Lightsaber in video

[BakaNeko]

Anyone know any tricks for adding the lightsaber blade in video, I'm looking for ways for the activation and devactivation of the lightsaber blade

[Seda Navilli]

to do the activiation, use photoshop and just draw a fully extended blade on all frames of the activation, then keep that blade as a seperate layler and use it as a guide to do each frame of the activation, i.e. adding a quarter of the blade at a time. Then simply delete the guide layer. This is a bit of a clumsy method though, it can get annoying to keep track of everything, but its the only way i've found to keep the blade from wobbling when its activating in the movie

[BakaNeko]

Also.... Do you keep the blade in the saber and delete the blade in the frames prior to activation or after bringing out the lightsaber hilt, pause the camera, add the blade then resume recording? OR something similar to that process

[Parga Carwis]

Have you tried using Adobe After Effects? You can use a mask for the blade activation/deactivation & set keyframes for the size - it's a lot smoother than the photoshop method. There's a downloadable tutorial for creating the bades in After Effects here: theforce.net/fanfilms/postproduction/sabres/sabertutorials.asp
I used the Photoshop method & it was really cool, but once I learned the After Effects method, it goes in & out a lot smoother - not choppy, like the frames were when I did it in Photoshop. Of course, I could have been doing something wrong...

And I personally keep the bade in the saber for the shot.

PM me, email, messenger, whatever, and we'll talk about what programs you're using for video - I'll show you what I know.