week and it was the newest movie
I've seen to implement such an effect. Although my first
thought was here we go again it *did* help to show you
how this bomb (which exploded) was working. So it wasn't
only for effect. They only did use it one time so I am happy.

My point is, don't want to do something because it looks cool
or because you can. Ofcourse it is a very good idea to try
stuff out to see what you can do. Perhaps you will find a
place in a movie sometime for it.

Now about those ripples: they can be made in a whole lot
of different ways. It might even be possible to shoot some
water ripples and composite those in the footage, perhaps
in a 3D package... Then ofcourse you have 3D packages like
LightWave, Maya and 3D Max for example. Then there are
special effects and compositing programs like AFter Effects,
Commotion, Inferno etc.

I think you can do a lot with 3D applications. Fortuntenately
for you these are easily available now! This used to be a lot
different a few years back. Maya has a free learning edition
available (costs nothing at all), Max has a very low cost
edition too I believe and you can get a trial version of LightWave
3D to try out. And then there is always manual painting such
effects in Paintshop/Photoshop. Some people can draw things
that you've never thought as being drawn in a paint program.
Numerous lightning things you see in movies are hand drawn!

Hope this has helped some

The camera work will be tough since us consumers dont have the necessary equipment.

But yea, you can get pretty close to doing the bullet time effect using certain 3d animation software. I don't know if Adobe products can do this but that would be cool.

I have to post this link to this guy's website:
http://www.jefflew.com/

This guy, in my opinion, is the bomb. You may have already seen it before but thought I'd send it just in case. He works for ESC Entertainment which is currently doing some work on the Matrix 2 & 3.

Watch the Killer Bean 2 if you have not seen it before. He does some bullet time effect in there using Animation Master.

Another great site to check out if you're interested in computer graphics and visual effects research is the personal site of Paul Debevec, director of the graphics lab at the Institute for Creative Technologies in Marina del Rey.

http://www.debevec.org

What an interesting site! Thanks very much, Robert. Geez, I hadn't thought of Siggraph since my days as a college student when "computer graphics" involved green-phosphor Tektronix terminals and CalComp drum plotters! They've come a long way.

Those effects are amazing,

Would there be a cheaper way to create those effects?

For instance on a couple of adverts in the UK they show an object - Human, swan (Centre Parcs advert), food (Harvester advert) - freezed framed but the camera tracking around, and then the camera stops and the object moves on.

How could this effect be achived?

Ed Smith

Rob - Did you see the XL1's in swordfish

Ed,

That is the bullet time effect... They use a dozen to a few
hundred 35mm still frame cameras for such an effect. The
matrix DVD has loads on information how they do it. You
get to see through the cameras eye if you will. They explain
it very good...

and yes... I did saw those XL1's in Swordfish... I see them
everywhere!

Couldn't the effect be achieved by slowing down your subject when you shoot and then speed it up in post.

I guess it would look cheap and nasty and probably not work.
Oh well.

I was recently shooting some footage for the Palms casino in Las Vegas,

and was near the set of the Real World for MTV and saw a crew member with an XL1.....I wonder if its shot with XL1? Though i did see a Betacam camera as well....

About the still motion for marix...I think if there was a camera capable of real slowmotion shooting like at 70 frames per second it would be possoble to do.
if you had your camera mounted and moving accordingly but youll still get some movment.. But might be a cool effect!

Does anyone know if the new panasonic 24p going to have real slowmotion capture? I heard its prosumer and shoots 24 frames per second.

as far as i've seen the new panasonic 24p dv camera will only shoot set speeds, 24/30 (maybe 25? i think i read)...but it wont be true variable frame rate...

for really great slow mo dv, however, it was recommended to ME in another thread: ReelSmart Twixtor. I since bought a copy after trying the demo and it ROCKS...It works with everything too, I use it currently with Discreet's Combustion 2 software and have been playing with some settings, so far i'm more than pleased with the results.

what exactly is this reelsmart twixtor???

What does it do and how?

can it be used for post software???

I would like to check it out if it works well, like you said!

Adam,

http://www.revisionfx.com/rstwixtor.htm

Hey guys,

I decided to play around with the "bullet-time" idea and came up with a method of creating it without a ton of cameras. In fact, I only used one. The idea is similar to some of the earlier posts on this thread.

First I filmed my subject with my steadicam, creating a 180 degree pan in about 5 seconds. I filmed him falling, so he was connected to ropes to help slow his movement.

I imported the footage into Commotion Pro 4 and removed all of the wires.

I then imported the 5 second footage into After Effects 5.5 and used Twixtor Pro 2.1 to slow it down to about 15 seconds.

Although I did everything very quick, it turned out VERY nice. There are also a few good reasons of doing the effect this way:

1. Less time to plan and execute than a 100 camera rig.
2. No green screening required... can be filmed on the location needed.

However, the downside is that filming very quick actions and slowing them down is very difficult. Let me know what you guys think.

That sounds very nice! Do you have any before and after footage
online? 5 and 15 seconds should produce nice small file sizes.
I'd love to see your footage!

Thanks for sharing!

Hey Rob

I will not be home for about a week, so I do not have the footage I described. However, when I return home, I will try and post it.

YES, definitely watch the extra material on the DVD where Visual Effects Supervisor John Gaeta (NOT AUSSIE) explains bullet time and frame interpolation. VERY COOL.

BDOG

Hey,

I finally got my first test footage ready... If you would like to see it, just let me know and I will email it to you. Right now it is 1.8 M in the windows media format and about 20 seconds long. It started at 4.5 seconds with ropes. I am also working on another test that will start at normal speed and go into "bullet-time" using Realviz Retimer, however I am a little unsure on some settings in it right now.

I'd love to see some results. My e-mail is below. Thanks!

Hey,

Here is think link:

http://www.fat-dog.net/Bullet-Time_Test_1.wmv

Casey (kc@fat-dog.net) was nice enough to host it for me on his site!

Please excuse the music... I had to have something in the track to use the Windows Media compression, and it was the best song I had on my computer. Thanks!

Hi Daniel! I was quite impressed... looked really nice! Now if you
can fold a story around it where it adds to the story your set to
go!

Yeah, I could use a good story to put it into... There are a lot of ideas I have tested, such as Bullet-Time, but never used in anything. Maybe script writing will be my next challenge... hmmm. I am also going to play with the bullet ripples... I need some more to do this summer... woohoo.

well you could always do a matrix spoof ;]

There we go... I can see it now... "The Matrix Reloaded" by Daniel. Dang it, the big companies always take the good names! lol.

Hey guys,

I've got another test I would like to try. Instead of a steadicam, I am thinking of using 10 or so still cameras - plain, simple re-usable cameras. However, there are two problems I am running into:

1. Aligning all of the cameras
2. Triggering them all at the same time

Do you guys have any ideas? I am working on some of my own, however any helpw ould be greatly appreciated. This will give me something else to dot his summer :)

I think you'd find it difficult to trigger disposable cameras in this fashion, you'll need cameras that can accept a remote shutter release at a minimum. How you sync them i dont know, but now you've got me intrigued, i may look into this further.

BTW is that quote from the Usual Suspects?

c

<<<-- Originally posted by daniel1113 : Hey guys,

I've got another test I would like to try. Instead of a steadicam, I am thinking of using 10 or so still cameras - plain, simple re-usable cameras. However, there are two problems I am running into:

1. Aligning all of the cameras
2. Triggering them all at the same time

Do you guys have any ideas? I am working on some of my own, however any helpw ould be greatly appreciated. This will give me something else to dot his summer :) -->>>

Regarding the camera trigger problem. Why not just run tape on all cameras, with a clapboard to initatet the scene, from here you could just edit in the tape from each respective camera. Now I am very new to all of this, so please take this with a grain of salt. But thinking about it, the idea works (at least in my wacky mind).

As for the alignment, you could use a string across the set that acts as a marker. In looking through your viewfinder, you would want to make sure that the string was in the same area in each camera. It may take some experimenting, but I think it is something to consider.

