Original subtitles

what's up Andrew Kramer here

videocopilot

dotnet and welcome back to another very

exciting tutorial today we're gonna be

taking a look at our new After Effects

plugin saber and I know I say I'm

excited but I actually am excited not

like those other tutorials where I just

say I'm excited because that's my thing

but I really am excited so let's take a

look

turnout is wrong video try this one

all right so some pretty cool stuff

happening here and you can see some

energy effects and some portal effects

and of course lightsaber effects now

some of you know recently I had a chance

to work on Star Wars The Force awakens I

had an amazing time my team was

responsible for the Holograms and

graphics and titles but unfortunately I

didn't get a chance to work on any

lightsabers and it wasn't a big deal was

fine at first but then I became obsessed

the light the energy it's all I could

think about

where did he come from how does it work

can it lift me from this darkness you

know then I thought we should make our

own plug so we did alright so you've

seen what this plug-in can do let's go

and take a look at how it works all

right so once you download and install

the plugin you can come inside of After

Effects and we're going to create a new

solid and we'll call this saber and

we'll come over here to the effects and

presets we're in a type in saber and we

just drop this right onto the solid and

here we have our light beam now we can

move around the control points and one

thing you'll notice is that has a really

nice glow fall-off and if I change the

intensity you can see that just really

looks nice the other cool thing about

this is that we built in our color

vibrance technology so that it has some

really nice color ization so you can see

the colors really pop now we can take a

look at a few settings here we've got

the enable glow we've got the color

intensity we've also got a nice spread

and the spread and the intensity work

well together to create a really wide

light fall-off and then we have the glow

bias this is a really important setting

it helps to control the intensity of the

glow the more towards the core so if we

turn up the brightness here and we drop

the bias you'll see that it becomes

tighter and if we increase it it becomes

wider so it's just a really nice way to

be able to control how tight you want

that glow to be so all right so we'll go

and reset that all right let's go and

take a look at the customize core

settings so here you can choose the core

type now in this case we're using a

saber but we can also use masks or even

text layers we have control over the

start size so we could drop that down

and we can even change the offset which

will extend it and those same controls

are available for the end size and the

end offset another cool setting is the

halo intensity and size this is going to

control the intensity of the glow right

next to the core so this is nice to be

able to make it look a little bit hotter

without having to change the overall

brightness of the

tire glow system now let's go and reset

this that's the basic stuff now let's go

and take a look at the fun stuff so what

I'm going to do is come up here to the

circle mask and I'm going to create a

mask right on my lair then I'm going to

come over here to the core type and set

it to layer mask now I can go and hide

the mask here so I can see the core a

little bit better now let's come over

here and let's set the size of the end

down to zero and then we're going to

animate the start offset so it just kind

of creates a loop so here we'll just go

ahead keyframe this from 100% down to 0%

right alright let's go and customize it

we have a huge list of presets so we can

open this up and we'll pick this one

Patronus and now let's go and take a

look all right so now you can see we're

really starting to customize it's got

some nice noise nice distortion kind of

looks like a hazy smoke and the cool

thing is you can also go and change all

of the settings still so you can really

customize each and every preset but did

you notice that the start and end size

and also the animation didn't change

just the overall look of the saver so

this way you can try out the different

presets without messing up your

animation so we could try out to

energize and that's kind of kind of a

cool look and again we can totally

customize it change it around and you

know get completely different looks now

let's take this a little bit further so

let's switch this back to the Patronus

that looks nice and let's set the

transfer mode to screen and let's go to

the mask here I'm going to double click

on it I'm actually shrink it down a bit

now I'm also going to duplicate my saber

layer so I'm going to choose edit

duplicate and it's already set to screen

and what I'm going to do is go to the

mask evolution and I'm just going to

shift it over so I'm going to shift it

over 180 degrees so now check this out

so now I've got two Sabres going okay so

that's pretty cool so what I'll do is

I'll take the top copy and let's change

this to something else let's try this

arc reactor so now we've got two

different Sabres interacting and we've

created kind of a symphony of different

effects and this is really what makes

Sabre so powerful is that it's really

easy to layer multiple effects together

and create complex detailed animations

all right so what makes this so unique

is the advanced distortion noise so if

we come down here to the distortion

settings we can see that we have it

separated between the glow and the core

now this is really important because

sometimes you just want to have a noisy

