Fire and Lightning Effects on Videopad

[Joe45]

Hi,

Hope someone can help me.

I've been using videopad editor for a while and want to add some fire and / or lightning effects to some of my clips. It looks like I need to download something called Virtualdub files with the effect and go from there but I'm having trouble finding any plug-ins that have these sorts of effects. I'm using the latest version of Videopad. 

Can anyone give me a bit of advice on where I can find these plug-ins or anything else that might help me ? 

Tx,

Joe.

 

 

 

[borate]

Perhaps a hint here that doesn't require Virtualdub, though the crude tutorial utilizes an old VP interface.

Some possibilities...

http://bestgreenscreen.de/?s=fire

http://bestgreenscreen.de/?s=lightning

[Nationalsolo]

HI

I don't think convincing lightening is easily created. However you could try this...It may not be what you are after but won't look too bad in some cases.It depends on the main track video.. Search google images for "lightning bolts" You should find some that look fairly realistic.... e.g. (It's a .jpg)

Load this into VP and drop it on the overlay track. Note the background is, in this case black. Place a suitable video/image on the main track.

Click the FX box of the lightening bolt clip and select Green Screen. Set the screen colour to black. This means the lightening bolt will have a transparent background. When you play the sequence you should now see the lightning showing over your background clip/image

Now add the Transparency effect to the lightening. At the start of the clip set the opacity to 0%  Set keyframes at selected intervals along the clip where the opacity is 100%  This  is where the flash of lightning is to be seen. make each 100% section very short. As lightning is often "double", make the 100% section in pairs and very close together. The second one you might make 50%. The Transparency keyframe effects window might look something like this..

This shows three lightening flashes.

You could also use the Position effect on the lightning clip to move each strike to a different position on the screen. It's a bit fiddly to line them up but you can show the effect lines for all the effects used if you activate the Parameter line for each effect. As the actual lightning flashes are separated in time and not visible between the peaks (0% opacity) new positions can be set anywhere between the peaks.

If you have done this with a bit of care the lighning strikes should be seen against your background clip fairly realistically. Use Scale to reduce the size of the lightning bolt if necessary. You could place it in such a way as to make it appear on the horizon against a dark sky. This is just a demo shot made at night.

 

You could now enhance the exposure of the main track image at the time point of the flash to give more realism. A lot depends on the background of course.

Now add suitable sound clips of thunderclaps at the instant of your flashes and you have lighting. These can be found under Audio/Add Stock Sound/Weather in the NCH sound library.

These are just ideas to play with. Green screen files from Borates link have many similar ready made clips of fire lightening and explosions that you might be able to use in a similar way to the above.

Nat