Smoke:
The main struggle with this element I had was conveying the floaty quality of smoke whilst keeping track of each individual form. I found I had so much trouble just creating the effect of the smoke moving upwards that I lost a sense of the three dimensional, and it became flat and almost lazy looking.
Moreover, in an effort to create a looping cycle I found I was trying to inbetween frames that shouldn’t have been in-betweened, thus resulting in a jumpy animation.
The beginning also proved to be a large problem as I didn’t know how to start and plan the effect. I ended up going for a straight ahead approach due to a lack of any better options, with not enough thought on how to end it.
Despite this, I learnt a lot about getting the right timing and spacing for this compared to less natural elements. Before starting it, I had no idea what the end result would look like/how to make it look good, so trial and error helped me out a lot here.
Water:
This one was probably my favourite to animate, as it felt more like a scene with a purpose rather than a general loop, as well as the fact that the secondary movements were very fun to do.
I started this one with more of a plan of what would be happening, and I did a preliminary sketch to use as a base/reference. From there, I just animated straight ahead, thinking about the form and perspective. Once I finished, I realised the timing was really off and had to add more frames to the initial peak of the splash, as well as take a couple away from the start. Looking back at it, I think I should have taken more out as it looks too slow and mechanical at the start, rather than like it is reacting to something.
My favourite part was that smaller after-splash, as both the secondary particle animation and the main water ripple/splash were easy to do yet looked convincing and full of life.
Despite being very enjoyable to do, I still recognise the weaknesses of this animation, the main one being the timing and the stiffer drawings of the initial splash. I think adding energy lines would have made the initial part more interesting, and I need to study photo references of water as currently it looks a bit too much like a pie.
Lightning:
This was also a very enjoyable element due to how quick and forgiving the element is. I had no idea how to animate lightning at all, so for this one I used a couple of references. The first one was this actual footage of lightning:
Robert Patterson (2010)
The problem with this, is that even going frame by frame the lightning is too quick, and the camera can’t pick up the initial strike due to how bright it is, therefore it wasn’t useful as reference for animation, though studying the shape was helpful.
Next, I decided to look at an example of an artist’s lightning animation by Andrew Crotty (2014):
Andrew Crotty (2014)
Going through the first strike frame by frame, I observed how the lighting hesitates slightly before striking down, as well as how doing several drawings for the actual full strike gives it the impression of dynamic movement.
I think this animation is the most successful out of the four, however this one is the most like a study rather than my own experimentation.
I definitely learnt a lot however, especially with designing the bolts and getting that variation to avoid it looking too stiff.
Animating these was really beneficial to me, as I’ve learnt a lot about the struggles of effects animation as well as what is really important to make it look convincing. I found that whilst adding particle animation adds variation and interest and increases the appeal of the effect, a solid base animation is still the most important element, much more so than details (as shown by my smoke cycle).
To improve on my skill at animating that base movement, I need to study the physics behind each element so that I can understand why the effect will move like the way it does.
I’ve also found that I need to study a lot of real life reference of elements, as my drawings and shapes were all very unconvincing and stiff.
No comments:
Post a Comment