Smart Bomb

This project tries to achieve the look of military footage from the dropping of a smart bomb.

Everything happens in the Smart Bomb CCD pre-comp: First we have some 3D layers that build up the scene; ground, roads and the sides of the house (the target).

Above the scene layers is an adjustment layer "edges" with a Find Edges and Levels treatment to approximate the look of a bomb CCD - edges are amplified and contrast increased.

Then comes the "fire" which is a very simple particle system with some short-lived particles. Above that is the "explode up" layer which uses the "tc_ExplodeUp" preset to create the smoke plumes often seen in explosions.

Then there is some more 2D treatments; Starglow for the horizontal flare lines. A crosshair and a timecode solid. Finally some noise is added using the Noise HLS Auto effect.

The camera motion requires some attention. The camera flies by keyframes for the position property. The POI is locked at the target, but since this should look manually controlled, the POI has a wiggle expression applied. It gives that shaky, hand-controlled look. Also, when the bomb hits the target a shockwave is sent out that makes the plane (helicopter?) shake a bit. That is achieved by some violent keyframes on camera POI and camera position.

I must confess I had a rather long internal debate about weather to include this project or not. I always feel a kind of guilt-ridden fascination when I watch the clips of war footage like this on CNN. I did however decide to include it nonetheless. At least, this way, there is a means of getting footage like this without anyone actually getting hurt. If you have any comments on this, contact me at this e-mail: peder (at.) trapcode.com