HitFilm’s gunfire effect uses a highly customized version of the particle simulator and is the best tool available for creating CG muzzle flashes.
Gunfire is available in the 3D: Gunfire Pack.
There are many benefits to creating your muzzle flashes in HitFilm:
- No need to use dangerous and expensive blank-firing weapons.
- You can shoot silently in areas that might not normally allow gunfire.
- Complete artistic control over the look and behaviour of your weapons.
- You are no longer limited to re-using the same muzzle flash stock footage.
Gunfire can be moved using the standard Transform properties. For realistic positioning, the gunfire origin should be positioned at the end of the gun barrel.
Appearance
- Textures – see the Particle textures chapter for details.
- Preview – toggles between textures and preview particles.
- Blend – changes how the textures blend together. Add will usually give the best results.
- Colorize – this overrides the texture’s original colors with the Color property.
- Color – changes the gunfire’s color when you have Colorize deactivated.
- Color variation – introduces random variation to the chosen color when you have Colorize deactivated.
- Active – turns the entire muzzle flash on and off.
- Rate of fire – percentage chance of the muzzle flash appearing on the current frame. 100 ensures the muzzle flash is always visible. Lower values are useful for creating the appearance of automatic weapons fire, without needing to manually keyframe the Active property.
- Seed – this is used to generate random variations of the muzzle flash shape. Keyframing the seed will ensure that your muzzle flash is different each time it appears, while retaining its basic shape.
- Blur strength – changes the amount of blur applied when motion blur is turned on.
Core flare
The core flare is the central part of the muzzle flash and is projected directly out of the front of the barrel.
- Active – turns the core flare on and off.
- Scale – the size of the particles that form the core flare.
- Barrel gap – the distance between the core flare and the barrel.
- Length – the length of the core flare.
- Length taper – changes the weighting of the length of the core flare.
- Radius – the radius of the core flare.
- Radius taper – changes the weighting of the radius of the core flare.
- Jitter – creates a more dispersed and randomized appearance.
- Intensity – creates a brighter core flare.
- Primary number – the number of particles that make up the main part of the core flare.
- Secondary number – the number of particles that make up the jitter part of the core flare.
Side flares
- Active – turns the side flares on and off.
- Scale – the size of the particles that form the side flares.
- Number of flares – adjusts how many side flares are visible.
- Barrel gap – the distance between the side flares and the barrel.
- Barrel angle – the angle of the side flares in relation to the barrel.
- Barrel rotation – all side flares can be rotated around the gun barrel.
- Length – the length of the side flares.
- Length taper – changes the weighting of the length of the side flares.
- Radius – the radius of the side flares.
- Radius taper – changes the weighting of the radius of the side flares.
- Jitter – creates a more dispersed and randomized appearance.
- Intensity – creates brighter side flares.
- Primary number – the number of particles that make up the main part of the side flares.
- Secondary number – the number of particles that make up the jitter part of the side flares.