Harry potter magic from wand.
by Jose Alfonzo (7_Days)
on
Jun 30, 2008 at 11:05:13 pm
HI, and thanks for your time. I am trying to recreate the look of the magic coming from harry potter's magic wand. if you remember from the movie, the effect is very subttle, it kind of looks like air/water. at first I thought of using a displacement map, no luck. Then I played with all the distort tools. it gets close, but the problem is that it has to "be born" from point A, to finally hit its target. I tried animating a mask, but it gets messy and not what I am looking for. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Re: Harry potter magic from wand. by Louie Benson on Jul 1, 2008 at 4:24:55 pm
You can try tplaying around with Particle Playground and Gaussian Blur. I've made different types of smoke and steam using these, and of course, keyframing the edge of the cannon from PP.
Also, if this doesn't help, you might try looking in to the program Particle Illusion. Its $400 I think. You can find it at http://www.wondertouch.com
Re: Harry potter magic from wand. by Mike Park on Jul 1, 2008 at 6:44:02 pm
Jose,
The best way I can think of to get that effect is actually pretty simple.
Start a new comp with your footage.
Create a new adjustment layer.
Apply the "Turbulent displace" modifier from the distort effects.
Change the displacement to "horizontal"
Adjust the amount and size to taste and then keyframe the evolution.
Finally, use the pen tool to draw the appropriate confines of the effect and add a little feather.
That should pretty closely approximate the Harry Potter effect with very little effort or complexity. If you want the effect to grow, simply animate the mask on the adjustment layer.
Re: Harry potter magic from wand. by Jose Alfonzo on Jul 1, 2008 at 9:13:39 pm
Mike: I used a plug in called BCC Wave. I can get away with it. But I also tried the one you told me, and it does the same! so, what you told me actually does the job. thanks mate!
