Tutorials

When I came to make my testing, I wasn't completely sure where to start so I started searching youtube for some tutorials, I've listed a few I found helpful but neither is what I was really looking for.

-   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxe_JZRl0OA
This however I found to be too fast, it barely looks like a flash, I wanted something more laser like, something that looked like a beam. So I stopped looking for Iron Man beams and started focusing on what would actually make a good beam. Below is another tutorial I found.

-   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGGxVb81V88
The problem with this is that I found it far too futuristic and video games esc, I thought that it looks more like a a gun from DeadSpace than Iron Man, so I kept trying.

 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ3MxlAMV-QBelow is the tutorial I followed to create my  testing effects.
This video, although a superman heat vision tutorial, is something I thought might work, with some tweaking, however it required a Red Giant plug-in called 3D stroke, and after all the time and effort I've put into acquiring the lens flare I think this would be more of a waste of time than anything else.

 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4BltIHk0ek
I also found this, which I liked, but it also has an abstract feel to it, I want something more simplistic. It also required a Form Plug-in.

I found a few more useful tutorials but nothing I was really looking for, I ended up asking a few classmates and third years if they knew how I could create a beam effect that resembled a Star-Wars blaster gun or something similar, this proved very helpful and I toyed with the Generate - Beam effect for a while, alone I think it looked too simple, but with a few lens flares i found the look to be exactly what I was looking for.

I also managed to find this great video giving away the Iron Man repulser sounds for free
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX4GCkqoAzs&list=UUTEA%C2%AD8ekQY_txAsaIyK1Wmjw&index=1&fe%C2%ADature=plcp