AboutJonathan H Pienaar Expertise Professional Final Cut Pro HD editor, with some experience in DVD Studio Pro, Motion and Shake. Currently working mainly for South Africa's version of "60 Minutes" - "Carte Blanche".
Please include in your question they type of computer you have (PC or Mac) and which operating system (e.g. OSX Leopard, Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux) so that I can be sure I'm giving you the right advice.
Experience 20 years as a professional editor: worked in feature films, commercials, music videos and actuality. Never worked in Reality. Never will.
Organizations South African Guild of Editors
Education/Credentials High school, 2 years of university degree.
Awards and Honors CNN African Journalist of the Year Category winner (twice)
Expert: Jonathan H Pienaar Date: 7/2/2008 Subject: Help! with video editing
Question Hei...
I started editing videos few monthes ago...
I worked with Sony Vegas Pro 8 and Adobe Premiere pro CS3.
Now, I made a 3D bullet in 3D Studio Max as an animation (.avi)
I Imported it to each of the editing programs and i wanted to do a slow motion of a bullet and bullet time air distort(waves) after it like in Matrix movie!
But I didnt find any tutorials to do it(the waves and the air distort).
So Plz help me to do it.. I need it for a big project!
Answer Hey Solomon
As you can see from my bio, I'm more a Final Cut Pro person than Vegas or Premiere. I will describe how I would do it in FCP, and with luck you can translate it into your NLE. I am also assuming that Premiere has the facility to layer several video tracks.
My first instinct is to look for a transition called "ripple dissolve". It's that effect they use to indicate a dream or flashback in silly 1950s movies ;). I imagine Premiere would have the more powerful transition tools. You want to make a razor-cut on the video track you want to effect, and place the effect on it (so you are basically transitioning on the same clip). Then in the transition properties look for the "center" option, which should allow you to reposition the main focus of the ripple transition to where you want it in the frame. Presumably your spinning bullet animation has an alpha channel, so you would place it on a video track superimposing the ripple effect.
Another option to explore (and you will have to go back to the manual for this) might be using a bump map to create the ripple, which would be less circular and possibly something that you could custom-build in Photoshop. Similar to an alpha map, a bump map is a black-and-white tga image which uses shades of gray to influence the image.
In addition, try duplicating the bullet on a layer between the bullet and the background. Distort the bullet (enlarge it slightly, moreso at the rear than the point) and change its layer properties to "Multiply" or "Overlay", and make it semi-transparent (10-20%). If it looks effective, try doing it again on another intermediate layer, slightly larger and perhaps offset by a frame or two.
Ultimately this is the sort of effect that would be more suited to a tool like Adobe After Effects or Apple Motion, but I hope you can find a way to make this work. Unfortunately it's going to take a bit of trial and error on your part; I'm sorry I can't give you more specific advice.
