I'd kinda like to see more of the swirls going up in various lengths and directions rather that one spot to give it more interest. Other than that looks cool.
I think it could use some more colors in a tasteful way. I think a hallmark of a good FX artist is not only the actual FX, but also the artistry of it. What colors you use, timing, impact, etc. It's looking pretty good so far though!
looks nice, two things that spring to mind though. firstly i'd love to see some sort of change over time. if you could create just the symbols, then connect them with the lines, then finally the ring and the rest that would be cool. currently it's just looping which is nice but if it's a spell effect or similar i'd expect some build up etc.
secondly the ribbon going up is always in the same place which i assume is just a texture animation on a static mesh? really needs some nice move movement and randomness in that to create some visual interest - looks very cgi atm imo.
some colour might be nice but tbh things like colour palette etc. really depend on the game your making it for. if it's only on screen for a very short time then lots of colour can detract from the effect rather than add.
Looks nice, but it would be nice to see it in some sort of context as well. Maybe just try and overlay them over an environment if you don't feel like making a scene for it?
Starting a new piece for my portfolio while I polish up my other effects... here is a quick concept of what of the look I am going for. I know that it needs some color. But please any feedback would be great! Thank you
Here are some new updates of some portfolio pieces, I'm in the process of creating the impact for the meteor. And the energy ball is still early in its process but. Please, any feed back is AWESOME! Thanks everyone. (uploading butchered the quality, sorry)
The meteor could really use some sort of indication of the atmosphere heating and expanding around the meteor core. It might just be some rushing windy speed lines or maybe some distortion stuff if you want to get fancy. Something along these lines would really help it read specifically as a meteor. Right now it could be just a fireball or a heavy sideways petroleum fire.
For the energy absorb spell, I think it could really use some sort of staged ramp up in intensity as it gets closer to blowing. You'd want the player to be able to have a feel for when it would pop. Maybe it grows bigger and smaller more and more rapidly as it gets ready to blow? This might give you the feeling of ramping instability and intensity you'd want in something like this.
Looking cool. Interested to see how these develop.
I think Jarm hit a lot of what I wanted to say, here are few more notes:
- The meteor is a good base, but I personally think it should be running much faster. And yes it should have something to help it appear like its cutting through the atmosphere. You can use a half-sphere that's squashed and have a very fast panning material, along with some velocity aligned particles to help achieve it. Just think of the shape a comet has, it starts from a point and cones out (if that helps). You could also animate your offset on the orbit modules to get larger to help give you that shape.
- The first half of the energy ball needs the most love. Like Jarm said it's really lacking an element of staging and buildup. Maybe animating the spawn rate and velocity over time so we start with few particles moving slowly, then lots moving fast towards the core. In addition, we then see the the core growing in size, color, and intensity.
For the meteor most of the things you want to add have already been mentioned, but try adding some of those small sparks near the front, only this time have them stretched out and start them out really hot then fade them out.
The energy spell has some nice elements to it. The lingering smoke and sparks go by a little too fast, try increasing their lifetime by about .5 seconds. It also looks like they're just fading out, animate the color as well if your not doing that already.
for the energy one id like to see that thicker line that comes off the top almost to have a mirrored version of itself. just having that one line go up and wiggle seems so empty to me. Other then that nice stuff,
i like the meteor. looked up Armageddon to see if they added anything to theirs and nope.. another disappointing fact for that movie.
Your stuff is coming along great Morgan. Really like what you have. It'd be great to see some diversity in the effects that you do. Maybe a grenade type explosion or something?
Another little note on the spell absorption stuff -- I love the little dust particulates that you have in the aftermath. To push that idea even further you could increase the size of them over life a little bit while simultaneously fading them out to give the sense of dissipation. Just a thought!
like the energy orb - i quite like the way it jitters as if it's gaining too much energy but i think i'd try and keep the centre still to create a visual difference between the movement. thats just a personal preference though.
the meteor isnt quite working because of the speed difference imo. the distortion cone at the front suggests it's moving very fast through the atmosphere but the smoke coming off the back is just sort of billowy as if it's a burning rock thrown by a catapult or something.
the explosion needs a bit of work imo, theres a pop between the first fireball and the second and they seem to be different colours? not sure whats going on with the cloud of dots that gets left behind - looks like lots of dots on a single sprite which is very difficult to get right imo - much better off just using lots of small sprites. remember cost comes from overdraw more than particle count most of the time so lots of little sprites could well be cheaper too. the sparks dont seem to move realistically either imo - is there any gravity on them? hard to tell without a ground plane. be worth putting one into your effects imo, plus you can then show things like lights flashing (setup in kismet) that help sell the effect.
its a really big help to watch explosions in slow motion like these.
Your fireball is coming along. You have some really nice brightness in the middle happening, so why not have that in the beginning as well? It looks very out of place to me. That should be THE hottest and most intense point of the whole thing. Also the mesh you added should be much larger, and use a fresnel or dot product technique to get rid of that hard edge. It should live much longer (the smoke trail in particular), and as a personal critique I really want to see the entire shape get much larger as it lives. Specifically, you have these really tiny particles at the end that look very out of place. Really embrace a cone shape with this whole particle system.
For the Explosion:
- I think a higher level concern that you need to address is the directionality of this explosion. Is it on the ground? Are we seeing it from above? Right now it seems like a midair explosion as you would see with anti-aircraft fire -- but those are very specific and don't look like this. I think answering this question will help you a lot in your design of this effect.
For the Absorb spell:
- Definitely looking way better! But I think you can push it much further. Anything that builds over time with this (the shaking, the size, the amount of lines merging with the core), do it 5x bigger than you are right now. This is a good opportunity to get the "feeling" of growing instability followed by a big payoff release. If you nail this it could be a really nice portfolio piece.
Hey thanks guys! sorry for responding so late, I am soaking in everyone's feedback so keep it coming! Got my site up somewhat (still working on it, trying to figure out a better title font) > www.morgansnight.com
Also, it was great meeting everyone at the polycount meet up at GDC!
I actually liked the old energy absorb better. The way it suddenly bursts makes it feel more unstable and powerful. I'd like to see the small ball of light in the center grow as it charges up, as well as the outer field shrinking.
Hey everyone! Been awhile since I have updated. Got my site up with my demo reel, still adding to it while I look for work. I am currently working on cinematic effect piece to pull everything together atm ( will post progress up soon when I get a new computer)! Any feedback is always appreciated! www.morgansnight.com
i have a quick question. how did you get your particles to shake side to side on your energy absorb effect. I am working on an effect and cant seem to figure out how to get my particle meshes to vibrate like that.
Edit:
i am using udk and i am not sure if that is what you are using.
1st off: Wow what incredible progress you're making! And the site design is very clean and pro. Good work!
I'll break down some feedback for you:
Basic fire: A great opening piece. Maybe the bloom is just a bit too high for my taste, but that's very subjective. My biggest advice would be that every piece of fire is moving at nearly the exact same speed, and my eye keeps catching that uniform pattern all around. I take it that's a flipbook you're using? Maybe some panners in the material as well? Work on getting the speed to vary more to help sell the fire as more chaotic. I'd also say faster to sell that chaotic feel. Otherwise a stellar piece!
Summoning Spell: Really nice polish overall. The intro seems to be the weakest, it's lacking a "stage" to it. It all just happens so uniformly in time, it lacks rhythm. Maybe even a quick glow and streak that swipes up to be a visual indicator that this thing as activated?
Basic Explosion: This really lacks a sense impactful-ness and force. There's little to support visually the rapid expansion that occurs in an explosion, maybe just using size-by-life to expand them more quickly? The way the little streaks fall to the ground so quickly makes it feel less impactful as well. I would read this article which does a good break down on an explosion. Work on a quick "flash pop" or something similar to ignite it, work on some sort of more defined shockwave to convey motion, and get more volume out of this effect. http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/creative/visual-arts/make-a-particle-explosion-effect-r2701
I'm a few days from releasing a new tutorial and I think it will really help your timing and explosion a little more. Check out my other post here on polycount and read about my 7 key elements to a good effect. I also talk a lot about this in my upcoming tutorial as well. I think they're good guidelines to what makes an effect successful and is kinda my mental checklist when I review my own FX before turning them in.
@xraysuede - Use the orbit module, if you want the object to vibrate. Set the offset amount to a low value (decimals), and then adjust the rotation rate amount to a higher value. You will have to play around with it till you like it. You can then change the distribution vector to a constant curve to adjust when it needs to vibrate.
@Jeff - Yo! thanks for the suggestion, i may try that to see what it looks like.
@imbueFX - Thanks for the great feedback! Really good guidelines in your other post, I will definitely pay more attention to these elements. Thanks again!
So this is where I am at with my cinematic sequence. Starting to wrap it up, and would appreciate any feedback. Right now I am working on making the beam more sexy, as well as coming up with an ending, and polish. Thanks! (Everything was created by me except the trees in the back and some of the foliage)
I think the beam looks very nice, could be cool to get more some souls passing through the beam itself? Could help provide some nice internal motion and visual complexity. Just an idea.
I think an awesome piece of polish is in between when the ground collapses and the beam activates. There's a moment of emptiness that could be filled with some good secondary elements. Could be some more embers rising from the heat, some subtle distortion, a secondary shaft of light. What I'm getting as it make the ground colapse more dramatic.
Lastly your glyphs pop really bad when they fade in, not sure how your material is setup but see if you can smooth that out.
Keep it up, this piece is great and you are really progressing as a VFX artist!!!
damn...that was awesome!- I think some of the pacing could use some work. I also think the demons coming out of the hole could move a bit slower when flying about to help the sense of scale.
Wowzer Morgan! You killed it with this one. I agree with the small tweak imbueFX brought up. Also watch the motion and size on the dragony things. You could scale them and randomize the flight patterns some. The falling concrete floor at the beginning seems a bit floaty. I would add some weight to the falling animation. But all in all you're doing a great job on this. Love the color usage.
Hey, thanks everyone! Got a quick update on the sequence. It's getting a bit lengthy and I already plan on cutting out some of the slow camera pans. I have a list of everyone's feedback from earlier (as well as a bunch of little things I am aware of), that I will start implementing. So far the ending is super rough, and the camera needs lots of work as well as an ending for the beam. If anyone has any feedback, that would be awesome. Thanks!
dude this is excellent, my mind is blown. congratulations on being awesome.
as far as the effects go i think the biggest thing is basically what dan was saying about the speed of the demons, they seem kinda fluttery instead of large dragon beasties. i would at least make their wings flap a little slower. the ending with the blue elementals is like my favorite part, if you are still working on how to finish i think it would be kinda cool if the rain put out the fires in the trees and caused the beam to retreat back into the ground. just an idea.
I had a thought on the pentagram showing up, adding pieces of light coming up from the pentagram would sell it to look more evil you could easily do it with a few single sided meshes.
another idea, maybe having a few streamers flowing out of the hole as the creatures are escaping.
Finished up the cinematic recently and revamped my reel. I will be going back and fixing up little things here and there with all of my vfx. So any feedback is always welcome! Thanks everyone for the great feedback, keep it coming!
Really cool Fx! The fire reminds me also of the Uncharted 3 stuff. Did you know this presentation? It explained how they did the fire. Did you do it like them? How did you animated your smoke? Is it flipbook animation?
Replies
secondly the ribbon going up is always in the same place which i assume is just a texture animation on a static mesh? really needs some nice move movement and randomness in that to create some visual interest - looks very cgi atm imo.
some colour might be nice but tbh things like colour palette etc. really depend on the game your making it for. if it's only on screen for a very short time then lots of colour can detract from the effect rather than add.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Here are some new updates of some portfolio pieces, I'm in the process of creating the impact for the meteor. And the energy ball is still early in its process but. Please, any feed back is AWESOME! Thanks everyone. (uploading butchered the quality, sorry)
[vv] 36674264 [/vv]
[vv] 36674153 [/vv]
For the energy absorb spell, I think it could really use some sort of staged ramp up in intensity as it gets closer to blowing. You'd want the player to be able to have a feel for when it would pop. Maybe it grows bigger and smaller more and more rapidly as it gets ready to blow? This might give you the feeling of ramping instability and intensity you'd want in something like this.
Looking cool. Interested to see how these develop.
- The meteor is a good base, but I personally think it should be running much faster. And yes it should have something to help it appear like its cutting through the atmosphere. You can use a half-sphere that's squashed and have a very fast panning material, along with some velocity aligned particles to help achieve it. Just think of the shape a comet has, it starts from a point and cones out (if that helps). You could also animate your offset on the orbit modules to get larger to help give you that shape.
- The first half of the energy ball needs the most love. Like Jarm said it's really lacking an element of staging and buildup. Maybe animating the spawn rate and velocity over time so we start with few particles moving slowly, then lots moving fast towards the core. In addition, we then see the the core growing in size, color, and intensity.
Hope this helps, & keep it up!
For the meteor most of the things you want to add have already been mentioned, but try adding some of those small sparks near the front, only this time have them stretched out and start them out really hot then fade them out.
The energy spell has some nice elements to it. The lingering smoke and sparks go by a little too fast, try increasing their lifetime by about .5 seconds. It also looks like they're just fading out, animate the color as well if your not doing that already.
Hope this helps.
i like the meteor. looked up Armageddon to see if they added anything to theirs and nope.. another disappointing fact for that movie.
i don't know what it is but the meteor seems off, and im working on the simple explosion's beginning flash more.
[vv] 37042395 [/vv]
[vv] 37042442 [/vv]
[vv] 37042510 [/vv]
the meteor isnt quite working because of the speed difference imo. the distortion cone at the front suggests it's moving very fast through the atmosphere but the smoke coming off the back is just sort of billowy as if it's a burning rock thrown by a catapult or something.
the explosion needs a bit of work imo, theres a pop between the first fireball and the second and they seem to be different colours? not sure whats going on with the cloud of dots that gets left behind - looks like lots of dots on a single sprite which is very difficult to get right imo - much better off just using lots of small sprites. remember cost comes from overdraw more than particle count most of the time so lots of little sprites could well be cheaper too. the sparks dont seem to move realistically either imo - is there any gravity on them? hard to tell without a ground plane. be worth putting one into your effects imo, plus you can then show things like lights flashing (setup in kismet) that help sell the effect.
its a really big help to watch explosions in slow motion like these.
really needed fresh eyes on these, and your feedback and link to explosions is very helpful.
Your fireball is coming along. You have some really nice brightness in the middle happening, so why not have that in the beginning as well? It looks very out of place to me. That should be THE hottest and most intense point of the whole thing. Also the mesh you added should be much larger, and use a fresnel or dot product technique to get rid of that hard edge. It should live much longer (the smoke trail in particular), and as a personal critique I really want to see the entire shape get much larger as it lives. Specifically, you have these really tiny particles at the end that look very out of place. Really embrace a cone shape with this whole particle system.
Hope this helps!
Changes are definitely helping!
For the Explosion:
- I think a higher level concern that you need to address is the directionality of this explosion. Is it on the ground? Are we seeing it from above? Right now it seems like a midair explosion as you would see with anti-aircraft fire -- but those are very specific and don't look like this. I think answering this question will help you a lot in your design of this effect.
For the Absorb spell:
- Definitely looking way better! But I think you can push it much further. Anything that builds over time with this (the shaking, the size, the amount of lines merging with the core), do it 5x bigger than you are right now. This is a good opportunity to get the "feeling" of growing instability followed by a big payoff release. If you nail this it could be a really nice portfolio piece.
Also, it was great meeting everyone at the polycount meet up at GDC!
Thanks everyone!
[vv] 37924546 [/vv]
Thanks everyone!
Edit:
i am using udk and i am not sure if that is what you are using.
1st off: Wow what incredible progress you're making! And the site design is very clean and pro. Good work!
I'll break down some feedback for you:
Basic fire: A great opening piece. Maybe the bloom is just a bit too high for my taste, but that's very subjective. My biggest advice would be that every piece of fire is moving at nearly the exact same speed, and my eye keeps catching that uniform pattern all around. I take it that's a flipbook you're using? Maybe some panners in the material as well? Work on getting the speed to vary more to help sell the fire as more chaotic. I'd also say faster to sell that chaotic feel. Otherwise a stellar piece!
Summoning Spell: Really nice polish overall. The intro seems to be the weakest, it's lacking a "stage" to it. It all just happens so uniformly in time, it lacks rhythm. Maybe even a quick glow and streak that swipes up to be a visual indicator that this thing as activated?
Basic Explosion: This really lacks a sense impactful-ness and force. There's little to support visually the rapid expansion that occurs in an explosion, maybe just using size-by-life to expand them more quickly? The way the little streaks fall to the ground so quickly makes it feel less impactful as well. I would read this article which does a good break down on an explosion. Work on a quick "flash pop" or something similar to ignite it, work on some sort of more defined shockwave to convey motion, and get more volume out of this effect.
http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/creative/visual-arts/make-a-particle-explosion-effect-r2701
I'm a few days from releasing a new tutorial and I think it will really help your timing and explosion a little more. Check out my other post here on polycount and read about my 7 key elements to a good effect. I also talk a lot about this in my upcoming tutorial as well. I think they're good guidelines to what makes an effect successful and is kinda my mental checklist when I review my own FX before turning them in.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1608438&postcount=11
Keep up the good work!
@Jeff - Yo! thanks for the suggestion, i may try that to see what it looks like.
@imbueFX - Thanks for the great feedback! Really good guidelines in your other post, I will definitely pay more attention to these elements. Thanks again!
So this is where I am at with my cinematic sequence. Starting to wrap it up, and would appreciate any feedback. Right now I am working on making the beam more sexy, as well as coming up with an ending, and polish. Thanks! (Everything was created by me except the trees in the back and some of the foliage)
[vv] 45669453 [/vv]
I think the beam looks very nice, could be cool to get more some souls passing through the beam itself? Could help provide some nice internal motion and visual complexity. Just an idea.
I think an awesome piece of polish is in between when the ground collapses and the beam activates. There's a moment of emptiness that could be filled with some good secondary elements. Could be some more embers rising from the heat, some subtle distortion, a secondary shaft of light. What I'm getting as it make the ground colapse more dramatic.
Lastly your glyphs pop really bad when they fade in, not sure how your material is setup but see if you can smooth that out.
Keep it up, this piece is great and you are really progressing as a VFX artist!!!
[vv] 45956300 [/vv]
as far as the effects go i think the biggest thing is basically what dan was saying about the speed of the demons, they seem kinda fluttery instead of large dragon beasties. i would at least make their wings flap a little slower. the ending with the blue elementals is like my favorite part, if you are still working on how to finish i think it would be kinda cool if the rain put out the fires in the trees and caused the beam to retreat back into the ground. just an idea.
good work man, really freaking awesome stuff!
I had a thought on the pentagram showing up, adding pieces of light coming up from the pentagram would sell it to look more evil
another idea, maybe having a few streamers flowing out of the hole as the creatures are escaping.
Finished up the cinematic recently and revamped my reel. I will be going back and fixing up little things here and there with all of my vfx. So any feedback is always welcome! Thanks everyone for the great feedback, keep it coming!
[vv]46588794[/vv]
http://gdcvault.com/play/1015898/The-Tricks-Up-Our-Sleeves