{"id":18241,"date":"2011-09-05T08:58:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T08:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=18241"},"modified":"2012-07-09T16:03:55","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T16:03:55","slug":"elemental-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=18241","title":{"rendered":"Elemental Magic: the art of special effects animation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"top\" \/><em>Joseph Gilland<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>The art of drawing and animating special effects<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Every wave, ripple, splash, lick of flame, 1 or plume of smoke has beneath its details a natural energy form much like a human&#8217;s underlying form of skeleton and muscle. Gravity, hot and cold air, and any number of outside forces may inform that energy pattern. p.26 <em>This sounds like having an animation primitive would be the right way to go, especially because it would be reusable.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Even after all these years, I&#8217;ve noticed this annoying tendency can still grip my drawing and turn it into a boring, often symmetrical affair full of repeating shapes and parallel lines, which then need to be reworked again and again. Sometimes the intuitive feeling of natural phenomenon flows from every stroke of the pencil, other times I find it is necessary to seek out and destroy those pesky repetitious shapes, (or &#8220;parallelisms&#8221;). p.33 <em>Might give a hint at how mental imagery is structured (icons)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Within the primary shape, there are secondary shapes, where most of the intricate details occur; this also happens to be where much of the twinning occurs. The solution is to make sure the spacing is not too even or that shapes do not tangent directly, and that there are a variety of big, medium, and small shapes. This creates contrast, and in every aspect of effects animation one is confronted with the need for it, whether one is drawing splashing water, j magIc particles, powdery snow, bubbles, a cluster of rocks, or a shattered object. p.34 <em>Provide symmetry\/repetition detectors\/disruptors?<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The sketchy, rough drawing on the left has a strong directional energy flow, and provides a strong basis . for the elegant effects drawing design on the right. A quality effects drawing should always start this way! p.43 <em>Looks like it&#8217;s a good way to lay down\u00a0 a base primitive layer&#8230;<\/em><\/li>\n<li>In representing our effects through simplified versions of reality, we are free to focus our attention on the forces underlying the effects, the patterns in motion, the timing and the physics. Details can always be added once our effects animation is working well in all these respects, but if we get lost in the details, we will have lost the natural physics of our effects animation. Stylize, simplify, and find the energy focus! p.48<\/li>\n<li>Patterns in nature are rarely if ever truly parallel, and once again, we use exaggeration to add drama to our drawing designs. p.54<\/li>\n<li>The energy that creates any elemental effect-the impact of a splash, or the sudden combustion of an explosion, has a finite lifespan. What starts out explosively, with very strong directional energy, loses energy as it expands. And as the energy dies out, the shapes it creates evolve. They change, interestingly enough, from sharp, angular, energetic designs to soft, flowing, languid designs. p.62<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p43.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18441\" title=\"p43\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p43-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p54.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18451\" title=\"p54\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p54-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Liquids<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Perspective is extremely tricky to master when animating water. Such apparently abstract shapes don&#8217;t at first glance appear to fall under the rules of perspective as they are generally taught, working with vanishing points and a predetermined perspective grid against which a given image is constructed. However quite the opposite is true. p.96 <em>Use perspective grid to lay down energy patterns first!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>p110-114\u00a0 <em>Even frame-by-frame animation only shows a subset of splash events! There&#8217;s no need in interpolating the whole, finished animation. Interpolation should occur at the ruf stage, then some kind of synthesis could propagate a first, finished frame to subsequent ones using the ruf as a giude. Later on, additional frames could be modified and the modification propagated.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p110.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18461\" title=\"p110\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p110-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18471\" title=\"p111\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p111-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p112.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18481\" title=\"p112\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p112-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p113.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18491\" title=\"p113\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p113-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p114.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18501\" title=\"p114\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p114-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>p140\u00a0 <em>Outline is used as an additional quide to the ruf.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The overall shape of the shooting water should have . a very subtle wavil1f? actio\/1 to it, as illustrated in the drawings below. This undulating action should be very fast as well, and it can also be somewhat erratic, as water shooting out at high speed does have a very active randomness to its movement. These principles can be appLied to many water elements, such as wateifalls, fountains, or water running out of a tap. p.143<\/li>\n<li>p145\u00a0 <em>Draw and match the ruf on a video, then match and transfer its motion (especially occluders silhouettes).<\/em><\/li>\n<li>When deciding which details to focus your efforts on, choose the parts of the effects design that make the strongest silhouette. These are worth detailing as the viewer&#8217;s eyes will see these shapes more easily than shapes that are inferior to the effect. p.147<\/li>\n<li>Most important is to establish the viscosity, or thickness of the liquid we are attempting to animate. The higher the viscosity, the thicker the liquid. Suppose water is our standard for average viscosity as it is the most commonly animated liquid. p.148 <em>Viscosity\/thickness might be a good apriori.