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~~~Adobe Products "Jump to Lightspeed" effect~~~

Discussion in 'Fan Films, Fan Audio & SciFi 3D' started by Figrin-Dan_Man, Dec 16, 2002.

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  1. Figrin-Dan_Man

    Figrin-Dan_Man Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2002
    Does anyone know how to do it, or is there a tutorial somerwhere I'm missing? (I have PS, AE, Premier and Illustartor)

    F-D_M
     
  2. Oreckel

    Oreckel Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2002
    I don't know if there's a tutorial anywhere - you can try a google search, but I'd just mess around with radial blurs and the like - it should be fairly easy to create.
     
  3. Darth_Gehenna

    Darth_Gehenna Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Jun 2, 2001
    I did it in After Effects by taking a picture of stars and zooming in on it with motion blur turned on. Then I took this composition and put it into another composition and duplicated it a bunch of times and moved each composition to start one frame after the last one, and all set to the screen transfer mode (I think it was screen). You can tinker with it until you get something you like.
     
  4. scudknight

    scudknight Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 2, 2000
    right off the top of my head - i would try using the lightzoom plugin.
     
  5. BrentK7

    BrentK7 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 20, 2000
    Darth_Gehenna: The way you did it sounds interesting, i am going to try that.
     
  6. Darth_Platurus

    Darth_Platurus Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Dec 13, 2002
    Im working on this right now. Gonna try using PS Polar Coordinates filter. Im thinking that as long as the filter (blurs etc.) are kept mathematical (Oh god no!) it should look all right. Ill post once its done
     
  7. Uber-Fred

    Uber-Fred Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    Dec 15, 2002
    budah.... i have no idea...... im a newbie...

    i would say the program to use is adobe affects....

    but ill check out any info and ill try to post it as soon as possible!
     
  8. el_director

    el_director Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Oct 9, 2001
    budah.... i have no idea...... im a newbie...

    Newbies should be seen and not heard -what JediTAC always seems to say.

    It's okay kid, we were all newbies once. I'd like to know myself.
     
  9. Figrin-Dan_Man

    Figrin-Dan_Man Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2002
    Alright, guys, I've got a near-perfect effect figured out...I'll write a tutorial when I get some time (Maybe an hour, maybe a day.)

    F-D_M
     
  10. John2460

    John2460 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 29, 2002
    I hope all your methods give good results. It's ironic that there hasn't been one fanfilm that has been able to achive a good quality version of this effect compairable to how it looked in the origional trilogy, which wasn't done with a computer.
     
  11. Macho

    Macho Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 21, 2001
    have you tried radial blur with it as zoom?
     
  12. Jedi2016

    Jedi2016 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 3, 2000
    Blurs don't work, because in the process of blurring the stars, they get incredibly dim and pretty much vanish from the scene. That goes for any kind of blur.

    I'm curious about this "Lightzoom" plugin that was mentioned above, could you elaborate on that?
     
  13. Figrin-Dan_Man

    Figrin-Dan_Man Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2002
    Ooooookay, I lied. This radial blur thing just aint gonna work. However, in picture form, if you adjust the contrast on a radial-blurred starfield, it looks almost identical to it's official cousin.

    The only way to do it would prob'ly be as a filmstrip, adjusting the blur for each frame.

    Fig
     
  14. Antilles01

    Antilles01 Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    blarg, it looks like the filmstrip is useful again. But can't you just keyframe radial blur and change the levels (or boost the brightness or whatever) to get that affect in AE? I should be doing homework but I might just have to try this.
     
  15. Figrin-Dan_Man

    Figrin-Dan_Man Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2002
    Not necessarily...because even when you do do a keyframe on it (which I tried) the radial blur is really really grainy in AE anyway.

    So I think it'll have to be a filmstrip.


    Fig
     
  16. scudknight

    scudknight Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Apr 2, 2000
    Lightzoom is part of the digieffects aurorix package -

    theres a lot of nice things in there, and the package usually runs 250 - 300 bucks.

    also makers of the cinelook plugin

    some of the plugs are usually ram hogs, but work nicely.


    Digieffects
     
  17. Figrin-Dan_Man

    Figrin-Dan_Man Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 4, 2002
    (Fig cries as he types, tries to wipe off keyboard...)


    It...can't...be...done...WAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

    George? Are you listening? (Sob sob) HOW DID YOU DO IT? I HAVE SOFTWARE MULTIPLE TIMES BETTER THAN WHAT YOU HAD 25 YEARS AGO, BUT I CAN'T DO IT!!!!!

    I give up guys. Filmstrips don't work either.

    This cannot be done...










