The force and air ripples...

[Radiate]

Can anyone tell me how to make air ripples kind of like or exactly like the matrix bullet streaks, the little blue ball Yoda holds when he catches the lightning, and the ligntning itself? I have premiere, after effects, and 3D studio max.

[crossfire]

the only way i know even close is to take each frame and distort the area where u need da ripples then insert bak into da movie

[redkorn]

you should get photoshop

here is a lightening sphere tut
http://www.webdesignstudien.de/oldtutor ... ebolt.html

i made some 2d bullet streaks they look ok but not impressive, i used photoshop and premier.

[Epsilon]

You can do anything you want right in 3DS Max with ripples.

[Markus]

You can do the ripples in AE
somewhere here in these forums someone did it and put the ae file for download
and if you can't find it or it doesn't help you, I could try to do some kind of step by step tutorial

I'm not sure what kind of lightning you mean, I can't remember Yoda doing any lightning stuff and if it was in episode 3 then I don't know at all, haven't seen it yet.
but AE also has a lightning effect (Effect>Render>Lightning or Advanced Lightning)

[Radiate]

you should get photoshop

I have it.

[Carnage7p]

I did matrix bullet streaks in after effects. He is the clip http://12.22.230.41/MicroTech/Hosted/Files-L/MHO3.zip

and here is the project file. Download it and open the after effects project to see how i did it. http://12.22.230.41/MicroTech/Hosted/Fi ... Bullet.zip

[Radiate]

What about the "blue ball?"

[Radiate]

Does anyone know how to make it!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I've tried quite a few tings in 3D studio max, but it never turns out right.

[Almondo99]

With the blue shader, make a bumpy bump map, blur it and make it glow, which will illuminate it. Then keyframe it the way you want. You could also add some fluids around it to make it ripple and such.

[Radiate]

The "blue shader," what program is that on? I tried the bumpy bumpmat. It looks okay, but I did it in like five minutes so it's not the greatest, I'm going to re-do it when I get the time. Busy working on a commercial right now though. It's taken around 20 hours though, so I'm really busy.

[Almondo99]

The blue shader would be in 3DS Max, Maya, Lightwave etc. It's map by the way, and you should look into books for your CG program, if you're going to use it a lot.

[crossfire]

ya that works but that doesnt actually distort it does it?

[Almondo99]

Create fluids around it and contain it, and give each shader or both refractions.

[Radiate]

But what about the little bit of lightning or squiggly light lines inside of it?

[Almondo99]

The refractions should do it, but you can add more in AE or use a preset in your 3d program.

[crossfire]

is tehre any way to distort without havin a 3d prgram?

[aaronv2]

distorted air effects or even invisible people like in the new fantastic four movie uses distortion maps or depth maps in the case of 3d to get distortion data and apply it to a movie clip. There are a few ways to do air distortion
one is the 3d approach where you use maybe a particle emitter and assign the particles some sprites which will show up as greyscale information which you can later use in AE as a distortion map. if you go the 2d approach and use AE to make some motion graphics as a distortion map, make sure you understand the workings of a distortion map and take into account things like perspective and depth.

otherwise you could get really artistic and export your clip as a filmstrip and photoshop the hell out of it frame by frame...rotoscoping generally would be used to make the clip look fantastic where as the particle systems look more organic and real.

the matrix bullet ripple MUST be done with a 3d program to look convincing... there are two different looks
sorry but this is going to be a big post just to give you the idea i cant go step by step.

First thing was to make one ripple which looked like this



Then I created an emitter which had a wave pattern that would size the particles according to the wave
the size of the particles increased and decreased and when the emitter was animated along a path it would make a trail like the matrix ripple.



Then the particles were used to clone the ripple object... the size of the particles was also linked to the size of the cloned object




Then here is the point where the two different looks in the matrix film come to play... the greyscale image of the ripples were used as a distortion map to make this... this is the look on the roof with the agent.

Displacement Map


Resulting Distortion


The next look is where there was a camera move as neo stopped the bullets and we went into the trails. then the 3d program will have to be used and surface properties assigned to get a refractive surface and actually rendered over the top of the frames to look actually 3d in shape... like this

notice you can see the ripples through each other.


uhh so hopefully matrix ripples out of the way there is no really convincing way just to do it in AE unless you have the ripples rendered to use as a distortion map.

As for the lightning ball you can use lensflares and shine plugin in ae along with the lightning plugin to do it really easily... the thing about yoda is he was 3d so they could make it all in 3d the same thing can be done in AE as long as you take into account masking and etc. if you want me to explain it more i can post a quick tutorial of that too.

[Radiate]

Yeah, could you do that please?

[aaronv2]

okay well i have two plugins that ive used here that you might not have
Shine and Knoll Light Factory

Anyway first i made a white mask of a ball shape being held by someones hand you can kind of imagine it... add the shine plugin and you already got the streaks of light coming from your hand...


then using light factory i made a flare


when i layered these on top of each other using add layer mode and applied the force lightning which you can find here
http://www.geocities.com/pixelmagic2002 ... orial.html

at the end with everything composited together look something like this which you could composite into your footage later

[Radiate]

Can you download the two plugins for free?

[aaronv2]

uhh yes and no. and not in that order

[Radiate]

So you can sort-of download them for free? And in what order are you talking about? And how did you make the "ripple" in the first place?

[aaronv2]

the ripple was modeled in 3d software the whole matrix thing was done with 3d software. The plugins also are just fast ways to get the imagery im sure if you played around with the blur plugins that will create the streaks and etc and if you were smart could work up a pretty good composite or maybe even better than the one i made... just make sure you use layer modes on "add" to make it really look like its lighting it up.

[Radiate]

OK then, where did you get the plug-ins!?