glow and other times you want to

actually take the core and make it look

a little bit displaced so let's focus on

the glow distortion for just a second

and what I'll do actually is I'll go

ahead and click default which will reset

it so we can kind of see exactly what it

does so we have the distortion amount

just crank that up a little bit and

start to see a little bit of noise next

we have the distortion type so we have

like a fluid looking one an energy one

and then we have two modes we have

distortion and we have multiplied so

distortion is going to be what it's

doing now actually displacing the field

of light and then we also have our

multiply which actually just kind of

darkens it down and you can also invert

it so you kind of have like a smoky look

like a tendril look now next we have our

wind speed so you can see it kind of

moves in a certain direction so you can

change this to a negative value and it

will actually move down you can change

the direction of the wind also the noise

speed so if we set the noise speed to

zero it just moves without animating we

add a little bit of animation has a

little bit of a smokiness to it so it's

kind of cool then you have things like

the noise bias which is kind of like a

stylizing effect if the noise complexity

which is going to add more detail so

let's see here

you can see that a little bit more

detail versus two levels which is going

to be a lot softer so let's one set this

back to the Patronus and maybe what I'll

do is change the color to orange and hit

OK now another thing I like to do it's

not necessary but I like to add an

unsharp mask and this is just going to

sharpen up the detail a little bit so

it's just kind of a nice bit of

crispness that you sometimes lose in the

fractal so I think that looks pretty

good so with this setting on what we can

do is we could play around with the wind

so let's set the wind to say - and you

can see it's moving upwards now check

this out there's actually motion blur

for the wind so sometimes when you have

a fractal it can look a little bit

computer-generated but when you turn on

the motion blur it can look a little bit

more organic as it moves upwards alright

so now let's go and take a look at the

core distortion so we'll go open that up

we could turn this up a bit and this is

going to create a really interesting

effect right around the core and all the

same settings are here you have your

fractal type turn the amount down and

you can really start to create some nice

looks now here's a really important

thing I want to show you and that is the

way that the Alpha Channel works with

the mask now remember we added a circle

mask to our layer so what I can do is so

scroll down here and we see the Alpha

mode now currently it's disabled but if

we turn on enabled masks it'll actually

show what the transparency would look

like it actually crops out the outside

of the mask so this can be a really cool

feature because now you can kind of see

what the effect looks like kind of

inside of a shape and again it can be

any shape we can just add additional

shapes here and it's all going to

animate all the masks are fully

controlled simultaneously but what else

can we

do with this alpha mode well there's

another really cool mode called mask

glow and what that does is only masks

the glow but leaves the core on the

outside so since we've displaced our

core a little bit we can actually see it

extruding past the glow area and again

and this really helps to create a more

organic effect so to really see what's

possible what you want to do is play

around with the different presets and

you can just see how they look how they

animate check out the settings play with

the settings now I will warn you that

the name of the presets are worse than

random in fact I think if they were

randomly selected they might be more

accurate and I'll try to publish a list

of what all the effects are in their

names now there's something else cool

about the distortion when you're using

the sabre instead of a mask so let's

delete the masks and we'll set this back

to saber and we'll scroll down and what

we can do is move the saber around and

notice that the distortion and the noise

actually follows the saber wherever it

goes I can also turn on the distortion

amount and you can see that also follows

it and actually goes in the direction so

if I were to turn up the wind the wind

will go in the direction of the saber

now what if I want to turn that off well

there's an option called lock noise to

saber so if we turn that off now we can

actually move it around freely as if

we're moving it through a smoke-filled

room if I could turn up the intensity

and see this a bit so depending on what

you're trying to do this can be a really

cool way to create laser blasts or other

cool effects that actually pass through

space now one other setting here so

let's go and switch this over to the arc

reactor so kind of an electrical mode

here and the way that the

is looking electric is simply the

distortion of the core now there's an

option here called blend on top so if we

turn that off it'll actually get rid of

the core or you could turn it back on so

it's just a way to be able to create a

saber that has its base core but just

has a little bit of noise on it like a

particular character in a particular

Star Wars movie I'm not saying who it is

but I'll bet with a little bit of work

and of course you could turn up the

noise speed alright so those are some

really useful options and again in this

example you can see that this blue beam

shoots down but let's say we want it to

shoot into the ground well what we can

