Blood splats??

Mushiman · Post by **Mushiman** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 9:48 am

I was thinking of a cool way to have blood splats when people get shot, it's rather like the muzzle flash effect but with animated blood. The only problem is getting the splat of red (blood) i was thinking of using Lightwave....

Does anyone have any thoughts on this??

Steve

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 10:23 pm

No don't do it in Lightwave! I've found in experience that you don't do anything like that in CGI, no matter how good you get it, it'll still look a bit odd (even if you render millions of meta particles and use all those lovely physics plug-ins). Do anything you can in-camera.

The way we do it is by making a blood mixture (starting with red crepe paper and water, as the dye mixes with the water and you get as much blood as you want!) and pouring it in to sandwich bags, which you pop on cue.

For an example of this, visit my lycos site (http://members.lycos.co.uk/ornsack), go to Films, Zombie, and download the small clip.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 2:39 am

Exactly. Why go CGI for something fun like blood. Experiment with recipes and gear. Gets covered in it! It is fun!

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 4:42 pm

You can also consider doing things with practical effects (nonCG) that get composited in.
Mushiman, you're on the TFNFanFilm boards right?
Then you may already know that steam effects were added to some shots by filming steam coming off a cup of coffee in front of a black background.

With a black backdrop and light shining at 90 degrees to the background & camera, you can shoot all kinds of water based "particle" effects.
For blood, you could shoot some spray bottle effects, splashes and plops.

The water should look white/gray against black. Now you can use that as a matte for a red/brown solid color clip and.... ta da! splats everywhere!

Shoot with the camera pointing down, dropping white paint onto black paper. Now you can use that to splat blood onto walls and such.

Have fun!

[Edited on 15-1-2003 by padawanNick]

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:41 pm

Ah good idea, although pouring real fake blood down a wall would always be better

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 10:46 pm

Right...
Until your spouse (or parent) discovers that the stain is not washable

(Then just make sure the camera is rolling. You may get some genuine blood splatter video

)

Have fun!

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 12:53 am

I have found commercially made fake blood hard to wash from my body. I had a stained face once for a few days!
Although I find homemade recipes to be easy to manage and clean up afterwards.
Get down and dirty!

Mushiman · Post by **Mushiman** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 8:02 pm

Thanks all,

Yeah i'm on the TFN boards also.
Thanks what i was thinking, i don't think it's practical to throw "blood" all over my house as the missus would kill me & then they would be real blood

I just think my films need a little more when someone gets shot (often in my films)
I think blood added in post would be better than some guy getting shot & nothing happens to him

I mean, how would you guys do a head shot with the blood coming out of the front? Squibs are hard to come by...

Steve

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 9:38 pm

Here's a link to instructions on making yoru own, very safe, Home Made Squibs.

Also, in the behind-the-scenes videos on my new Die Hard DVD, the bloobers real actually showed how they filmed one of the bullet-to-the-head shots.
The bad guy gets shot right in the forehead.
It looks like they had a bit of sponge with sticky fake blood and they were shootinging it (maybe like a spit-ball through a straw) at the actor's head. SPLAT! The bit of sponge stuck (most of the time) to add some texture and the blood splattered just a bit around the "wound". Looked great.

Have fun!

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 12:33 am

Yeah head squibs are very dangerous. Although i have been experimenting with body ones at the moment quite successfully.

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 1:25 am

When we were doing Shosk I managed to get half a ton of fake blood in my ear, which seemed to only come out when I showered. There were traces of it for days after (let's hope it was fake blood eh?

)

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 1:30 am

Fake blood can be a horror sometimes!

You should try as a drunkard dare drinking a 500ml bottle of green food dye. The results lasted over a week. Lets just say "It's not easy being green!" In more ways than one!

Adam · Post by **Adam** » Fri Jan 17, 2003 4:32 pm

Sounds like a similar effect is caused by drinking 5 green monsters in one night but they also get you more drunk

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 6:21 am

Believe you me. I wished for that week I was drunk!

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 5:29 pm

If you have several bottles of WKD Blue your poo turns green. Now that's something they've never done on Art Attack...

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 7:50 am

Actually I did read once about a gentleman who used to do that for art!

Ornsack · Post by **Ornsack** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 9:57 pm

That's art for you! You should see the Fine Art exibitions at Uni... The other day there was a tent with a sign outside it saying "Welcome to hell", and all there was inside was a white rope

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Mon Jan 20, 2003 12:46 am

I guess art is what you make of it!

stuffed_crust · Post by **stuffed_crust** » Fri May 09, 2003 7:45 pm

i saw this movie about a guy that impersonated an advice columnist. he went to this art thing with the boss where there was this guy that stuck tube in his but pumped in paint let it fill up then released it on a huge wall canvas

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sat May 10, 2003 5:17 am

I like it:D

Post by **Matt** » Sat May 10, 2003 1:07 pm

Each-to-their-own I suppose!! I've obviously led a sheltered life cos I've never seen that film

CORPSE GRINDER · Post by **CORPSE GRINDER** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 1:48 am

if you're going to use professional store-bought fake blood, the best...no no, THE BEST brand to buy is Ben Nye. It is the most convincing color, opacity, and thickness. trust me.

just last week, i filmed my actor/co-director with a great looking bullet wound prosthetic on his forehead from getting capped point blank.

it was such an awesome gruesome looking shot. for the blood surrounding the hole in his head and streaming down the face we used Ben Nye fake blood. but for the large pool forming unding his head, on clothes or in massive amounts (sometimes gallons), i use my home made stuff.

iamnothing · Post by **iamnothing** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 7:11 pm

While practical effects are always more fun, you can do a good job in compositing software with CG as long as you plan for it. But that's the key, you have to plan for it meticulously.

Battle Royale used CG work for a good amount of the blood work and gunshot splatters, but the makeup crew also did a huge amount of practical effects so that merging the two looked quite natural. There's a CG featurette on the second disc of the Director's Cut that shows how they did a good portion of the CG effects.

Koroshira Ichi used a combination of practical and CG effects as well. As long as you're using the effects to mask or enhance the regular footage, you should be OK as long as you plan for it.

It's a tool like any other. It's when you start to overrely or abuse the tool that it gets annoying. Currently CG is being touted as a godsend and people seem to want to use it for everything, including a lot of things that could be done much more quickly and easily as a practical effect.

As to how to do it in LightWave, you can set up a base splatter using the fireworks example in ParticleFX. Make sure that you capture the correct frames that you need so that you can get the angle right. Otherwise it will look very odd. After setting up your shaders for a bloody look, do a couple of test renders according to the length of the clip and the keyframes you've set for the captured images. When you think you're ready, render it without the images. Then composite it in using your favorite software.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it's not really that much to get a basic splatter. Of course, making it look right in context of the shot can be a major problem if you haven't planned the shot itself out before hitting post-production to add in your effects.

Also, while it seems like common sense, make sure you match up your impact points with that the actor is doing. I keep seeing "Made for Sci-Fi Channel" movies that use CG for such effects and don't even take the time to check where the actor's movement shows the impact. A lot of direct-to-video movies do the same thing. It's annoying because it looks like the actors and their blood exist in two different worlds.

Still, if you're still thinking about using CG, I'd strongly recommend using a practical air compressed squib like the one on the site that padawanNick posted and then do any clean-up work in post with LW and whatever editing suite you're using. That way the actor knows where they're shot and you have reference points during your post production CG work.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 7:24 pm

Why would you want to do somthing fun like blood in the computer, half the fun of a gun fight is playing with the gore effects, rigging it up and blowing big red holes in peoples clothing.

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 7:26 pm

Bloody threads!

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