Matrix Bullet Time Effect - Full After Effects Tutorial

0:00 All right.

0:00 So, in today's video, I will show you how to create

0:02 this really cool bullet trail effect from the Matrix.

0:05 I will also show you how to create this 3D bullet pass by effect

0:09 in Adobe After Effects without use of any

0:11 external plugins except for the bullet trail effect.

0:14 I will show you the with plugin and without plug-in version.

0:17 If you want to work with the exact same video files as me,

0:21 get my project files as well as my film making checklist.

0:24 Link is in the description below.

0:26 It's 100% for free and it will help you create better videos.

0:30 All right, so we're going to start it off

0:32 with the 3D bullet effect passing by the camera.

0:35 After that, we're going to jump into the bullet trail effect.

0:38 And all of this has been made possible by today's video sponsor, artlist.io.

0:42 I'm always happy when Art List reaches out to sponsor one

0:46 of my videos because I actually use them all the time,

0:49 whether it's for their music, sound effects, and stock footage.

0:52 And they actually just launched Art List Studio,

0:55 which gives you full control to generate any shot.

0:58 You can create your own character, your own location,

1:02 and keep consistency throughout all your generations, which is a gamecher.

1:05 And when you sign up for the Art List AI Pro plan,

1:09 you get 50,000 free credits to get you started.

1:11 Link is in the description below.

1:13 And for this effect, I will also be using our free Hollywood VFX bundle,

1:17 which you can download totally for free.

1:19 Link is in the description below.

1:21 All right, here we are in Adobe After Effects.

1:24 I have this footage right here of a man shooting

1:27 a gun towards the camera while the camera is moving backwards.

1:30 And this is exactly what I want.

1:32 So, I'm going to click and drag this onto this icon right here,

1:35 which will drop it into a new composition.

1:37 The first thing that I want to do is track my camera.

1:40 So, I go over to the tracker panel and click track camera.

1:43 If you don't see that, you can go over

1:46 to window and then open the tracker right here.

1:48 So, click on that.

1:49 And while that is running in the background,

1:52 I'm also going to set the resolution here to full.

1:55 And I'm also going to click on track motion.

1:57 So I also want to track the motion here of the gun barrel.

2:02 So I will go to the gun barrel just like that.

2:06 And I will make the search a little bit bigger and the center

2:10 a little bit smaller so it knows exactly what to look at.

2:14 And then I will track it forward by clicking right here.

2:18 So right here it's losing it.

2:20 So I'll go back to the moment where it didn't lose it yet and then go frame

2:25 by frame and then again track it forward

2:29 and keep doing that until you have a perfect track.

2:33 And there we go.

2:35 So now we have a tracked version of the gun barrel which is perfect.

2:39 So I'm going to create a new null object and call this gun barrel.

2:42 And then I will go over to edit target and I will choose the gun barrel here.

2:47 Click okay.

2:48 Make sure that the time scrubber is at the beginning

2:50 of the timeline and click apply and okay.

2:53 So now we have this null parented to the gun barrel.

2:56 And in the meantime, the 3D tracker should also have done its job.

3:00 And we can see that it's doing a perfect job here.

3:03 So now that we have this, I will select my floor here

3:08 and then right click and then set a ground plane and origin.

3:13 So now the origin of my scene is right here.

3:16 So now if I'm going to import the bullet that you

3:20 can also download for free with the link in the description below.

3:23 I created this asset in Blender.

3:24 I'm just going to import this into my composition.

3:27 And now with recent updates of Adobe After Effects,

3:31 you can just import GB files which is extremely awesome.

3:35 So I'm going to make comp size and click okay.

3:40 And then I'm going to right click new

3:42 and I'm going to create a new light as well.

3:45 And I'm going to make sure that this is an environment light.

3:48 And I'm going to click okay.

3:50 Next we serve to polyhaven.com.

3:51 Right here you can find free HDRI files.

3:54 This is going to be necessary in order to lit

3:58 our bullet or in order to light our bullet.

4:01 So, I'm going to choose an outdoor setting

4:04 and find something that resembles whatever we have.

