VFX Time Lapse: The "Lots of Cards" shot from Gamers: Hands of Fate

During post-production of Gamers: Hands of Fate, one of the scenes called for an homage to The Matrix. Check out the breakdown of how the effect was re-created with cards replacing rows and rows of guns. While creating the effect in After Effects, a series of particle systems were used with just standard playing cards until the custom card art from the game itself arrived.

Watch the extended version of Gamers: Hands of Fate over on the Zombie Orpheus channel.

Music used in this video is directly from the Gamers: Hands of Fate OST which you can (and should) purchase here. It is pretty epic to listen to.

Real Particles: Going Up In Smoke

Usually for my visual effects projects using After Effects and particles has been more than enough to get the job done. But sometimes you just can't beat the real thing. For one of my latest jobs I was given very specific directions for achieving a look for a certain magical effect. After coming up with a couple different versions in AE and still not producing the right effect, it dawned on me that it might just be easier to think outside the box. This MO is a new one for me, and I've always shied away from using other pre-comped elements (like Andrew Kramer's Action Essentials collection...although I certainly don't hold anything against them being used in projects, I've just usually found it more fun and interesting to generate the elements from scratch digitally), so it was pretty exciting to approach the task this way.

Long strands of wispy smoke is what I was after. So I set up a camera with some strong lights, a black BG and with the right camera angle lit some incense sticks. Playing the Mass Effect 3 OST in the background made it feel more epic waving incense around the bottom of the screen like a magic wand (I may have gotten a little caught up in the moment and let out a little "Expelliarmus!").