motion blur

[ProjectVirtue]

i was wondering if any of you could help me with a motion blur effect. I just like doing stickmen ;D so all the frames are hand drawn with the onion skin mode on. And so, theres been a few parts where i wished i had a motion blur for a exageratted slow-mo scene. but i cant figure out how. I searched up some tutorials, but only apply to movie clips. I tried opacity, but it keeps moving the entire layer and its hella hard to control.

Anybody care to enlighten me?
thanks, Luca

[MsPamela]

What program are you using?

[ProjectVirtue]

flash 8.

[MsPamela]

ooh, sorry, I can't help you then. Maybe one of the other designers can. I use Swish Max.

[fiddlestick5]

Animate your character. Copy the frames, make a layer beneath and paste the frames, move those frames forward 1 or more frames (depends on fps), then lower the opacity of the contents of those frames. Repeat this until you think it looks good. Could supply an fla if you need it. Though you might've already tried this.

[ProjectVirtue]

well. i thought of that. and tried to do it. but didn't know how to control the opacity... and i thought, huh, well thats a bit tedious, there must be a better way. but seemingly. there isn't =\

[goliard]

Let's assume you want 3 "ghost images" as a motion blur. You could try this (I've never done it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work). First, make a new graphic symbol. Call it "white square" (or "jeremy", I don't care!). Make a white square with the top left corner at 0,0. This will be your translucent mask. Now go back to the main timeline and follow this list:

1. Add half a dozen frames to the end of your movie.
2. Duplicate your stick man layer. Call it "stick 2" or whatever.
3. Select all the frames of your original layer and move it along 4 frames
4. Select all the frames of your "stick 2" layer and move it along 3 frames
5. Make a new layer between these layers -- let's call it "opacity 1"
6. Drag the white square onto the stage, and resize it to cover "stick 2" drawings
7. Give it an alpha of around 25%

(note: the alpha readings will be cumulative -- your bottom layer willl be 75% obscured)

8. Repeat steps 2 thu 7 twice more, moving the duplicated stick layer one less frame each time

You now should have a kind of "club sandwich" like this:

---- original stick drawings ----(moved along 4 frames)
---- opacity 1 ----
---- stick 2 drawings ---- (moved along 3 frames)
---- opacity 2 ----
---- stick 3 drawings ---- (moved along 2 frames)
---- opacity 3 ----
---- stick 4 drawings ---- (moved along 1 frame)

...should produce a "ghost image" of motion blur with 3 trailing frames

Hope this helps!

G

[fiddlestick5]

goliards description is much more thurough, but that's about the gist of it.

you change the opacity by either changing the opacity of the lines/fills in the color mixer panel (on the right, if it isn't there it can be reached through window>colormixer, or shift f9), if they happen to be symbols, just click and the properties panel will pop up on the bottom of the screen.

If you dont want to change the opacity frame for frame, there's another way.

however many seperate layers you're using, make that many layers of yer' background image/color... make the opacity of each layer 20-30%, stack the layers alternating between bg and yer duplicated frames (the first frame on from the top ofcourse being the the bg- this is all below your original layer).

doing the opacity thingimajig this effect should take no more than a couple minutes to apply.