4:09 So, maybe something urban.

4:12 Let's say I'm just going to pick this one

4:14 right here and I'm going to download it.

4:16 I'm just going to import it right here.

4:18 And then I'm going to drag and drop it right here into my timeline.

4:22 So, I can uncheck it so we don't see it.

4:25 And then we can go to our environment light,

4:27 open up the options here, and you should be able to see source.

4:31 And right here, we can choose our EXR file,

4:34 and that will change that to our light map as you can see right here.

4:37 Now, if you don't see that, toggle the switches,

4:39 and that should um pop it up right here.

4:42 So, now we have our bullet, and if we're going to play it,

4:46 it should also uh be tracked in our system, which it's not yet.

4:49 So, I'm going to choose my 3D camera tracker.

4:52 I'm going to right click here and create a solid end camera.

4:56 And now, there we go.

4:58 Our bullet should be tracking u should be tracked

5:01 in our footage as you can see right here.

5:04 Okay, perfect.

5:05 So, we can uncheck the um solid or if you

5:08 want to just make sure that everything is tracked well,

5:11 you can just rotate it a little bit,

5:14 make it a little bit bigger to see it a little bit better.

5:21 and then add a grid effect to see if it's tracking well.

5:24 And it seems like it's doing a a good job here.

5:28 So, perfect.

5:28 We can uncheck this.

5:30 Now, we can focus on our bullet.

5:32 So, I'm going to choose my bullet.

5:34 I'm going to position this right here at the gun.

5:38 And I'm going to check if it's tracked well.

5:42 Here, it seems like it's tracked well.

5:44 So, maybe we don't need the extra null.

5:47 The reason why I did it is because I tracked my scene,

5:50 but hand still has a little bit of movement.

5:52 So, I still wanted it to kind of follow uh the hand movement,

5:56 especially at the beginning.

5:57 Um, but you can do it in either way.

5:59 So, that's why I showed you.

6:00 We can again choose our bullet.

6:02 And now I'm going to rotate it in the right angle.

6:06 So, 90° towards here.

6:08 Maybe a little bit more like that.

6:11 Try to match it in the same direction the gun is pointing at.

6:15 and then reposition it to the center of that gun.

6:18 Press S on the keyboard.

6:20 Scale it maybe to 5%.

6:22 Maybe that's a little bit too small.

6:25 So, a little bit bigger.

6:27 And we can zoom in here.

6:29 Hold control if you want to scale it just a little bit and then reposition it.

6:34 Let's see if this is working.

6:36 So, right here you can see that it's not matching

6:39 or tracking to the gun and that's because of the hand movement.

6:42 So what I can do here is if you don't see that parent and link

6:45 and parent and link it to the gun barrel and now it should be able to follow.

6:50 We can always skip this part.

6:53 So now that we have this here, what I will do is press P on the keyboard

6:59 and click on the stopwatch for the position.

7:01 Also press R on the keyboard and click

7:03 on the stopwatch for orientation for if you

7:05 want to change the rotation a little bit

7:07 later um when it's closer to the camera.

7:10 Then we're going forward in time and we're going to point it right here.

7:16 And you can see before we're actually going to fire it,

7:19 I'm going to rotate it a little bit more towards the camera.

7:22 And I think I like this here.

7:24 And maybe a little bit more to the right,

7:27 to the bottom, to the right, closer to the camera.

7:31 And we're going to keep doing that until we feel like it

7:35 has a nice perspective that is passing the camera very very closely.

7:39 So this is pretty cool.

7:41 Let it pass here.

7:42 And then we can move these two key frames a little bit further into time.

7:48 And at the beginning we can right click key frame assistance easy ease.

7:53 And let's see how that looks.

7:56 The bullet is flying in our scene here and giving us pretty nice results.

8:03 Okay, right here it's we're going to have to change the position even more.

8:08 So, make it past the camera here.

8:11 And that's because we're further in time of our clip.

8:18 So, just do that again.

8:22 And so, like this, you can match uh the bullet.

