Here you can see a sample of an animated gunshot I did with a combination of physical effects, (dry white tempera in the barrel) and CGI effects (lightwave 3D) animation.

In the next day or so, I'll upload the entire Lightwave project in a ZIP file so you can see how it's done and replace the footage files with your own.

I used the powder 'puff ' as a reference to make it easier to line up the flame ball object in Lightwave, plus it is an easy 'after smoke' effect.

Baretta Scene - (142K) Lightwave's Baretta object with muzzle flash and smoke.

Test One (2.7 Meg)

Test Two (4 Meg)

Test Three - (223K) A sample of separate anim frames at various angles (used lightwave only, no smoke)

NEW
Test Three Full Resolution - (7 Megs) 720x480 DV-NTSC Quicktime of anim frames. Use as an overlay on top of where you want muzzle flash to be, then re-position and resize as needed.

Lightwave Files (70K zip)

It is best to right click and "save link/target as" to download the .mov files.

In test Two, you'll notice in the small monitor the abscence of the muzzle flash.

Test three is a sample of several test firings at many different angles that you can superimpose over your own footage. Just reposition and rotate as needed.