WW2 Muzzle Flash Effect

[ctbullet]

a video to show off the new muzzle flashes i found on detontationfilms, simple, easy to use and looks great, i think

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 6446155470

[smokeythebear]

the first one was okay but I really liked the second one that was great.

[ctbullet]

thanks, thats the one i was hoping you'd focus on

[bloodymess]

yeah, the second one was great. the puff of smoke really added character to the muzzle flash.

[Magic-Man]

You need to key them out better, make them more transparent and work on the sound

[ctbullet]

the sound, really

i was quite impressed with it, but ok, cheers

[JackBauerII]

The second one was really good. The first one was too solid.

[Epsilon]

The image is so overly exposed, you would hardly see a flash anyway. All that smoke is unnecessary for gunpowder... it looks like you're using black powder!

[smokeythebear]

epilson your right but the smoke just adds to the cool factor.off topic epilson i know you play airsoft what forums you go to and what guns do you got pm me the info.

[Epsilon]

www.easy39th.com is the only other place I really spend any time posting on a forum. I don't airsoft a whole lot, but I do know a thing or two about it. Go ahead and message me with anything you want to chat about. Or you can just say hi on AIM: Msctrojan

[ctbullet]

sweet bolt action rifle!

anyway, i think the flash was fine, in reality there are no flashes in day time, they only occur at night and still are pathetically small, it adds to the hollywood effectto have a flash and indicates when a shot is fired, so i'm going to be doing it on all guns!

[ALove]

I didn't like it. Its a subtractive flash, If you shot against white, you would never see it. Use an additive transfer mode, such as Add, Linear Dodge, or Screen. The smoke is fine being subtractive, but it seemed way too prominent, lower the opacity.

Remember, never use Luma Key on muzzle flashes.

[UFProductions]

Flashes were waaayyy too big. The pistol weren't too bad, but the dark edge just looked wierd; you can't have black fire. And the flash from the rifle was enormous, with the same outline problem. The smoke wasn't bad, but as ALove said, too opaque.

[Epsilon]

Bear in mind the flashes should brighten a scene, not be darker than the background.

[OutcastJiob]

I'm going to be honest, somewhat brutally so. That did not look in any way realistic. Your overexposed source footage must have made it very hard to work with the muzzle flashes, and I understand. But like Epsilon said, flashes should not be darker than the background. It's the same idea as flipping a flashlight on and off, really--if you held a flashlight up against the sky in that scene and turned it on, you wouldn't notice a difference.

You need to invest in a neutral density filter if you're going to do much shooting outside at all, or at the very least be very, very careful with the exposure of your shot. Manually expose if you're not doing that already and pay close attention when you're shooting. Skies should never appear white in daylight--if they look white, you're overexposing the footage.

If you choose to overexpose as a method of artistic expression--something I'd argue against doing just because overexposure is so hideously overused, especially in war films--, at the very least don't make muzzle flashes show up against white; it destroys the believability of the scene.

I've found that, for the flashes from Detonation Films, using "screen" or "lighten" as the transfer mode works well when you combine it with masking/feathering the edges of the muzzle flash footage, and lowering the opacity of the flash footage. And as I said, your source footage needs to be properly exposed.

It's hard to tell if you did a good job with compositing the flashes or not just because of how whited out the footage was. Sorry. The sound was much better than the video, though.

[ctbullet]

nice and harsh but ok thanks

i actually have a lot of problem with exposure when it comes to filming on a sunny day, i have to cast shadows etc. to reduce the whiteness of the sky, other than changing the contrast and brightness in edititng is there are an easier way to reduce the exposure