Head chopped off

How do you make the effect of someones head beeing chopped off by a lightsaber?

I saw it in another fanfilm...

Thanks in advance!

 

try a few clones ( masks of your self and rolling a mask like a ball ( kind of ) if not then i am clueless.

 

Well I cannot really get a mask of me or my friend... that whould be pretty hard.

 

no no i mean open adobe after effects and use a mask with the pen tool then invert the election then keep shrinking it.


but i am still new like your self.

 

thanks... well im really new with after effects, but i think i know what you mean...

But.. woudn't the background dissapear if i did that?
Plus i do not have access to a blue/greenscreen.

 

Film the background by itself without the person first without moving the camera, then composite the layer with the masked head over it, I think.

 

You don't need blue/greenscreen, but you do need an empty background plate. I haven't done this myself, though, I want to learn it too.

 

a mask is a layer that determines alpha channel or transparency, usually white being transparent and black being opaque. The mask will determine which parts of the image you want to see (in this case being the body) and block the unwanted head. On another layer you can do the reverse, showing only the animated falling head. For more info do a search on tutorials in your available software

 

I'm gonna play it safe on this one

 

Ralfy posted on 5/19/05 7:57am

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For more info do a search on tutorials in your available software
[hr][/blockquote] Seems like a good start to me. ;)

[b]Cujo[/b] - Welcome to TFN!

 

Whats up guys, I think we're all assuming a CG head would be too hard to create, and no one has really suggested this option.

This is how ILM does the effect, and what you have to consider is that the effect will happen in a mater of seconds, and most times the head will fall behind the body, so again, the CG head element is on screen for 1 or 2 motion blurred seconds.

I took a generic CG head that came with Cinema 4d, (you can use any generic head, but I'd recommend not using a a Poser head, because they are very recognizable) Anyway, take a pic of your head with a nice cam, and paste that texture on to the face of the head. Its surprisingly easy to make a "close enough" CG head of yourself.

Then use the cloning method, and replace your head with the cg head in the split second it gets hacked off. I'll have to do some tests, b/c I'm intruiged now.


Thoughts?


gallion311

 

I've achieved reasonable results in 2 ways.

One of which is just taking a still of the head and making sure it's movement is very very nicely planned out. Making it a quick shot is good too because no one wants a 10 second shot with no movement, why not just watch some grass grow?

Other way I've tried is to take two shots, one of which is the person falling over, and the other shot is them jumping up. I mask the body and background out of the 'jumping' one and wipe their head out of the 'falling' one. It's hokey and only works in some instances, but it's cool.

 

Are there any tutorials about this? I don't really understand how to do it with After Effects...

 

thats quite easy...but what do u guys use for those scenes..for example
you hit someone with lightsaber...at first u cut off his right hand so he looses the lightsaber which is in his right hand, then u cut off this right arm from right shoulder, then left arm off from left shoulder and finaly hit trough body diagonaly so the he will fall into 2 parts...quite cool way to kill someone
So my point was will u use half lenght blade/prop...as u cant hit someone trough with full lenght prop/blade...i would do it with masking too

Kristian