Tips to make special effects look more realistic?

[caroline_edits]

Hi all!

I'm working on a short film about a time traveler. I'm doing the special FX for it and I was wanting some tips on making it look more realistic. It's close right now, but not perfect. Check out the teaser!

Thanks!

Caroline

[craigi35826625]

There are better ways IMO to make someone disappear, think Star Trek transporters - the look changed drastically from TOS to the shows to the movies.  The combination of the black bar and electricity didn't work for me, and there was no change in lighting, probably the most important aspect/component of special effects.

By adding a lighting increase as the morphing increases you can add some excitement.  Think of laser gun battles in sci fi movies; whenever there is a shot there is a quick and significant boost in lighting on the people/room. This can be done with masks and some color effects rather easily.

You could also add outflowing waves using a displ map like Daisy's powers in Agents of Shield, lots of choices here.

[Dave Merchant]

First thoughts:

• Make sure to blur the CG layers so they match the quality of the base footage; if the subject isn't pin sharp then neither should anything else be.
• 100% opacity on anything looks strange. Gases, plasmas, etc in the real; world are all transparent.
• You could make great use of the free Saber plugin from Videocopilot.

[Rick Gerard]

Matching color grading and noise is very important and it takes quite a while to learn how to do it right.

If a visual effect adds light or casts shadows you must add light to the scene. Something as simple as a blurred shape layer in the add mode could help your scene when the energy field moves around. It should be throwing light on the surroundings and casting some shadows.

Your black bars and the lightning or electric effect look 2D. Black is a lousy color for energy.

A couple of quick notes:

To sell an effect it has to look like it is part of the scene. It needs to interact with the geometry in the scene, show up in reflections, and cause other things to move.

I would take a close look at several effects shots from feature films and dissect them until you can figure out everything that is going on in the scene. Every reflection, highlight, and shadow is probably a separate layer. VFX like this always require separating the actor from the background a lot of layers. Just for fun try listing everything you see in this effects shot:

Then watch the tutorial to see how they added some realism to the effects shot:

VIDEO COPILOT | 3D light casting

[caroline_edits]

Awesome, thanks so much everybody! After Effects takes such a long time to get REALLY good at, I appreciate the help.

Caroline