Anyone ever do a "lightsaber" effect in a movie?

[mojo2185]

I was wondering if anyone here has done a lightsaber effect in a home movie. I need to do something similar for my media tech class, and some pointers would be very helpful. If someone could please link me to a tutorial, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

[g_shocker182]

You'll need to talk to the good people at http://jedimaster.net

[tgpo]

I've done em' before. Check out http://www.alamdv.com It's the simplest way to add them.

[mojo2185]

Thanks for the links, looks like there should be some good info there.

I forgot to mention, I'm working with Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Photoshop. A method that I have seen with the software I have requires you to paint the "Lightsaber" on each individual frame, which, depending on the length of our movie, this might take a really long time! Is this really required (painting it on each frame)? Or is there a different way to go about this?

Thanks

[tgpo]

With Alamdv and After Effects you can tween, but you still will have to manually check each frame to make sure it's correct. Welcome to the world of SFX and endless hours in front of a computer editting frame by frame

[housepig]

another software you might check (and a good way to get it cheap):

ParticleIllusion from Wondertouch can do stuff like this. Pretty easy to use once you follow the tutorials, and it's got a good community running forums and putting out new emitter libraries for it.

I think (although I'd have to find the reference to say for sure) that AlamDV started as a spinoff from ParticleIllusion.

The nice thing is, Pillusion 2.0 SE is included free with the August 2003 issue of Digit Magazine from the UK - you can find it at Barnes & Noble or MicroCenter. $14 for a piece of software that their website sells for $99... not bad. And usually it's a cheaper deal to upgrade to the current version, if you upgrade from a Digit copy.

check it out, they have a demo online.

[mojo2185]

With Alamdv and After Effects you can tween, but you still will have to manually check each frame to make sure it's correct. Welcome to the world of SFX and endless hours in front of a computer editting frame by frame

So i take it you mean "Yeah, its going to take a while, so deal with it!" :P
Looks like thats what I'll have to do.

ParticleIllusion from Wondertouch can do stuff like this. Pretty easy to use once you follow the tutorials, and it's got a good community running forums and putting out new emitter libraries for it.

As far as a new programs, I'm tight on time and don't really have time to learn a new program, so for this project I'll probably have to stick with programs I know. But I'll definately check these other programs out when I have time.

Thanks a lot!

[Greenspock]

I've done em' before. Check out http://www.alamdv.com It's the simplest way to add them.

This gets redirected to ...

http://fxhome.com/

[tgpo]

I've done em' before. Check out http://www.alamdv.com It's the simplest way to add them.

This gets redirected to ...

http://fxhome.com/

Yeah, but it's all the same people.

[thayne]

I saw a premier or after effects plug in that does just this a while back, but I can't remember what it's called. It also did machine gun effects and stuff too. It was very cool!

[Greenspock]

Yeah, but it's all the same people.

Just an FYI.

[mojo2185]

This sort of strays from my topic... but does anyone know how to "render" or export a movie in Premiere? The timeline has some "virtual clips" in it as well (i heard this makes a difference?). I'm pretty new to premiere, so if someone could help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

[tgpo]

I'm trying to remember back to it......Try clicking on the timeline and hitting enter.

[mojo2185]

Enter does the preview (helpful key to know, thanks). Reason I asked is because everytime I rendered, my movie wouldn't move. I tried a different codec and it worked fine, so I guess I picked a bad codec to encode with.

[tgpo]

OH!! I thought you just wanted to know how to render the video, which the enter key does.

[mojo2185]

I'm not "down" with the lingo yet, sorry for the confusion. What I wanted was to export. Any idea how to export starting at a certain frame? I've tried setting "in and out" points but the video always exports as the entire timeline

[tgpo]

Right above the timeline you should see a triangle on the far left. You can click and drag it to where you want it to start, same for the end. I also think you can double click to get one....I'm having to remember from over a year ago

[mojo2185]

Yeah, that did it. Good memory!

Thanks for all the help!

[tgpo]

Sweet. Glad it worked.