Alright, I know I said I wasn't going to make a tutorial, but I wrote one up for a friend and figured I might as well share it. Note also that the method has been improved a great deal. If you've seen my youtube test, you probably noticed that the glow fade-off was awkward and static. This new method uses Trapcode's Particular to really enhance the fade-off.
Tips
I shot my video on a tripod so I wouldn't have to worry about motion tracking. I highly suggest you do the same. You can always add digital camera shake later. Also, make sure the lighting on the wall is consistent over time. Mine wasn't and the effect suffered a bit.
The Burn Mark by Itself
So as you can probably guess, you need to make a new comp set to
your footage's size and length with your wall footage in it. This will
be our final comp. Now for the good stuff.
The first step is to make a 3D solid (any color) that lines up with the wall. This means playing with the position, x rotation, y rotation, and z rotation to match the angle of the wall. It doesn't have to be the same size as the wall, but it will be better if it covers the whole plane. In my shot there were two walls and two solids, although I only bothered to do the first one in this project file.
Now, you want to select and turn off the solid, go to the first frame the lightsaber touches the wall, and -- using the pen tool -- make a point on the tip of the saber that is touching the wall, then go through every frame, making a point on the tip of the saber, until the saber comes off the wall. Do NOT close the mask. Essentially, what we've done is made a mask that is in the exact shape we want our burn mark to be in that follows the exact movement of the tip of the saber where the wall is being cut. Now we can turn our solid back on and apply the "stroke" effect to it, which if I'm not mistaken is under "generate" nowadays.
In the "stroke" settings, set the path to the mask you created that follows the saber. Make sure the color is black, and that the hardness is at 100%. Then, turn the paint style to "on transparent". Also, be sure the brush size is set to an appropriate thickness because it will vary based on what kind of lightsaber prop you're using and how close the camera is to the wall. Just make sure the line looks as thick as the blade of the saber. Now, played back, we see that we have a black line on a wall that the lightsaber follows. The main problem is that the mark is visible before the lightsaber even touches the wall. We need to animate the mark to line up with the motion of the saber.
Go to the frame before the saber touches the wall. In the effects palate for the "stroke" effect set the "end" property to zero, and click the stopwatch for "end". Now go frame by frame animating the line to go just on top of the saber using the "end" property. When this is done the footage, played back, will show that the saber seems to draw the line on the wall.
Next, we need to make our line look less perfect and computer generated. Add a "turbulent displace" effect (under "distort") to our solid. I set the size to 2.5 for my shot, which makes the edges look kind of ripply and imperfect.
A black mark... wow, not that impressive. Duplicate the solid. Go into the "stroke" effect on the bottom solid, click on the eye dropper for the color, and click an area on the wall that isn't particularly unique meaning: don't pick an area that's particularly light or dark, or one that is a different color than the rest of the wall. When you've done this, increase the brush size so that the bottom layer is about three times as thick as the top one. Duplicate the "turbulent displace" on the bottom layer. On mine I set one "turbulent displace" size to two and the other to seven. This helps give both small ripples and larger ripples. Now we are going to apply a "fractal noise" effect to the layer (under "noise and grain"). Set the noise type to "spline" and set the blending mode to "overlay". Play with the scale and contrast (both of which should be lowered quite a bit) until there appears to be just a hint of detail or texture on the mark.
We're looking a little better. Now we need to select the two solids and pre-compose them by going layer>pre-compose. You can name it something like "Damage Alpha", check the "open new comp" box, and click okay. This creates a new composition containing just these layers which is left in the old comp in their place. From our newly created comp select the top solid (the one without the "fractal noise" and stuff) and copy it by going edit>copy. Paste it in the old comp where it used to be by going edit>paste. Move it above the footage and the new comp layer if necessary. Back in the new comp, set the bottom solid's track matte to "alpha inverted" and go back into the old comp.
Everything should look exactly the same as when we pre-composed the two solids. Apply a "bevel alpha" and a "drop shadow" (both under perspective) to the Damage Alpha layer in the first composition. Alt-click the direction stopwatch for the drop shadow and in the timeline drag the parenting whip for the expression to the direction for the bevel alpha. Before clicking out of the expression, however, type +180 on the end of it. Now the "drop shadow" is cast in the opposite direction of the "bevel alpha" and if the "bevel alpha" direction is changed, the shadow direction is also changed. Match the light direction from the scene with the "bevel alpha" direction and play with the light height, light intensity, shadow distance, and shadow softness until the burn mark looks properly lit by the environment.
