Compositing Force Lightning onto live footage

As I got a few questions on the Force Lightning tutorial on how to composite the lightning onto real footage I decided to make a quick video before I'd have to explain that over and over again through comments.

Here you go!

And don't forget the video responses :D

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• force
• lightning
• how
• to
• composite
• real
• live
• footage
• video
• transfer
• mode
• adobe
• after
• effects

[MysticAFI]

So when making it come from someone's fingertips, do you motion track it? If so, how do you track just the starting and ending points?

[Kiliankoe]

@MysticAFI You can set the animation (translation keyframes in this case) individually for the start and end points in the lightning composition itself. It's part of the Advance Lightning effect.

[MysticAFI]

@Kiliankoe Right. So I guess if you wanted them to stay on someone's fingertips, you'd have to rotoscope accordingly for the footage, adjusting the position for each frame, if their fingers moved slightly.

[Kiliankoe]

@MysticAFI Exactly, and that's the only part this way of compositing lightning kinda sucks. If you can manage it, that's great, but as you can't really see your footage while adjusting these points it's a bit harsh. I'm still on the lookout for a better way.

[MysticAFI]

@Kiliankoe Really? But when you drop the lightning layer on top and then set it to additive, shouldn't you be able to see both your footage and the lightning as you're moving the points? Not over black again.

Also, I guess when people have the lightning running up their body, getting electrocuted and what not, that's also rotoscoping frame by frame?

[Kiliankoe]

@MysticAFI Try and see, you'll get what I mean.

I'm not entirely sure if you could use it like that, but you can definitely try it. If it does work out, I'd love to see it ;)

[Kiliankoe]

@honcc5 How to actually create the lightning was part of another tutorial. Please check that one.

[honcc5]

Can u put a download link for the Lighting

[Kiliankoe]

@TheFamiljen123 Thanks :)

[TheFamiljen123]

i love ur tuts