Third Eye Effect From Doctor Strange (After Effects)

Published on May 27, 2022

After Effects Tutorials

After Effects, bevel alpha effect, doctor strange, third eye

Third eye effect

It’s been a few weeks since Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness came out and the reviews are very mixed. While a ton of people loved the movie a ton of people also disliked it for multiple different reasons. But I believe both groups can agree that Doctor Strange opening up his third eye look great.

Usually when we see a third eye in a movie its already there or the transition is a simple fade when the eye opens. Luckily for us VFX geeks the transition looked like sticky skin being pulled apart. And that is exactly why we chose to recreate this effect!

unknow must know effect in After Effects

To recreate this effect we use a ton of tricks we are already familiar with. We made a recording of a closeup of our eye. Stabilized that eye clip, masked it out and worked it in with a simple feather. For the skin on top we can simply mask the forehead away. But we added an effect to make everything more believable and I bet you never heard of this effect before. It’s call Bevel Alpha Effect.

This effect gives a chiseled and lighted appearance to the alpha boundaries of an image. Meaning it creates a shadow and highlight to the sides, giving the illusion its a 3d object. So when you add this to the skin layer it looks like the skin has some thickness to it.

Storyblocks

Big thanks to Storyblocks for the support on this video. Their community driven library always help us to find something perfect every VFX shot. They really help us to bring our Visual effects to life, without compromising on anything.