do is turn up the wind speed and maybe

even a little bit of motion blur now

even though the effect is

two-dimensional what you can do is you

can duplicate it control D and rotate it

just to add a little more dimension and

just change the random seed of the

distortion so we could just change the

random seed and it looks completely

different so it's always a cool trick to

be able to create more dimension with

these type of effects and keep in mind

you can have a different speed for the

core and the glow so you can create a

little bit of separation between the two

and just add more detail alright so

here's another interesting example so

I've got a mask that's animated and what

I'll do is I'll come to the core

settings and change the end offset to

about the middle and what I can do is

then take the effect and hit edit

duplicate and now have an extra copy

what I'll do is come down here to the

render settings and change the composite

to add and now I've combined both of the

effects together

now instead of them being the same what

I'll do is

change the offset back over turn the

size back up and maybe move the start

offset over so that there's a gap in the

middle so we'll turn the start size down

to kind of match it so what's cool about

this is that I can change the color and

the settings and both of the effects

will be linked together to the same mask

so and you can see here I have a couple

more stacked up here that are basically

doing the same thing so you could

basically create a whole lot of Sabre

rendering on a single mask and on a

single layer so that's a little bit

easier to manage a path and of course

you can use expressions to link masks

together and things like that so a lot

of different ways to work with this

effect after looking at these examples

you'd think that Harry Potter was

actually the thing that inspired this

plugin alright let's go and take a look

at a few different title examples so

here's a combination of two separate

layers and we can kind of see what that

looks like now same thing here is I'm

just animating the end offset along with

the mask evolution now again it's nice

because you can really try out some

different looks simply by switching the

presets now in this example we have some

text created with element 3d and we're

simply overlaying a nice edge design

that's animating on with a little bit of

energy so it kind of has a cool sort of

backlit kind of look

it also looks cool to animate the wind

so it kind of looks like it's pushing

away from the surface a little bit so

see how that looks

so it adds a really nice touch and the

thing that really makes it unique is the

realistic light fall-off from the glow

so that's going to come from these two

settings the spread and the bias and by

turning the bias down you can actually

create a much hotter outside edge and it

looks more like it's a light source

that's falling off and the spread will

help you kind of spread it out you know

across the entire surface so cool

combination there all right now how

about creating some kind of neon effect

like this well what I have is some

outlines into mask form it'll go ahead

and take the Sabre effect drop it on to

that layer and we'll switch the custom

core to the layer masks perfect wait and

we just need to bring the size down

maybe to 1.5 and bring the intensity

down I also like to bring the spread and

the bias down just a bit

now there is a nice preset actually

called neon which does look pretty nice

the thing I like to do actually with my

neon effects is go down to the render

settings and play around with the post

color correction so you see the

brightness value here now these color

correction settings will actually affect

the core so if we bring the brightness

down it'll actually turn red or pink in

this case and it'll look a little bit

more like a neon light maybe we'll play

around with the start end offset

so this is pretty cool and just you know

just a matter of playing around with the

settings here now this is where you can

have fun with the light setting so you

might bring this in really tight and

then come down here to the alpha mode

and set it to enable masks and that will

crop out the edges maybe we'll even turn

on masks only the glow and that will

keep our edges intact now here's what it

looks like with another copy I'll go

ahead and set this to add and turn on

another copy here so that color

combination looks really nice and pretty

much any color combination strangely

you'll just see some really just great

looks just because light tends to blend

together really really nicely uh let's

see I have another layer here with some

kind of like fiery of fact I think I

just use the energy preset I don't know

this is like empire steakhouse now it's

great now another really fun example is

this right here and this represents a

really cool concept and that's because

I'm actually using a text layer rather

than masks so check this out my text

layers right here and I can actually

edit it like a live layer so I can turn

it off but if I double click on it

I can type in a new thing I'll turn off

my stock footage there

and basically with these two layers if

one that has kind of my smooth edge and

then one with a little bit of a fiery

edge and you can go through change the

font you know really really customize it

quite a bit and not only that but you

can also change the preset at this point

and just to give you an idea on how this

works basically what you do is you

switch it to a text layer and you set

the text layer to your editable text

layer and it simply uses that just like

it would any kind of a mask and then

again we have the Alpha mode set to mask

glow and that keeps the core on the

outside so if we went into the core

distortion we would see that effect on

the outside that was actually kind of

something I was doing and so my other

examples was using the color right and

turning off blend on top and turning up

the distortion and animating it down to

zero and that combination with the fire

layer will just give it a little more of

an organic kind of reveal so there you

go I didn't say I was going to look good

I just said it's going to be organic now

speaking of organic one thing that's

really important when you're doing

effects like this is if you're trying to

simulate fire we'll stick some actual

fire footage into your comp fractal

noise fire will never look as realistic

as real fire but it helps sell the

illusion so if we just take a couple of

clips of fire

stick them in their various places you

can see that it really helps sell the

effect and it doesn't take that much

work just to make it look a little bit

better now we have a stock footage pack

called action essentials and it's got a

lot of fire elements and things can

check that out

now speaking of stock footage one thing

I'm tired of seeing our fake-looking

Sparks like I don't know why people keep

using CC particle world to create sparks

but it's really just not working out so

you guys find some good stock footage of

spark elements there's just a huge

difference when you look at real Sparks

versus something that was created with

you know CC particle world it just

doesn't look good you know where did

this idea come from let me sit here hey

what's up Andrew Kramer here for the

look you know alright never mind never

mind

doesn't matter now another cool setting

to check out is the flicker control so

what I'll do is let me just type

something a little bit longer and if I

go to the flicker settings I can turn it

up and they'll so low that they'll turn

up I'll turn up a lot just so you can

see here in the tutorial now you notice

that it flickers all together but if you

turn on mask randomization it'll

actually flicker them independently so

now we can turn the value down here and

that just gives it a really nice you

know organic look now obviously it

doesn't need to be that intense but just

a little something to create some

separation you know also just gives the

fire a little bit more life here's

another cool example of like a liquid

nitrogen effect and it actually has a

little bit of dimensionality because I

made multiple copies so we could take a

look at one of the copies here and just

kind of a wave motion that kind of moves

downward

now here's the cool thing about this

particular layer is that it doesn't have

a core so if I hit mmm we can see the

mask and that's because the expansion

value has been turned down so combining

that with a few other layers you can

create some nice-looking results so

check out this layer you can see I just

drew a mask that's kind of like a smiley

face because I wanted to create like a

runoff of smoke just at the bottom area

and that's just one example of some of

the kind of tricks that you can do to

sort of design the energy in the way

that looks good now not to keep bringing

it up but again here's another example

of using a single smoke element to just

give it a little bit more of an organic

and natural life yet still blending in

nicely with the core so just another

cool example now another quick tip in

order to create motion blur from masks

you need to use the force motion blur

effect it's not affiliated with

Lucasfilm but it does work pretty well

so I'll just throw it out here and it'll

just give you a few more samples of

motion blur and even though it's a

little bit slower it definitely looks

nice and works perfectly with the Sabre

stack all right believe it or not but a

plug-in called Sabre is actually pretty

good at making lightsabers too so let's

take a look at this example here so

here's some footage of Sam running down

with his lightsaber and what we'll do is

create a solid and we'll drop the Sabre

effect on there and we'll set the

transfer mode to screen and hit control

shift H it's good shortcut to no hides

all the screen elements and we'll go

ahead put the start point at the bottom

end point towards the end and we'll just

start animating this thing so here is

the way this works what you want to do

is put the Sabre core over the Sabre in

the shot well turn up the size

now there is a control setting for the

roundness so if you want to fit that

just right and we'll put this about

right there now we can taper the end

size a little bit and worry about this

motion blur in just a sec right so that

looks pretty good we'll go ahead add a

keyframe for the course start and end

and then you can use page up and page

down to cycle through now here's the

best way to do this as you move forward

move the lightsaber to the forward

direction of the saber so here's the

forward side let's move this up until it

touches next frame same thing and so

forth now we can turn off the glow which

will not only speed it up but make it a

little easier to see we'll keep going

here

okay and this is kind of weird but check

it out it's kind of but you can see that

this motion blur is automatically

calculated and it's specially designed

for lightsabers so you've got to do a

little bit of hand animation but it's a

lot faster than having to do a crazy

amount of roto now check this out see I

didn't quite get it here so let me go

back here and I'll extend it out here so

that it makes sure to follow through and

have enough of a lightsaber there we go