The first step is to make a 3D solid (any color) that lines up with the wall. This means playing with the position, x rotation, y rotation, and z rotation to match the angle of the wall. It doesn't have to be the same size as the wall, but it will be better if it covers the whole plane. In my shot there were two walls and two solids, although I only bothered to do the first one in this project file.
Now, you want to select and turn off the solid, go to the first frame the lightsaber touches the wall, and -- using the pen tool -- make a point on the tip of the saber that is touching the wall, then go through every frame, making a point on the tip of the saber, until the saber comes off the wall. Do NOT close the mask. Essentially, what we've done is made a mask that is in the exact shape we want our burn mark to be in that follows the exact movement of the tip of the saber where the wall is being cut. Now we can turn our solid back on and apply the "stroke" effect to it, which if I'm not mistaken is under "generate" nowadays.
In the "stroke" settings, set the path to the mask you created that follows the saber. Make sure the color is black, and that the hardness is at 100%. Then, turn the paint style to "on transparent". Also, be sure the brush size is set to an appropriate thickness because it will vary based on what kind of lightsaber prop you're using and how close the camera is to the wall. Just make sure the line looks as thick as the blade of the saber. Now, played back, we see that we have a black line on a wall that the lightsaber follows. The main problem is that the mark is visible before the lightsaber even touches the wall. We need to animate the mark to line up with the motion of the saber.
Go to the frame before the saber touches the wall. In the effects palate for the "stroke" effect set the "end" property to zero, and click the stopwatch for "end". Now go frame by frame animating the line to go just on top of the saber using the "end" property. When this is done the footage, played back, will show that the saber seems to draw the line on the wall.
Next, we need to make our line look less perfect and computer generated. Add a "turbulent displace" effect (under "distort") to our solid. I set the size to 2.5 for my shot, which makes the edges look kind of ripply and imperfect.
A black mark... wow, not that impressive. Duplicate the solid. Go into the "stroke" effect on the bottom solid, click on the eye dropper for the color, and click an area on the wall that isn't particularly unique meaning: don't pick an area that's particularly light or dark, or one that is a different color than the rest of the wall. When you've done this, increase the brush size so that the bottom layer is about three times as thick as the top one. Duplicate the "turbulent displace" on the bottom layer. On mine I set one "turbulent displace" size to two and the other to seven. This helps give both small ripples and larger ripples. Now we are going to apply a "fractal noise" effect to the layer (under "noise and grain"). Set the noise type to "spline" and set the blending mode to "overlay". Play with the scale and contrast (both of which should be lowered quite a bit) until there appears to be just a hint of detail or texture on the mark.
We're looking a little better. Now we need to select the two solids and pre-compose them by going layer>pre-compose. You can name it something like "Damage Alpha", check the "open new comp" box, and click okay. This creates a new composition containing just these layers which is left in the old comp in their place. From our newly created comp select the top solid (the one without the "fractal noise" and stuff) and copy it by going edit>copy. Paste it in the old comp where it used to be by going edit>paste. Move it above the footage and the new comp layer if necessary. Back in the new comp, set the bottom solid's track matte to "alpha inverted" and go back into the old comp.
Everything should look exactly the same as when we pre-composed the two solids. Apply a "bevel alpha" and a "drop shadow" (both under perspective) to the Damage Alpha layer in the first composition. Alt-click the direction stopwatch for the drop shadow and in the timeline drag the parenting whip for the expression to the direction for the bevel alpha. Before clicking out of the expression, however, type +180 on the end of it. Now the "drop shadow" is cast in the opposite direction of the "bevel alpha" and if the "bevel alpha" direction is changed, the shadow direction is also changed. Match the light direction from the scene with the "bevel alpha" direction and play with the light height, light intensity, shadow distance, and shadow softness until the burn mark looks properly lit by the environment.
Adding the Glow
Now we are going to make the burn mark glow as it's being cut.