    Wait!!! ("Ahem...") "Makers of Fanfilms, how did you do your effects?"


    Fig
     
  18. Darth_Gehenna

    Darth_Gehenna Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Jun 2, 2001
    Um, I already told you how I did it in After Effects.
     
  19. andalite

    andalite Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Jan 29, 2002
    In AE it looks grainy because the quality is probably set to draft, or the comp windo is set to 50% quality or something. I have done this before with AE and it looked fine, I just duplicated the comp a couple of times and screened them, that way, they appeared brighter.
     
  20. MC3PIO

    MC3PIO Jedi Grand Master star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2000
    I've accomplished this effect and I think it looks better than any fanfilm I've seen. Unfortunately, I don't have a website to post the results.

    Anyway, as to how I did it - forget the blurs. The chief effect you need to use is echo. Take a comp where you have the camera zooming in on the stars and keyframe echo to gradually streak the stars. Precomp and then use time remapping to tweak the slowdown at the beginning and the speed up at the end of the effect.
     
  21. Antilles01

    Antilles01 Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    I've found a new way to achieve this effect using 3D, with awesome results.

    granted, it doesnt use adobe products, but hey whatever works right?

    It involves animated, renderable lines to create the stars elongating. basically you make a bunch of renderable line objects and animate them so they elongate towards the camera.

    I did this in 3ds MAX 4.0, but the process and information involved can easily be translated to most other 3D programs. It's really intuitive, once you understand it. In fact you all can probably make this a lot better by experimenting.

    Anyway, on with the tutorial for the MAX users....

    First, set up a free camera in the front view(facing front). Move it backwards from the coordinates 0,0,0, so that anything else you create there will be visible. This camera will not move during the animation. (or you can use the perspective view, as long as it faces to the front and is moved back from the center)

    In the top view, use the line tool to create a short, straight up and down line with two vertices. This means that in the front view, it should not be visible, but in the perspective or camera view, it should look like a point from far away. This is the star. (if it still looks like a line in the camera view, move the camera back some more, or shorten the line considerably until it looks like a point.)

    Now in the modify panel, be sure to check 'renderable' so that you can see the line when you render. Set the thickness to something like 1.5 or 2, or you can mess around with it and see what looks best to you.

    Now go into the material editor and make a material with 100% white self-illumination (or blue if you want the stars blue-ish) Apply this material to the line.

    So now, you have a white, renderable star. Its time to animate it. Click Animate. Pick a frame where you want the star to begin elongating. Set a keyframe for that frame, with the line really short (remember it should look like a point when you render right now).

    Now go to another frame a few seconds later (check the movies to see how long it takes for the stars to elongate). Now you can do one of two things.
    1. Use scale to elongate the line, in one axis, towards the camera. Make it long enough so that it goes all the way past the cameras position.
    2. Go into the modify panel and click on the vertex sub-object. Click the vertex closest to camera and move it in one axis towards the camera. Make the vertex end past the cameras position.

    Now, in the camera view, you should have a line that starts far away and comes towards the camera. Your animation should be complete now. Click animate again to turn it off. (if you want, you can check the movies to see if the stars elongate in any particular way, like if they start out slow then speed up or something, and incorporate it into the animation).

    So now you have a white, renderable line that elongates in the space of a few seconds. But you only have one of them. Its time to copy it and space it out in the frame, randomly, like a starfield. There are probably a few methods of doing this, but heres the one i used. It's kind of hard to explain, so try your best to understand.

    Using the line tool again, and in the front view, make the longest, messiest, most random line you've ever seen. Use bezier. Use straight lines. It doesnt matter. Click randomly. All around the front view. Make the line cross itself numerous times. Just go crazy. Make it look like a Jackson Pollack painting. Make it look like you went crazy with the brush tool in photoshop. Fill up the camera view with this insane line. Make it go back and forth, up and down, around and around. Keep on doing this until you have a giant mess of a line filling up the entire camera view. Make sure its all one line object though.

    Select the star line you made. Now, click and hold the array button at the top and choose the spacer tool. Set the count to 20-40 (for now). Make sure that the object type is an instance so that they
     
  22. Antilles01

    Antilles01 Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    don't know if anyone saw this or is interested, but there should be a quick .avi or .mov coming.
     
  23. JediMasterM

    JediMasterM Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    May 13, 2001
    I'm very interested Antilles01!
     
  24. Antilles01

    Antilles01 Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2001
    good, good.
     
  25. Oreckel

    Oreckel Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2002
    *Me wants 3DsMax...* :(

    For those that do have the software, it would be great if you could render it out and post in 720x480 for us to use in our fanfilms?

    Thanks. :)
     
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