8:25 And if you want to try it in the other way, so depending on your scene,

8:30 this is going to be one technique or the other,

8:33 you can delete the 3D uh camera tracker and the solid here.

8:38 And we can focus.

8:39 Um, so let's just go to the beginning again and reset our settings here.

8:46 And then position the bullet to the gun.

8:56 And then we're going to parent it to the gun barrel.

8:58 And now we should see that it's matching here.

9:01 And right here, we can go to the gun barrel,

9:05 press U on the keyboard, and just delete this key frame here.

9:10 And right here, it actually doesn't matter anymore.

9:13 It's especially in the beginning when I shoot.

9:15 So, press S on the keyboard.

9:17 Maybe scale it down even more.

9:19 And make sure it's in the right angle.

9:25 There we go.

9:26 Position it.

9:27 Press P on the keyboard.

9:29 Click on the stopwatch and then further into space.

9:33 You really want to push it forward towards the camera.

9:39 And keep kind of a a natural line in mind.

9:46 And let's see if we like this.

9:51 Of course, we have to trim the bullet after it passed.

10:00 Looks really cool, to be honest.

10:07 Maybe right here.

10:08 I do want to give it a little bit of a curve

10:12 and just position it a little bit more here, I guess.

10:20 And why does it go up right here?

10:25 I also want to keep it down.

10:29 And we can actually start it from here.

10:34 That looks great.

10:35 Okay.

10:36 So, we have our bullet flying towards the camera.

10:39 I'm going to import the free VFX pack

10:42 that you can download with link in the description below.

10:45 And from this I'm going to use a few elements here.

10:51 So first off we have the bullet shells here.

10:56 Let's take a slower one.

10:58 This one right here.

11:00 I'm going to import that to my scene.

11:03 I'm going to place it at my gun and also scale it down quite a bit.

11:10 Zoom in where necessary.

11:12 Maybe something like this.

11:15 place it over here.

11:18 Press P on the keyboard.

11:19 Click on the stopwatch.

11:21 Go to the end of um our clip and just move

11:24 it over here to the side and maybe to the floor.

11:27 And then click here.

11:29 Press G on the keyboard.

11:30 And now we can drag this out and make some kind of arc.

11:34 And do the same here at the bottom.

11:36 So it gives it kind of this feeling.

11:38 And then at the beginning we're going to also drag this to the gun barrel.

11:43 And so now we have the ejection of our shell while the bullet is flying.

11:48 And that just gives us a better final touch.

11:51 We can also enable motion blur for both of these layers.

11:54 Okay.

11:54 And then we can also I'm going to choose an explosion

11:58 here and use the first explosion and just right here trim it.

12:05 I'm going to right click time time stretched.

12:10 Let's say like 25.

12:12 pretty fast.

12:13 And so we get some kind of um muzzle flesh,

12:17 but of course it has a little bit too much detail and everything.

12:23 So first off, I'm going to scale it down quite a bit like that.

12:30 And then press T on the keyboard and fade it out over time.

12:40 And then I'm also going to add a curves here.

12:48 Just push up the black here.

12:53 And we can wait with the fade out here.

13:01 And maybe time stretch.

13:03 Set it to 50 instead of uh 25.

13:09 And we can also parent this to the gun barrel.

13:16 And then I'm going to create a new adjustment layer.

13:21 Call this bokeh.

13:23 Add a camera lens blur effect.

13:26 Set it to zero.

13:28 And then make sure the explosion, well actually the exposure,

13:33 no just the bullet here is above this adjustment layer.

13:36 And then click on a stopwatch for the blur radius.

13:39 And like right here where the bullet becomes very visible.

13:44 We want to give it some blur to the background.

13:48 And press U on the keyboard and maybe move

13:52 it over a little bit more to the right.

13:55 And so now we have this kind of focus

13:58 pull towards the bullet after uh everything has been shot.

14:01 And for the first key frame, we're going to right click, key frame assistance,

14:06 easy ease, so it uh has a gradual transition towards that blur.

14:13 And if you still feel like this is going too fast,

14:15 you can drag this out in the graph

14:18 editor and that's going to give you better results.

