ponanza

The technology behind Ponanza - Part 2

Special Effects

For the effects in Ponanza we’ll use Adobe After Effects as well as two marvellous additional programs: Primatte Keyer and Particle Illusion.

Primatte Keyer is a plug-in for After Effects to remove bluescreen from videos. With this program we can replace the blue background, that we’re shooting in front of, with any other background we choose. That way we can concentrate on the “earthly matters” during animation and add a sky later. To test the efficiency of the plug-in we used this picture with a complicated blurred background:

The quality of the Primatte Keyer amazed us. The blurred edges were no problem for the software. With just a few clicks of the mouse we achieved this result:

Particle Illusion is a program that generates “particles”. You can create realistic effects like fire, water, smoke, rain or snow with it. It’s a little more complicated to operate, but it also comes with a huge selection of presets that can be used instantly.

We’ll use it for desert dust and several other effects.