Arrow rain

[felix78]

I wanna know a good way too make it look like its raining Arrows upon youre enemis(actors) either in youre computer or by real action fake thingi... however, this i guess is something everyone who makes an fantasy/ancient War movie will need. please help me with this!:learn:

[Paladin1221]

Wow, someone was a big 300 fan.

I would say never try and do this practical. For two reasons, if the shot your thinking of is like the one in the movie 300 even if you filmed the actors and arrows speratly and composited them you might harm the camera. If its away on looking the action, even then shooting arrows around actors would not be safe.

In 3D you just need to make an arrow and then duplicate it then set them all to follow the same path.

I know I am not being that helpfull but I can tell you the old skool trick to shooting someone with an arrow. Hollow out a wooden dolly and then run it on a string. The string should be tied off some were behind the actor, run under the victims arm, across to the bowman, then past the shooter and tied off tight. When it fires the arrow will shoot right under the persons arm. You will need to put something to stop the arrow like a knot. If done right it would be a believable shot to the heart with an arrow.

[felix78]

wow how did u know im a big 300 fan? XD
and the idea u got was very good. ive never been thinking of these old "school" tricks tbh. maybe i should start? :P

[LionHeart]

I got a perfect idea for this, but you won't be able to use it unless you know 3D stuff.

You make an arrow in 3D, animate it so it would fall from the sky or whatever direction you're aiming at, you duplicate so you wouldn't have to animate each arrow at a time. then you can change the course of direction for some so they wouldn't all follow the same path, like one could fall farther and one closer and many other posibilites.

After you've taken care of the arrows and you got them filmed having a green background, get your actors to run in front of your green background so you'd have each of them on diferent layers. Then you can just apply a layer of arrows between/over them and put the background the battlefield you ware talking about.

One more usefull tip so the efect would be great is when you animate the arrows make shore at the point when the animation ends they go through a green plane that way it wouldn't look on the actual finished movie that they didn't dig in the battlefield.

For the end just get/make arrow sounds like going trough the air and the sound when they land and dig in the dirt. Thats like making in twice as cool.

PS: you can easaly learn to make the arrows in Milkshape 3D and also film them in it. (http://chumbalum.swissquake.ch/)

[Paladin1221]

I would do all the arrows inside the 3D software and not duplicate the same arrow many times in your editor, it becomes kind of obvious.

[felix78]

ive lrdy thought about this. but wud be more easier to use a moderl viewer like WoWmodel viewer arrow. and put it in the movie. though it doesnt look like a real arrow... btw u wont need to have the actors on a green screen as long ass the arrows r frilmed on a green screen.

[Whole Milk Productions]

them you might harm the camera.



...or the actors

[LionHeart]

ive lrdy thought about this. but wud be more easier to use a moderl viewer like WoWmodel viewer arrow. and put it in the movie. though it doesnt look like a real arrow... btw u wont need to have the actors on a green screen as long ass the arrows r frilmed on a green screen.
Actualy you have. Since if you apply the arrows over them it will look like it's been drawned it's better if there are arrows going between them. Oh and also in WoW model viewer you can't greate the green plaine I was talking about and so when you put the arrows on the movie it will look like they landed with the tip on the ground but didn't move in it.

[felix78]

thats very true tbh Lionheart (one piece lover)

[LionHeart]

thats very true tbh Lionheart (one piece lover)
Make that DBZ lover too, one piece is on 2nd place:D

[felix78]

argh i read One piece and DB (normal DB) :D

[felix78]

thanx tako punch

[bridboyross]

if you wanna go practical then you can have arrows landing behind the actors in background, actors falling, arrows falling in foreground. Fairly safe and with intercut shots of arrows in flesh it would look sweet (this was how Last Samurai achieved it) hope Ive helped as I personally hate using CGI (me pc just cant seem to handle it) so go practical whenever I can.
http://youtube.com/profile?user=bridboyross

[felix78]

if you wanna go practical then you can have arrows landing behind the actors in background, actors falling, arrows falling in foreground. Fairly safe and with intercut shots of arrows in flesh it would look sweet (this was how Last Samurai achieved it) hope Ive helped as I personally hate using CGI (me pc just cant seem to handle it) so go practical whenever I can.
http://youtube.com/profile?user=bridboyross

Actually it was when i saw last samurai as i got to know that i had to learn this stuff :P

[forkazoo]

Actualy you have. Since if you apply the arrows over them it will look like it's been drawned it's better if there are arrows going between them. Oh and also in WoW model viewer you can't greate the green plaine I was talking about and so when you put the arrows on the movie it will look like they landed with the tip on the ground but didn't move in it.

If you do 3D arrows, I strongly disreccomend actually having a green plane to key out, into which the arrows can embed themselves. If you do this, the arrows will anti-alias with the bright keyable green, which will make it likely that you will see fringes around the arrows in the final composite. Most 3D software (including the free Blender3D at blender.org ! ) will allow you to assign an invisible material with is opaque, but has a completely transparent alpha value. Use this instead of a solid colored occluder object, and the semi-transparent edges around the arrows will be much more correct.

More of a pain in the ass, but even more correct would be to use the footage of the backplate to color the occluder object, and use a material with a constant 0 alpha value. This way, the arrows will blend perfectly with the backplate, thus avoiding both the evil bright fringes of a brightly colored occluder and also the (only slightly objectionable) "blend shadow" of a transparent occluder on a black background.

Blender also has a pretty handy set of particle system tools for actually animating the vast swarm of arrows. And, don't forget that once you have shot your actors on a green screen and keyed out the green, you can put them in your 3D scene as textured cards with an alpha channel so that you can accurately have some of the arrows behind the actors, and some in front, etc, and easily have several actors at different depths in the scene. This will only work with some camera angles, naturally.

[Ringlord]

Hello everybody! I just have a request that Indy mongul put some thought into a arrow volley effect (Not arrows in the air or arrows being shot) but arrows landing into sheilds and people causeing lots of pain and blood. If anyone else has a suggestion on how to do this cheap and without much computer animation.

~Ringlord~

And The sun rises!

[Ergo Pictures]

Wow. Best of luck with that.

[Jakekilgore]

i say think of something else to do cause thats gonna be hard

[Ringlord]

At one time I thought chopping a head off was hard.....Indy mogul proved me wrong. And I have seen a little clip of how "Brave heart" did there arrow volley effect but I'm not sure what they where doing.

[Kaygee]

Remember, its not what you see, but what you think you see. You may be able to get away with some clever editing and sound effects.

[Ringlord]

Thats what I thought....but what I did dident turn out very well at all.

[Fisherking]

I would imagine the 'easiest' way would be using a 3d programme and a particle system to generate a volley of fire. Depending on how clever you are, you might even be able to fake it with a 2d particle generator.

I'll have to give that a try some time.

[TreasureBox Films]

try blender, or go to videocopilot.com