14:21 So, I'm also going to change the resolution to quarter

14:25 just so I get a very quick preview here.

14:29 That's pretty cool.

14:30 Press N on the keyboard to end your comp and then trim comp to work area here.

14:36 I'm going to close everything.

14:38 And now I'm going to focus on my gun here.

14:42 So, we have the gun.

14:44 I'm going to duplicate the gun barrel and I'm going

14:50 to parent my bullet here to the gun barrel too.

14:53 Select both of these layers and then I'm going to control

14:56 shift C and call this bullet travel and click okay.

15:00 And so now we have our bullet pre-omposed.

15:02 And that just gives us the option to add

15:05 a curves effect here and brighten up the bullet

15:07 if you want to maybe change it back

15:10 to full resolution so we can see our bullet better.

15:14 Uh maybe you want to give it more color.

15:17 Uh so that's where this comes in.

15:20 So that's completely up to you original with a little bit of editing.

15:29 And you can also add an RSMBB, but that's a paid plugin,

15:34 although it's the best option here for fake motion blur.

15:38 And that's just going to add a little bit more realism to our bullet.

15:45 Okay.

15:45 And that's how to create this effect.

15:47 If you want, you can now do a quick color grade to give it that matrix look.

15:52 And we can create a grade adjustment layer.

15:55 Add a tint effect and give it a greenish kind of core.

16:01 Click okay.

16:02 And then here change the blending mode simply to core.

16:05 And then we can lower the uh intensity here.

16:09 And we can also add a curves effect to darken up everything.

16:13 And just place this before the tint effect occurred.

16:18 Actually, I'm going to set it back to normal.

16:23 Um, and see if this is enough.

16:25 Maybe just lowering the value and setting it to normal

16:29 so that we can just keep everything on one adjustment layer.

16:33 And so now we get that nice matrix look.

16:37 If you want, you can give your bullet also some kind of ghost trail effect.

16:41 Um, to do this, you want to duplicate your gun and add an echo effect.

16:48 We can delete all the effects except

16:52 for the echo here and solo this layer for now.

16:58 And just offset it a little bit and increase the number here.

17:02 And then also change it to maximum.

17:04 And make sure this is not too high.

17:08 And just a little bit.

17:11 And we can also decay it so it fades out a little bit.

17:16 So now if we see this together,

17:18 we have a little bit of a trail effect going on behind it.

17:23 This will lower or slow down your render.

17:27 Something like this.

17:28 And we can also add a tint effect here

17:31 to give it more of that black and white effect.

17:34 And also a uh let's go for radial blur.

17:38 CC fast radial blur.

17:39 and then go for standard and just or actually the regular radial blur.

17:47 So I'm going to add radial blur here.

17:53 Radial CC radial blur.

17:55 There we go.

17:56 So there that many radial blurs that in the end we don't know anymore.

18:01 And we're just going to negatively affect it a little bit and move this up.

18:10 And that way it's a little bit more ghostish like.

18:14 And if we see this on the effects, change this to screen or to lighten.

18:19 Let's go for screen or even add if you want to really have an impact.

18:25 Um, I will keep it at screen.

18:28 And just that little bit of ghost effect sells the effect even more.

18:33 Hey, it's me, editor.

18:34 I just want to say that the following section isn't needed for the tutorial.

18:38 In the next few minutes,

18:40 Ignace will quickly go over all of the options in the new artist studio.

18:43 If you don't want to follow along or you have your own recorded footage,

18:45 you can skip to this part in the video.

18:47 Quick reminder that you can download the files generated in this following

18:51 section with the link in the description below totally for free.

18:54 All right, let's continue.

18:55 So if we go to art list studio,

18:57 we can go to our projects right here and you will see

19:00 that it feels like an entire software more than just a AI tool.

19:04 So we can create a new project by clicking here and I'm

19:08 going to call this matrix tutorial and then create this project.

19:13 So this is the interface here.

19:15 We have framing and directing.

19:17 Framing is where we're going to be creating our image

19:21 that we're then going to generate or turn into a video.

19:24 We have a bunch of options that we are going to explore in a second.