I hope that these ideas spur better ideas in your head. Good luck with the project!

Paul, in theory that'd be fine, but the point is to use STILL Photo cameras, where one camera = one frame of video.

Now if you had the money to actually use ten DV cameras, you would still need still frames, so you'd have to trigger the photo mode on each...but that seems a bit much.

<<<-- Originally posted by Casey Visco : Paul, in theory that'd be fine, but the point is to use STILL Photo cameras, where one camera = one frame of video.

Now if you had the money to actually use ten DV cameras, you would still need still frames, so you'd have to trigger the photo mode on each...but that seems a bit much. -->>>

Casey,

Good thing that I READ the post! :) You are absoulutly correct. Like I said it was a wacky idea out of my head. If you had 10 DV cameras, couldn't you just capture individual frames in Final Cut. Forgive my lack of knowledge.

Yes, but as i said this is relatively cost prohibitive to use dv cameras.

It also doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to use 35 mm cameras for a DV effect, you are still stuck having to develop all that film and sort out the frames, then scan em etc.

What you really need is a Digital Still camera. I don't own one since im a film guy, nor have i ever wanted to so i don't know that much about them, but I imagine at this point you might be able to find relatively inexpensive ones that still yield high enough resolution to be used in DV. The trick still is getting them to fire at the same time, though.

Casey,

What about creating some sort of tracking device, which would follow the action. Maybe a Glidecam on some sort of pulley system. I have no idea if this would work, but it is the next thing that comes to mind.

Again I am very new to this, just trying to offer ideas. If they are WAY off base (which I am sure they are), just let me know!

well if we're to stick with idea of a single dv camera moving around the action, then slowed down with twixtor, Daniel has shown us this is a possible method.

in my mind, you'd want the shot as smooth and level as possible, i've mentioned to daniel removing the steadicam sway with combustion's stabilizing tracker.

a more reliable solution would be to use a dolly and track system in place of a steadicam, this would yeild more controlled and repeatable results.

That would be from the Usual Suspects, Casey. It is one of my 3 favorite movies (I can't pick just 1).

Anyways, I think I have a few ideas. The reason I wanted to use disposable cameras was due to the cost, however the limitations are becoming obvious. So the next possibilities are digital still cameras or digital video cameras.

The good part about video cameras is that no timing would be nedessary. They could all capture 29.97 FPS and switch from one to the other at any time in post. They could also be connected to a video switching to help with aligning. However, the downside is the cost.

The good part about the digital still cameras is the cheaper cost, however they must be timed and aimed.

What I think I will try to do is borrow a few video cameras from friends... I have to know at least 4 others with minidv cameras. What I really need to do is meet with 15 other videographers and all of us work together... hmmm.

With 4-5 cameras I could at least do a simple test... however nothing compared to a 360 degree rig. possibly 30-45 degrees.

I will also continue to play with my steadicam... I am thinking that if I have a larger area to work, I could eliminate a good deal of the sway. I will also try Combustion (as Casey suggested) to remove some of the movement. I would like to see some footage created with a dolly, however I do not have one handy.

Adios!

just thought i'd post this link

http://www.reelefx.com//Multicam/Mtechnical.htm

Reel Efx is a company that does this professionally for film. It's an interesting read.

For the Matrix they used a laser guidance system to pin point
EXACTLY where the camera's where pointing to. As for firing
each camera they probably did that with the help of a computer.
A computer can be programmed pretty simply to activate each
camera so-and-so much milliseconds after the previous one.

The trick is how you are gonna hook up those camera's so that
they allow an external force to trigger them.

Casey,

Do you think I could get one of those pro sytems for $200? lol. I want one now :) I am very suprised by the level of accuracy obtained (and required) to get perfect results. I believe it was cameras timed within 0.0000005 seconds... WOW! That is pretty cool.

daniel, if you check out the price sheet

http://www.reelefx.com/Pages/price_sample_sheet_multicam.htm

i think you'll find that 200 wont get you very far ;) and remember that link is just the per-day rental charges!