Digital Art Zone

I’m curious if anyone is using their video editing software to add video “effects” (not necessarily “Special FX” like explosions, etc.) to their animations.  For example:

- Rather than pan across a large scene, render one large image and use the “Position/Size” editing parameter (the “Ken Burns” effect)

- Rather than rotate the virtual camera, render the sequence then use the “Rotate” editing parameter (requiring a larger frame size render).  This can be in three dimensions, say to create “dizziness” (at the end of the video below).

- Cutting out a few frames to create more of a “suddenness” - director Mel Gibson talked about this once for car crashes.

- Etc.

These “effects” have traditionally been in the Adobe “After Effects” realm, but my Magix “Movie Edit Pro MX” has a lot of them built in, and they are more intuitive/interactive than AE IMHO, and way cheaper.

Here is a short video I did using some of this (its live action, so don’t bother if you just want animations):

http://tinyurl.com/boyaxd6

Any more “tricks” out there?  I realize this is like the music version of “fixing it in the mix”, but render time can be prohibitive ....

- Steve K.

your video link didnt work for me

It worked for me. Are you by chance using the latest release of FF? If so there is a bug with it seeing youtube videos. Just reinstall realplayer and it should work.

Thanks for the support, Frank.  If there is still a problem, you can go to YouTube and search for “SteveK77536” (without the quotes).  That is my Channel, with about a dozen videos.  The video mentioned above is “The Historic Galveston Pleasure Pier”, 3:22 long.  You can search for it directly, but there are a lot of similar titles (it just opened in May of this year), so the channel thing may be easier.

I always enjoy discussing animation, even if I have a distaste for the new forums, and this caught my eye.

Steve K - 23 July 2012 05:43 PM

I’m curious if anyone is using their video editing software to add video “effects” (not necessarily “Special FX” like explosions, etc.) to their animations.  For example:

- Rather than pan across a large scene, render one large image and use the “Position/Size” editing parameter (the “Ken Burns” effect)

I do this for large Space and sky scenes, and intermix additional stars, nebulas, planets, or clouds sometimes with transmapped planes or spheres, or by using the “cloud” technique taught by Video Co-pilot for After FX.  It’s often simpler that motion mapping to an animated space scene in Lightwave (though I still do that sometimes).

- Rather than rotate the virtual camera, render the sequence then use the “Rotate” editing parameter (requiring a larger frame size render).  This can be in three dimensions, say to create “dizziness” (at the end of the video below).

Not sure…not familiar with such a parameter.

- Cutting out a few frames to create more of a “suddenness” - director Mel Gibson talked about this once for car crashes.

I have removed, inserted, retimed in multiple, sequences of frames.  Sometimes after rendering that wonderfull 900+ frame landscape panoramic I decide it is too cumbersome and slow in playback, so insert reaction shots and other elements, but rest assured, that entire 900 frames gets used somewhere.

I have also used my Video editor for very advanced compositing of layers and compositions far in excess of 500 layered elements.
I also use Adobe AE as well as Lightwave, Bryce, and sometimes Carrara to render effects elements and animated sequences (such as fire, explosions, lightning, spinning lens flares, animated GUI’s for monitors, etc…) to be used as animated textures in other 3D renderings.

I had thought about writing up some tutorials, but lately can not organize my thoughts sufficiently to explain how I do some of what I do…I just do it.

KageRyu - 25 July 2012 12:18 PM

- Rather than rotate the virtual camera, render the sequence then use the “Rotate” editing parameter (requiring a larger frame size render).  This can be in three dimensions, say to create “dizziness” (at the end of the video below).

Not sure…not familiar with such a parameter.

I’ll try to explain.  Assume you’re making an animation of a house, looking at the front wall.  You could rotate the virtual camera on the axis that extends toward the house, so at 180 degrees, this would be like standing on your head.  The house would be upside down.

My video editor can do this as an effect, so I could simply generate a still, then rotate the still with the editor, setting keyframes, etc.  The still has to be bigger than the frame size to fill the frame when it’s at an angle.  It can do this with video also.

But the editor can also do this in three dimensions.  For example, I can rotate one side of the frame toward the camera, and the other side away.  This would be like being in a theater and walking to one side of the screen - the closer side would be larger and the distant side smaller.  Similarly, I can rotate the top (or bottom) of the frame closer, as though you were looking at the movie screen sitting above it or on the floor just below it, and close to it.  Clear as mud?

I’m not sure how useful this could be, but it might be a way to simulate dizziness or disorientation (like on a wild amusement park ride on the Galveston Pleasure Pier in my little video).

Steve K - 25 July 2012 03:59 PM

I’ll try to explain.  Assume you’re making an animation of a house, looking at the front wall.  You could rotate the virtual camera on the axis that extends toward the house, so at 180 degrees, this would be like standing on your head.  The house would be upside down.

Ok, in 2D this is pretty easy, and yeah, in AE where I do most of my work it can be done, but I only rarely use it.  It can be done in 3D as well, but gets a little trickier, and I have used it a few times for large space battles to achieve a “paralaxing” depth effect between the various layered images of fighters, ships, and nebulas, and make the movement appear more complex then the 3D renders actually were (no scenes using it up yet as I still need several minutes of animated close ups of pilots, VFX work, and dialogue to finish the battle).

I’m not sure how useful this could be, but it might be a way to simulate dizziness or disorientation (like on a wild amusement park ride on the Galveston Pleasure Pier in my little video).

It’s also very handy for compositing layered sequences with seperate foreground, midground, and background passes and numerous elements to achieve a greater feel of depth.  In fact, with layering done in a psuedo 3D camera environment in most video editors you could set depth between the layers (even animate this depth) and use it to achieve the same effect as that of a traditional multiplanar animation stand (glass plates with different layers of the background painted on them on adjustible rails that can be moved up or down towards or away from each other or the camera - used for those wonderful depth shots in traditional animation).
It’s also handy for a lot of other things - but my thoughts are scattered.
If you haven’t already, I’d say check out some of the wonderful tutorials at Video Copilot: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/
While mostly for AE, the principles can be adapted to any video editor with comperable toolsets and capabilities, with a little ingenuity.

KageRyu - 26 July 2012 09:59 AM

If you haven’t already, I’d say check out some of the wonderful tutorials at Video Copilot: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/
While mostly for AE, the principles can be adapted to any video editor with comperable toolsets and capabilities, with a little ingenuity.

Looks like good site, thanks for the tip.  There are a LOT of tutorials, do you have any favorites?  I have AE so I’m interested in even those specific to it.

Steve K - 27 July 2012 11:19 AM

Looks like good site, thanks for the tip.  There are a LOT of tutorials, do you have any favorites?  I have AE so I’m interested in even those specific to it.

There are quite a few there I like.  Some of the more interesting ones I like the theories for to reapply are:
6. - 3D Compositing
21. - Simulated Lighting
24. - Blood Splatter
45. - Set Extensions
52 & 53 - Planet Explosion (useful for much more than planets)
63. - Smoke Screen

There are many more that look interesting to me, but that I haven’t had the time or need to sit down and work through yet.  Though a few of them I see being referenced for some FX in planned future scenes on some of my projects, I will worry about it once I get there.

They’ve added a lot of new ones since I lost my home internet too, so I will need to check back when I have access to high speed and do some fresh browsing.  That site has some great tutorials, and I reference it a lot.  I have also found a few good tutorials on youtube, but those are fewer and far between, and sometimes, the video quality is too poor to see what controls/parameters are being used, and the tutorial’s narator is not explaining.