19:28 And then right here we have our timeline,

19:30 let's say, where you can do specific shots.

19:32 And then right here we have our preview monitor.

19:35 So it feels like an editing software really.

19:37 So before we get started, right here we can choose which model we want to use.

19:41 I'm going for Nano Banana Pro.

19:44 And then I'm also going to choose 4K and a 16x9 aspect ratio.

19:49 But what you will notice right here is that you have more options.

19:53 You can actually go through all these uh specific camera types.

19:57 So, I'm going for the air Alexa 35

20:00 and I really like the Sigma Cinei Art lenses here.

20:03 So, I'm going to choose that.

20:05 And now you will see that you have all these options for your image generation.

20:09 So, next we can also add images as reference like we always were able to do.

20:15 But what you can now also do is add characters and add locations.

20:19 And the really cool part is that they have an entire

20:22 library with a bunch of characters that you can already use.

20:26 Or maybe you want yourself as a character.

20:28 And that's also completely possible.

20:30 So what I will do is click here and add a character.

20:33 As you can see, I created a character of myself right here.

20:37 So I'm going to create a new character.

20:39 And as you can see right here, we can upload reference images.

20:43 So I took a few photos of me here.

20:46 I'm going to just upload these right here.

20:48 I'm just going to write something here.

20:50 And if you want, you can now enhance your prompt by clicking here.

20:53 And then I'm going to create my character by clicking here.

20:56 All right.

20:57 So, after everything has been generated, you can now go through all these photos

21:01 and pick something that you like the most.

21:03 And honestly, it did a pretty good job.

21:04 This looks a lot like me.

21:06 So, I'm going to click here and create character.

21:08 And I'm going to generate angles.

21:10 So, I'm not going to lose too much time here.

21:13 Once you're satisfied with your character,

21:15 you can always go in and edit specific details to make it even better.

21:20 Um, but I'm going to use this in my project.

21:23 And so now we can choose our character.

21:25 Use in project.

21:28 We can use our location rooftop.

21:32 Use in project.

21:34 And now we can describe.

21:38 And now the next cool thing is that you can choose your angle,

21:42 shot type, lighting, and so much more.

21:44 So I'm going to choose angle eye level.

21:48 Shot type.

21:49 I'm going for a full shot.

21:51 And then lighting.

21:53 I'm going for diffused or natural.

21:55 And I'm going for one image here.

21:58 You can optimize if you want to.

22:02 And let's see.

22:03 Now you can see that it's generating its first version here.

22:09 So generate whatever image you want and you

22:11 can see that you are also stacking up layers.

22:14 So if you always uh you can always go back to your previous versions.

22:18 And just not to lose any more time,

22:20 I will show you how to create this effect on this footage right here,

22:24 which is pretty short,

22:25 but it shows exactly what we need uh and works on every footage the same.

22:29 So, I'm going to drag this into Adobe

22:32 After Effects and drag it into a new composition.

22:35 Then, I'm going to duplicate it and call this roto.

22:38 Make sure that we're working in full resolution

22:40 here and click on the roto brush tool.

22:44 And um we're going to double click here and just make a quick draw

22:51 on our character just so we have the roto if we want it later on.

23:02 So something like that.

23:03 And then preview this by pressing the space bar.

23:07 And if you think this is all right, we can freeze this roto.

23:12 Okay.

23:12 Then go back to my composition.

23:14 And I'm going to use the trackmat to the roto

23:18 and invert it just to remove myself from the background.

23:21 Um, then I'm going to move all the attributes,

23:25 pre-ompose this, call it footage, and I'm going to click on track camera.

23:29 Next, I'm going to create a new solid layer here,

23:32 and I'm going to call this element.

23:35 And for this effect,

23:36 I'm going to be using a plug-in called Element 3D from Video Copilot.

23:40 But don't worry if you don't have it.

23:42 I have exported a GB version for you that you

23:45 can import no matter what in Adobe After Effects.

23:48 I just want to show you how it's done.

23:51 So, I'm going to apply element here to my solid layer.