Pre-compose the Damage Alpha pre-comp and call this one something like
Glow Matte. In the new comp make a new solid (any color) and apply
Trapcode's Particular to it. Under the emitter settings in the effects
palate for Particular, set the particles/sec to zero and set the
emitter type to "box". Make sure the direction is set to uniform and
set all three velocity settings to zero. Now, in the particle
settings, set the life to two, life random % to 33, and the particle
type to "cloudlet". The cloudlet feather needs to be at 100, the size
to around five depending on the shot, and the opacity random % to 98.
In the opacity over life twirly thing, click the graph preset with the
perfectly linear graph going down.
Go to the first frame where burn mark is finished being drawn and set the stopwatch for Position XY in the emitter settings. Drag the red circle/x thing to the end of the burn mark (the part that was last "drawn") and put the emitter at the end, but a little farther off. Now go backwards in time, repositioning the emitter, frame by frame, at the end of the mark, but a little off. Go back to the frame you started positioning the emitter and set a keyframe for particles/sec. Increase the particles per second until the entire burn mark is covered in white cloudlets. Then, duplicate the keyframe and drag it to the frame before the animation starts. You can then add two keyframes with a value of zero one frame to the left of the first keyframe, and one frame to the right of the second keyframe. This will make it so our particles will only be produced as the wall is being cut. Change the X and Y emitter sizes as well so there isn't an unnecessary spill of particles. Place the particle layer below the Damage Alpha layer and set the particle layer's track matte to alpha.
Create a new comp called Colorization and put the Glow Matte comp inside it. Set its opacity to 35 and apply a fast blur to it. Duplicate the Glow Matte layer and set the top fast blur value to one and the bottom to 40. Pre-compose these two layers and name the pre-comp Glow. In the Colorization comp, apply a tint effect to the Glow layer, set it to a red orange color and duplicate the layer. Create an adjustment layer above them both and apply a curves effect. Now, adjust the curves as necessary to get a molten wall color.
Bring the Colorization comp into the Final comp. Duplicate it. Make sure they are above the damage alpha layer and below the solid black mark. Set the top Colorization layer's blending mode to "lighten" and the other to "color dodge".
Congrats, you're done. Because the top part of the wall in my video is a little dark, I added a point light to my comp toward the bottom to make the top of the burn mark a little darker. If you want you can make a null object and add some camera shake now. It really helps to ground the effect. Good luck. Hope everything makes sense.
Go to the first frame where burn mark is finished being drawn and set the stopwatch for Position XY in the emitter settings. Drag the red circle/x thing to the end of the burn mark (the part that was last "drawn") and put the emitter at the end, but a little farther off. Now go backwards in time, repositioning the emitter, frame by frame, at the end of the mark, but a little off. Go back to the frame you started positioning the emitter and set a keyframe for particles/sec. Increase the particles per second until the entire burn mark is covered in white cloudlets. Then, duplicate the keyframe and drag it to the frame before the animation starts. You can then add two keyframes with a value of zero one frame to the left of the first keyframe, and one frame to the right of the second keyframe. This will make it so our particles will only be produced as the wall is being cut. Change the X and Y emitter sizes as well so there isn't an unnecessary spill of particles. Place the particle layer below the Damage Alpha layer and set the particle layer's track matte to alpha.
Create a new comp called Colorization and put the Glow Matte comp inside it. Set its opacity to 35 and apply a fast blur to it. Duplicate the Glow Matte layer and set the top fast blur value to one and the bottom to 40. Pre-compose these two layers and name the pre-comp Glow. In the Colorization comp, apply a tint effect to the Glow layer, set it to a red orange color and duplicate the layer. Create an adjustment layer above them both and apply a curves effect. Now, adjust the curves as necessary to get a molten wall color.
Bring the Colorization comp into the Final comp. Duplicate it. Make sure they are above the damage alpha layer and below the solid black mark. Set the top Colorization layer's blending mode to "lighten" and the other to "color dodge".
Congrats, you're done. Because the top part of the wall in my video is a little dark, I added a point light to my comp toward the bottom to make the top of the burn mark a little darker. If you want you can make a null object and add some camera shake now. It really helps to ground the effect. Good luck. Hope everything makes sense.
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