Quality WoW Movie Effects (Read First Paragraph)

[Örpheus]

First, a note. If you EVER intend to create quality WoW movies, I suggest you buy Video Vegas. If you're new, try Ulead Videostudio. Full credit goes to Make at Warcraft Cinema for the guide. Yes, I just copied and pasted it. At least I give credit.



Music is always an important thing in any movie. Good pvp-action will go megasuperzomg-action if you add great music and synchronization. In this tutorial well look deeper into the effects of Video Vegas and look at some simple hint to sync music into action.

This guide, as its topic is loong(ish). So prepare yourself

1. Music and how to use it
Its important to think ahead what kind of a song you should use on that spot in the movie. A really fast-beat song will just look silly if the clip is about someone walking on a road. So choose songs that fit the overall pace of that part of the movie. Lets start then.

Import the song you want to use and place it on the timeline (preferably before the videoclips so sync would be easier. Now lets make a example sync. As you put the music in the timeline, you should see the wave-graph, now this is your most important aspect when syncin music, as it shows exactly where the beat/music/distinguishable noise starts (If you have trouble finding a single spot mouse-scroll up and the timeline will stretch) When you've picked the spot on the song and the spot of the videoclip (explosion, starting of battle etc) we can put them both on the right spot. Click and hold the clip or music and you can move it along the timeline, and try to synch them. You can look once in a while at the preview window how is the result looking. Heres an example picture of the sync.
Pic

Syncing most of the movie is definetly worth the effort and instead of putting a particular clip on the sync-spot, you can put an effect if you want to. Lets look at that briefly.

When adding an effect to a clip in order to make it for example flash at the same time as the music beats, you must work with the timeline. In your clip, right click and select Media FX, choose an effect (Sony Brightness & Contrast will do here) and were at the familiar effects window. Now if you drag the timeline indicator in the bottom of the effects window, you will see in the preview window the movie. Lets add a keyframe. Keyframe is point where you set the values of each effect. This is useful for example, making two keyframes, making the first have no effects and put the second a few seconds away from the first and put full effects on it. Now you would have a fade-in effect. But as I was saying, add a keyframe by dragging the timeline indicator on the spot you want and press "Add Keyframe" button (2th last button below the effects timeline) Now you have a keyframe. Drag this as close as the start of the sync-point as you can get and dont do anything with the effects controls. Now make a second one and place it as near as you can get, infront of the 1st keyframe. Now put this keyframes brightness to full. Now just make one more and put it infront of the 2nd keyframe and put the settings to normal (0,0 , 0,0 and 0,5) Close the effects window and play the clip. Now you should see a quick flash in the sync-spot if youve gotten if right, and if you didnt just try again, its a bit complicated but you should get the hang of it soon. Right! Now youve learnt the small art of synchronization and we can move onto Advanced Effects.

Effects, Effects and the Blue/Green Screen technique
Ever wondered how they got the Dwarven tank to blast its way out of Ironforge in the movie "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks" well, here youll learn it.

What is Blue/Green Screen technique? It is used in about every Hollywood movie, where you see fantasy/scifi scenery or fictive monster with an actor. Its basically like this: First, an actor acts the scene with a totally blue/green wall behind him. Then the editors make the wall transparent and digitally add a background instead of the green wall and Voilá! Youve got hobbits running trough an dwarven city, which is now infested with orcs.

But how does this have to do anything about WoW? Well, the Tank going trough Ironforge, it was made using the Greenscreen technique. How you say? Theres no such walls in Azeroth. Well youre absolutely right, but theres a program called WoW Model Viewer that allows you to view any model in World Of Warcraft. If youre sensitive about spoilers, never ever download this program as it holds models to unrevealed content. But to moviemaking its really really good. You take the model of the tank, set the background to green/blue and put the right animation on and film. Then put it into an editing software and remove the background, add Ironforge and there you have it.

Doing this in Vegas is a cakewalk. Film the clip, add it to the timeline in Vegas, open the Media FX window and select Sony Chroma Keyer. In there above the effect settings open the dropdown menu and select Blue/green etc. preset depending on your background. Now add a picture or videoclip below the screened clip in the timeline and there you have it. Easy wasn't it?

Next lets talk about Pan/Crop. In the right side of the clip you remember the two buttons. Now press the upper one and youll get to the Pan/Crop window. Here you can drag the F-square around and see it effect your clip. You can zoom, twist, move and turn your clip and it has its own timeline! So you can put a spinning clip in the distance that slows down and zooms in etc, the possibilites are limitless. You can use these to synch your clip too with music! Its got fun written all over it! You can mix Green-screen and this together and make for example the dwarven tank do a huuge flip in midair! There is really nothing to teach here, just experimenting will give you an idea of what to do with it. Except Masking. Masking is used to highlight stuff or give an effect for example to a single sword in the clip. You do it by checking the Mask square in the left side of the timeline. This gives you a new timeline. Now if you start clicking on the Pan/Crop screen where the clip is, dots start to appear. This is the Anchor, that will area the place you want to add a mask. Make a closed circle with it and youll see how everything else except the inside of the square goes a bit dark tinted. Now in the masked clip, everything tinted dark will not show in the movie/preview window. If you want to highlight something using the Mask, put the same clip below it and it will look normal, but now you can add an effect to the upper clip and it will only show on the masked area. Once again, your imagination is the limit when thinking what you can do with this tool. But remember that masking something that moves around during the clip, is gonna be hard because the mask doesnt move with for example the character so you have to mask it again everytime he moves during the clip.

Now for last but not least, Velocity. Doing a slow-motion or fast-motion in Vegas is even easier than using the Chroma Keyer. Right Click on a clip, look for Insert/Remove Envelope-> Velocity. Now a greenish line has appeared vertically center in the clip. You can drag this up or down and see a percentage that tells you the speed of the clip, you can put it to 0% or -100% if you want to, or 50%. The default is 100% so it goes forward and goes on normal speed, you can add points to this line, by right clicking and pressing Add Point, then moving the point up and down will affect differently on the line. You can put a percentage manually to the point by right clicking on it and pressing "Set to"
NOTE: Slowing the clip down below 50% will affect the clip radically and make it lag because it only lessen the frames played. If you plan onto slowing some clip, when recording put a bigger FPS to it.that way it will be much more nice to look at.

I think this is all for now! Have fun editing and moviemaking!

[rabownsyou]

If you want some 'special' help getting sony vegas 6 without buying it, PM me or add me to msn or [email protected] ^^

+rep for the goood tut matey!

[Elites360]

Very good guide ! +rep

[Dwarf]

nice! +rep

I got a question... can you do 2 objects in the same green screen? ex: A dwarf brings his axe on top off a gnome.
Heres what I did; 1. Put the background on. 2. Added the Dwarf. 3. Added the Gnome, but when the gnome is on the screen, the Dwarf disappears.

[Voldekt]

Very nice and descriptive.