now sometimes what happens this is just

an important tip for after effects users

sometimes your frame gets cached and it

doesn't update based on the animated

keyframes around it and it's always good

policy to purge your memory from time to

time if you're running into any kind of

odd issues so keep forward do a couple

more keyframes here

you

we'll take a look this so already this

is looking pretty good and you know the

glow looks great here's a few tips on

getting to looking better first of all

adding a little bit of flicker

is going to be a nice touch coming down

here to the post color correction

saturation will help depending on the

background and the compositing now here

is the cool thing is the motion blur

check this out so the motion blur amount

is set to 1 so 0.5 would be a hundred

and eighty degrees shutter so that's

kind of your standard camera and that

actually matches pretty well but since

it's a lightsaber you know you want to

have some of that extra kind of waviness

just kind of makes it look cool this

thing is glowing out of control here but

what's nice about it is that there's a

blur phase and you can actually just

shift it back and forth in time so it's

like a temporal thing but it makes it

really easy to be able to either

increase or decrease the amount of

motion blur so just enough to cover the

saber and then the ability to shift it

forward and back along the same vector

so it's very very fast and very very

easy and hopefully that will save you a

lot of time now I understand that

there's possibly some lightsaber purists

that would prefer to hand-wrote oh and

if that's the case let me show you what

you can do if you reset the plugin what

you can do is go in there and draw your

hand-made roto

okay hit em go to your mask go forward

and you know knock yourself out

okay and what you can do then is go to

the core set it to layer mask now you

can see that it's hollow it's actually

got hole in it but then go down to the

composite settings and switch it to add

and as long as your layer is white it'll

actually just create a white core and

now we could bring the size of the core

down just so that it stays close to your

roto and all the glow settings and all

the nice control and the flickering and

everything will all work and you have

your custom control over your shape so

it's win-win

now there's another really cool feature

and this is one of the first features

that we designed and that is the ability

to occlude the core if say there was a

person in front of you and let's go to

our Sabre layer and let's mask out this

stormtrooper guy so that the lightsaber

is on the other side of him so we'll

take the pen tool and we'll just draw a

shape here not a very good one but good

enough okay

so we've added our masks and I want to

go ahead hit em and change the mask to

subtract now let's come over here to the

Alpha settings and we'll set this to

enable masks alright so we've roto this

out but now we have a hard edge right

here and that nice halo that nice glow

is getting cut off and this gets a

little bit tricky so that's why you want

to turn on the mask core mode what that

will do is mask out only the core and

actually render the glow on top of that

layer so you can actually see that the

results it's almost like a light wrap

it's very realistic and you can you know

get it glowing over the top of the edges

and then of course you can still refine

your mask as needed but the integration

is just much more realistic and you

don't have to deal with a bunch of extra

layers and light rap and all that

craziness that comes with this so

hopefully that will save you guys a lot

of time when you have multiple actors

fighting in a scene and you need to be

able to roto out sabers in front and

behind various things I'd like to

imagine that there's one guy who just

finished his light saber fan film and

that feature just blew his mind you know

he spent the better part of two years

rotoscoping out his friends and he

watched that feature and he can't

believe it alright well I hope this

tutorials helped to show what is

possible with the new plugin saber and

as always be sure to combine different

tutorials you know shockwave sci-fi

effects there's so many different

techniques that you can actually bring

together and just make everything that

you guys do just be that much more

impressive and speaking of which if I

may just take a moment a moment to

reflect on Video Copilot having been

around for 10 years and I was extremely

busy last year on Star Wars and I didn't

get a chance to formally thank everybody

who has been part of this incredible

community and I look back

at all of the different tutorials and

it's amazing to still be doing this and

frankly being able to love doing it

every single day I remember making each

one of these tutorials you know I

remember just the genuine encouragement

and appreciation and I'm just truly

thankful to every one of you guys I

appreciate the opportunity to be able to

do what I do and certainly the

lightsaber tutorial was one of the

tutorials that started it all so it's

kind of just interesting to circle back

and again I can't thank you guys enough

I look forward to all the cool things

that we're going to do in the future so

thank you guys again I am Andrew Kramer

videocopilot net and we will see you

next time I wonder if this lightsaber

somehow set off a chain reaction of

events that so that I could one day work

on a Star Wars film I don't know I do

know one thing though this planet

explosion tutorial didn't help anybody

this is terrible I got a million people

watch this I feel bad for them I'm sorry