The Matrix "Bullet Time" special effect

I re-creating that wonderful "bullet time" effect in The Matrix where the camera does a swing around the bullets as they are flying. Very tricky. Greenscreening would be best but I haven't figured that out so I did this instead. I've almost got it down perfectly and here are my steps so far.

I'm going for this effect on a Blasters Fireball hitting a baddie. As the fireball hits the baddie I want the fireball to freeze in mid-air and then the camera circles the fireball. I use Balshor and Zloths demo editors. I used separate Demo Launcher program which allows you to increase the FPS playing the demo for capture. I don't recall it's name but most of the demo launchers allow you to increase the FPS which is the important part. I'm going to assume you know how to use these tools.

You need two video captures centered on the fire ball hitting the baddie. One video circling the baddie extremely fast, the other facing the fire ball hit stationary.

1. Video One - Camera circling baddie during fire ball hit. I used Zloth editor to "Move" the camera in a "Circle" around the baddie about 15 times over the course of 4 seconds with the "Interval" set to it's lowest "1", yes that is very fast which is exactly the point.

2. Next launch this demo at a very very large FPS, I used 1000. Don't ask me to explaing the various FPS interactions here I only now what, not why they do what they do. Setting to 1000 FPS causes the demo to play back in incredible slow-motion. You can't get to absolute freeze motion so super-slow-mo is the next best thing. When you get to the spot just before the fireball hits start fraps capture ending it after the fireball hit-animation is complete. 1000 FPS will stretch out this scene to a many seconds, which is exactly what we want, so this will be a large file size capture.

3. Video Two - Camera stationary facing baddie during fire ball hit. This is just a standard view with the camera stationary facing the baddie during the fireball hit at normal FPS speed.

4. Do a typical video capture of this scene at normal speed.

5. Now you have to do some splicing of these two videos in your editing program. I use Sony Vegas.

6. In the slo-mo video isolate the particular part you want to be the dramatic mid-air slo-mo scene. Make careful note of the exact position of your toon and the animation at the frame at the start of the scene and frame at the end of this isolated scene. Keep this section of the scene and crop out the unneeded beginning an end sections of the scene.

7. In your stationary video find the two frame locations that match up, as best as is possible, with the begining and end frames of your slo-mo scene you isolated earlier.

8. In your stationary video splice out the portion from this identified begining frame thru the identified end frame mentioned above. Then insert the isolated slo-mo scene into this now empty area you spliced out. You should have a total of three video scenes now stitched together.

[Stationary Scene] Fireball Striking Baddie and Explosion Beginning to Expand.
[Slow Motion Scene] Fireball Explosion "Frozen (well almost)"Circled by Camera.
[Stationary Scene] Fireball Explosion Resumes.

You'll have to tweak the frames where the scenes meet to try to get the animations synchronized as best you can.

I'm throwing this together at work from memory so pardon it's untidiness. I'll try to go back and edit it tonight and clean it up a bit.

Hope it is useful.

Are you using the full version of Vegas or just Sony Vegas Movie Studio?

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
Are you using the full version of Vegas or just Sony Vegas Movie Studio?

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]

I've got Vegas Pro version 7.

Oooooooh, lucky!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Just looked, actually it is Platinum

So you are using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum? Or did Vegas Pro come out with a Platinum edition?

(Coz man I wanna learn to green-screen and bullet-time stuff, but can't afford the $600 for Vegas Pro...)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
So you are using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum? Or did Vegas Pro come out with a Platinum edition?

(Coz man I wanna learn to green-screen and bullet-time stuff, but can't afford the $600 for Vegas Pro...)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the one I have $114: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope . And it can indeed do greenscreening, it has chroma keying tool to key to transparent.

Yep that's the one I have!

Must do some experimenting with it...

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite