FX Blog - Style

Style is a huge factor in appeal, as it determines the visual outcome of the animation. Moreover, it can help tremendously with the actual animation, as stylisation is necessary “to bring our drawing to a level of detail which is possible to draw” Gilland (2009, p. 47). Nature is simply too detailed to be able to capture everything in an animation, thus simplifying and stylising can bring it down to a level that is both easier for the animator to animate, and the viewer to view.

There are many different styles out there - your imagination is the only real limiting factor - so what is vital is that “every special effect drawing must embody the art direction of the film” Gilland (2009, p.44). If it does not then there is a disconnect between the character animation and the effects emanating from them. In addition to this, knowing the purpose of the effects is extremely important too. Are the fx meant to help with a scene’s realism? If so, you have to be careful not to overdo it or draw too much attention away from the main action. If the fx are meant to be the primary action in a scene, such as a huge crashing wave, then you can go more in depth and pull out all the stops.

Furthermore, the emotional response should always be the focus of your animation. Genevieve Koski (2014) says that with Pinocchio's (1940) water animation, despite its realism the focus was on “how the water should function within the story and the emotional response it should provoke, not replicating the real world exactly”.

The final reason why style is important is budget - the more detailed the style, the harder it is to animate, thus the longer it will take and the more expensive it will be, Gilland (2009, p. 104). In Pinocchio’s (1940) water scenes, the animators were going for a detailed look however did not have enough time, therefore details further in the back were made more impressionistic, Koski (2014). This allowed the focus to go on the front whilst still giving the illusion of realism throughout.

Lilo and Stitch (2002)

Mulan (1998)

Hercules (1997)

Pinocchio (1940)

Here are a few different stills of water fx animation from just Disney films. As you can see the styles vary considerably, despite them being from all the same studio. Lilo and Stitch’s (2002) water splash is the simplest of the four, using curvy rounded shapes. This isn’t to say it’s worse than the others as it is just a different style, however the important thing to note is that it fits with the style of the film. The characters are designed to focus on conveying weight, using varied curves to do this, which reflects perfectly in the water animation.

Mulan (1998) has a slightly more realistic style, thus the water fx reflects this by using sharper shape language and introducing smaller details. Hercules’s (1997) water fx reflects the very stylised nature of the film by subtly incorporating the infamous spirals into the peak of the splash, as shown by the above still. Finally, Pinocchio’s (1940) water animation takes a much more detailed approach, as instead of following the style of character animation it mimics the realism of the backgrounds.

As you can see, you can achieve different styles by changing either the rendering style of the fx, or the shape design. I want to try this out for myself, so here are a few different styles - using my smoke animation as the base to cleanup:

With these I tried to create as many different styles without changing too much of the original animation to see some of the possibilities. I think all these animations would be suited to different films despite how little some of them differ from each other. The lined animations tend to look more cartoony, and the angular ones look more gritty or more for an older audience. I also think adding the shadows improves the animation considerably, as not only does it have that contrasting, graphical element but it also describes the form much better than just lines.