Intro::

This tutorial is only meant to give you a basis for creating simple lightsaber effects . It is for beginners. It does not cover advanced techniques and other programs.

Requirements::

You will need the following pieces of equipment / software for you to successfully follow this tutorial and add the lightsaber effect to your home video:

• Adobe Photoshop CS2
• Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0
• A camcorder that will allow Premiere to capture video from it via USB or Firewire.
• A lightsaber (I'll get into that in the next section)
• Lightsaber Sounds (Not needed, but it makes your video way cooler)

If you don't have the latest versions of the Adobe software, you can still attempt this, however, I can't guarantee anything.

Getting Started::

You're gonna need a lightsaber. No, not a real one. Either fork up a lot of money and buy yourself a nice professional lightsaber or use something around the house. Those lightsabers you can buy are nice because the blade is detachable in most cases, and a .75" dowel rod can be inserted to mimic the blade perfectly. If you don't have a lightsaber you can use, and in my case, I'll be using a simple yet durable sword wrapped in duct tape, as shown below:

As you can see it doesn't look the best, but that's alright, nobody's going to see you swinging this dorky thing around anyway. They're going to see a cool lightsaber and wonder just how in the world you did that all by yourself.

Note: If you're going to swing it around a lot and cause motion blur, then color the end of your blade with a very bright color. I made this mistake, and while I was rotoscoping my video I couldn't see the sword because I had swung it so fast. So make sure the end of your blade is a color you'll be able to see if it's blurred. You've been warned.

Next you'll need to film a short clip of yourself (trust me when I say short...we're talking like 10 seconds max here) and import it into Premiere. This is the video I'll be using for this tutorial:

<click to view movie, roughly 25MB>

As you can see I look really idiotic waving that thing around, but that's okay. It'll look cool soon enough.

Rotoscoping::

Open Premiere. Start a new project. Call it whatever the hell you want to call it, I could care less.

Then, make sure your camera is connected and Windows thinks it's a camcorder device thingy. Go to File > Capture. This window should pop up:

Navigate through your tape and set the small clip you want to capture (*cough 10 seconds cough*). Some people don't understand the in/out concept, though, so let me explain. The very first frame that you want to capture, the beginning. Go to it with the controls. Hit Pause. Then click "Set In". The numbers should change to be the same as your current video position. Then, play the movie and hit "Pause" when you don't want anymore of it captured. Click "Set Out" Aha, notice the numbers changed again. Now, click "In/Out" under Capture and watch Premiere magically control your camera and capture only the little bit you told it to. After it's done, a box like this should pop up:

Again, name the clip whatever you want. Click OK, then drag the AVI file into your timeline as shown:

Make sure you click on the movie in the timeline so it's highlighted, then go to File > Export > Movie... Don't worry about the file stuff just yet, go to Settings (lower-right hand corner of the box). Then make sure that you select the file type as "Filmstrip" and the Range as "Work Area Bar". After that, well...

Click Save, and you should see this:

Great! Step 1 in Premier is done! Too bad you've still got a few hours, so go make more coffee and keep crackin'! Close Premiere, save your project, and open Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Rotoscoping::

The art of rotoscoping, or editing a movie frame-by-frame, can be very very tedious. I suggest some good rock 'n' roll and a comfortable chair depending on the length of your movie.

Open Photoshop CS2, and open your filmstrip file. (.flm)

You should see...

Now, depending on how long you wanted your movie to be, you're going to have to suffer a bit, but that's okay. The reward is well worth it.

Get zooming into the very first frame that contains your ligthsaber in it, probably 150-200% depending on screen resolution. Now, to prepare you for your long journey rotoscoping every frame, you need to do a couple of things. First, make sure the Line tool is selected:

Also, make sure your Background color is set to White:

And make sure your line width is set to about 3px or 4px (2/3 the size of your fake saber). Since I used a sword, mine had to be 5.

Now, go to your first frame, and drag the line over the fake saber, like this:

Good job! Now do that for every frame for the entire filmstrip file.