23:55 I'm going to click on scene setup and I'm going to create a sphere.

24:00 We have the sphere right here.

24:02 And then I'm going to click on the sphere model, go to scale,

24:07 uncheck this, and then for the X I'm going to make it flat.

24:11 Just so we get something like that.

24:13 Click okay.

24:14 And then in group one, I'm going to open particle replicator.

24:20 I'm just going to replicate it quite a bunch.

24:26 Then in particle look, we can choose the size for our particles.

24:34 And on the X scatter, I'm going to scatter it so it becomes very wide.

24:40 And just increase the particle count to match that.

24:44 Make them smaller if you want to.

24:47 And then increase the particle random to 100%.

24:50 And lower the particles if you want to or keep them just like that.

24:59 Then next I'm going back to my footage.

25:02 Click on the 3D camera tracker and we

25:03 can see that now our footage has been tracked.

25:05 I'm going to select a few points here on the floor.

25:09 Right click and set ground plane and origin.

25:12 Then right click create solid and camera.

25:15 Now our element 3D should also be in our position.

25:19 So press P on the keyboard for the tracked solid and set

25:24 the position here for X and Y of element also to zero.

25:28 Go back to our footage and we can enable our roto.

25:32 Um and then duplicate it how many times we need it.

25:36 Click on one create.

25:38 Click on the other one create.

25:41 Keep doing that for all of these.

25:45 and then click on 1 mil and position it however you want in your scene.

25:53 And because we created that ground plane,

25:56 the center should be exactly where this these trails are.

26:02 And just move them back like that.

26:09 Okay.

26:10 And if you preview this, these uh these should

26:15 hang in 3D space and they should look okay.

26:20 And I don't think we need a roto from here.

26:22 So what I will do is at the end of my clip,

26:25 I'm going to press P on the keyboard for all

26:27 these notes and create a key frame for the position.

26:30 And then at the beginning, I'm just going to offset them all in X position.

26:40 And if we're going to preview this, they should animate in.

26:44 So what we can do now is offset a few of these key frames all however we want.

26:57 Okay, that's pretty cool.

26:58 Once you're satisfied with everything,

27:00 we can select all of our layers and then pre-ompose

27:04 this except for the footage and call this bullet trails.

27:10 And that should give you something like that.

27:12 And then create a new adjustment layer and call this displacement.

27:15 And add a displacement map effect to this layer.

27:19 And choose your bullet trails as the layer.

27:23 uncheck this layer and just increase the displacement

27:26 quite a bit and wrap pixels around.

27:30 And now you should see displacement uh coming into my shot here.

27:34 And if you feel like you need more or less displacement,

27:38 you can just play with these settings

27:40 here until you satisfied with what you see.

27:42 If you feel like there is a little bit too much anti-alyzing,

27:47 you can just simply add a fast box blur.

27:50 place this before um before the displacement map.

27:53 Set it to one and that just gives it a little bit of a softer look.

27:59 And uh this would give us this these bullet trail effects.

28:04 Same here.

28:04 You can also import the bullet tips and animate

28:08 these through the through the environment if you would like to.

28:12 And same for this, we can add an adjustment layer.

28:16 Call this grade and add a curves and a tint to give it that matrix look.

28:27 And let's say that one of these bullet trails is going behind the person.

28:47 You can see that it's covering me.

28:53 So then you just use the roto here to cover up that part.

29:04 And like that it appears like it's flying behind me.

29:08 And that's especially visible if it's even more to the front.

29:14 But in this case, it's not really necessary.

29:19 Um, but you can see right here

29:27 with the roto or without now it's appearing behind him.

29:39 All right, so that's it for this video.

29:41 I hope you enjoyed it.

29:42 If you did, give this video a like.

29:43 Also, be sure to subscribe to the channel and hit

29:46 the notification bell to stay notified when I upload new videos.

29:49 Apart from that, I hope you enjoyed this video and if you did,

29:52 maybe you want to continue your After

29:54 Effects journey with this video, for example.

29:56 All right, I'll see you in the next one.

29:59 Until then, create epic videos.

30:00 Bye.