Lightsaber technique

What method of editing lightsabers is the best? I used rotoscoping and I edited it frame by frame. Ive seen other movies like Ryan vs. Dorkman and have liked the quality of their lightsabers. Do you know what method they used?

 

If you use Adobe After Effects you can put in a saber core every few frames and it will do the tweening for you. This saves alot of time and keeps things much more consistent. Check out Ryan's tutorials to see one method of how to do this.

 

However, the 'tweening only aids the process of placing the saber. In the end, the sabers in Ryan vs. Dorkman were all keyframed on pretty much every single frame.

M. Scott

 

In the end, the sabers in Ryan vs. Dorkman were all keyframed on pretty much every single frame.

Indeed - this is one of the advantages of pulling keys of lightsabers - when it works, you don't have to do this.

As an additional note: if you are rotoing a lot of obscured objects, you may be better off drawing multi-point masks without keyframing options. I don't know how to do this in AE - but I found it easier to draw the 20 or so positive masks on a saber when it was behind shrubbery - than to try and keyframe each and every mask and subtraction mask.

-Spiff

 

Yeah, frame by frame is the way it really has to be done. Sorry, albeit, Ryan's method takes Some of the work out of it.


Good Luck...

 

What are keyframes? What tutorial's finished look is the best? Tell me what you use

"As an additional note: if you are rotoing a lot of obscured objects"

What do you mean by obscured objects?

 

Read all the saber tutorials on Ryan's site... thats what most people use. Everything will be explaind there.

 

You can also try my method on my webpage. http://www.iw.net/~ddegroot/ In the tutorials section. The video version is not online right now but if anyone will host it for me I will give it to them. My method uses two points and is good for saber igniton and if you need something quick. For maximum control use a four or more point method.

SWmaster

 

I really like the 2 point method. I think the 2 point with motion blur is more accurate than guessing where the blade is on the 4+ method when the prop blade dissapears while in motion.