Also, and I should mention this now, if your lightsaber is blurred and makes a streak across the frame, then use this tool...

...to drag one of the points on the line to cover the entire blur of the blade creating a very awesome-looking lightsaber motion blur effect even George Lucas himself would be proud of. Basically, drag the points around until your lightsaber is well-covered. You wouldn't want your fake lightsaber to show through, now would you?

What are you still reading this for? GET ROTOSCOPING!

Post-Rotoscoping Effects::

Phew, that's hard work isn't it? Well, your work has paid off, trust me.

Save a copy of your hard work first. Go to File > Save As... (NOT SAVE.) Make sure you check the box that says "As A Copy" and save it somewhere special. After that's done, we need to work on getting that kickass saber effect on. Here's how:

Highlight every "Shape XXX" layer, then right-click, and hit "Merge Layers". Double-click on the new layer's name and replace it with "Blades". Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and choose a radius half the width of your line, so in my case, 2.5, in your cases, 1.5 to 2. Click OK and let it do its thing. Then, right-click on the Blades layer and select "Duplicate Layer..." Name it "Loose Glow". Select that layer, then click the little wavy "f" with the circle around it, and hit "Outer Glow". Type in these values:

Hot OK. Right-click on the "Loose Glow" layer, and hit Duplicate Layer. Name it Loose Glow 2. (Original, no?) Then, duplicate that layer and call it "Blade Color". Click the little "f" again, and the Outer Glow should be checked. Click it, and fix the values to look like this. Also, add in the blade color that you want. I suggest a very strong, bright color for the best effect.

Look at that, your pictures are starting to look like sabers! But we need the final color aura glow to make it look more realistic. Duplicate the Blade Color layer, and call it Outer Blade Glow. Edit the Outer Glow settings (little "f", remember?) and type this in:

All finished! Now, hit OK and save a copy again (see above for saving copies). Note: You should still see a ".flm" filename in the title bar of Photoshop (i.e. "Adobe Photoshop - [Raw Filmstrip.flm ...]"). If you don't, then you screwed something up and I can tell you right now it won't work. If you still have your original .flm file open, however, right-click on any layer, and hit "Flatten Layers". This may take a little bit. After that's done (deep breath), hit File > Save. (not Save As...). It should say "Writing Filmstrip Format..." After that's done, close Photoshop! You're done rotoscoping! Huzzah!

Your Final Video::

Open Premiere and open the project file you were working on earlier. Delete the AVI file from your timeline. Go to File > Import... Import your saved .flm file you were laboring over a minute ago. With any luck, it'll show up in your Project file list. If it shows up, get really excited as you drag it over to your timeline and hit play. Watch, as you've miraculously acquired superior knowledge of the Force as you wave your lightsaber around like a Jedi master!

<click to view movie, roughly 25MB>

My movie sucked a little, I'll have to admit. I waved the sword around a little too fast, and I couldn't see what I was doing. Don't you make the same mistake, though!

Add sounds if you'd like (it's hard, there aren't many lightsaber sound effects that are video-worthy, but I'm sure Google can help you with that), and hit File > Export. Make sure you change the settings so it outputs a real movie file instead of a filmstrip again, and viola! You know how to create Lightsaber effects in your home movies!

Notes::

This didn't go too in-depth, I didn't even discuss when two lightsabers hit each other (make a very big blinding orange-yellow flash effect, the bigger it is, the cooler it looks). If you have 2 lightsabers, you must rotoscope each one and add the effects in separately, going through the rigorous process twice.

I didn't cover sounds because I suck at it, honestly. I'm sure you could figure it out if you really wanted to, Premiere and After Effects really aren't all that hard.

I really hoped you liked my tutorial, please send comments to spikeltd at gmail dot com. If you really liked this tutorial and want me to do more, please send a donation to me:

And, in case anyone's wondering, here's the other video I did that's on Google Videos:

(Direct Link)