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>First I have drawn a very technical-looking grid over the splashing lava, that reflects the path of action and underlying structure of the splash. This kind of grid can help us to see the structure that every little droplet and detail of the lava is attached to as it spews, seemingly into abstract shapes, up and out of the volcano below. p.152\u00a0 <em>Guide to the ruf again, in 3D this time.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p140.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18511\" title=\"p140\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p140-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p143.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18521\" title=\"p143\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p143-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p145.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18531\" title=\"p145\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p145-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p152.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18541\" title=\"p152\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p152-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Fire, smoke and explosions<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>It is very mportant to understand the scale of the fire you are attempting to animate and to add the appropriate amount of detail. p.167<\/li>\n<li>As we advance to a larger fire, as in a campfire or a burning torch, the bobbing motion will become more pronounced, as will the reversing internal arcs, which undulate from side-to-side. This motion is caused by one side of the fire cooling faster than the other; the hotter side will then rise faster, rolling upward and over, causing a flame shape to break off of the main silhouette. p.168<\/li>\n<li>The over arching idea of a fire is a triangular shape, or a series of triangular shapes feeding one another. These quickly unite into larger silhouettes, depending on the severity and frequency of the forces (wind, gravity, pressure) and the amount of available fuel from the material that has been ignited (paper, straw, wood, gasoline, etc.). p.169<\/li>\n<li>p.170-171<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p170.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18551\" title=\"p170\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p170-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p171.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18561\" title=\"p171\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p171-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Now I have treated each of the individual triangles as if they are , flags being blown from below. I have added the curving bottom line shape of the fire, and indicated the directional flow of the currents causing the flags to flutter and wave. [&#8230;] Opposing arcs become very apparent at this stage, and are an outstanding feature of almost all good, elemental effects design. p.172<\/li>\n<li>This animation also shows clearly how large pieces of the . fire are pinched, or squeezed by the cooler air as they rise, causing them i to break off as they rise. Note that the small shapes that break off from . the main body of the fire do not last more that two or three drawings. p.174<\/li>\n<li>(A) As the cooler air surrounding the fire pushes it down from above, (C) and the hot fire sucks cool, oxygen-filled air into itself from the air surrounding it, (B) it pulls the cooler air inward and upward, and the collision of these forces creates the mushroom shape. p.176<\/li>\n<li>We can achieve consistency in the volume by opening holes from the middle section (as we did previously with water); these will quickly meet together and help to break off large sections of flame. The holes should reflect the direction of the force through their elongated negative spaces. p.178 <em>Give assistance for mass preservation!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>We can also break flames off of the main body of the .. tire by &#8220;pinching&#8221; it in the middle, then &#8220;twisting&#8221; the fire as one might. wring out a washcloth. The most interesting way to resolve a broken-off ;ection of flame is to reverse its arc from one drawing to the next. p.179 <em>Looks like a quite complex 3D deformation!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>It is important in the case of fire, as it is with water; smoke, etc., J make sure that every detail follows closely the overall flow of the underlying structure. The smaller shapes you see breaking off of a fire vill just look like bizarre discon&#8217;leeted shapes if they do not adhere to the natural &#8220;flow&#8221; of the drawing. When these shapes are drawn with the directional flow of the energy driving the effect, the results are fantastic. p.180<\/li>\n<li>As we see in the basic line drawing to the left, the outer line of the fire alone does little to describe its volume and directional energy. The interior shapes and the way they move, do much to describe the overall shape and energy of the flame. p.182 <em>Even with these complex patterns, we can still perceive a deformation that gives a blobby aspect. It would be interesting to try to deteriorate this percept; contours seem to be especially important to disambiguate the internal deformation (via some kind of pooling?)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>In the instance of logs, the fire will wrap around their respective surfaces, describing their cylindrical geometries. Any object on fire will be somewhat recognizable, even when engulfed in flames. p.184 <em>Match shape and fire flows!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Linear smoke is fun to animate, it shares the same principles as torch flame when it&#8217;s being &#8220;dragged.&#8221; The main difference is that flame dissipates much quicker, whereas smoke will follow the arcs of the source and stay on screen much longer. p.190 <em>There&#8217;s thus an advantage in keeping the flow from previous frames!<\/em><\/li>\n<li>I have combined the classic upward flag-like wave motion, along with an emerging ball shape, that kind of &#8220;rolls&#8221; upward through the volume of the smoke in time with the wave action. This ball continually expands as it rises as smoke will in relatively calm air with a hot source pushing it upward, and cooler air above slowing it down and pushing it outward. [&#8230;] Note that, as the large piece breaks off the main body of the fire, the shapes almost wrap themselves around the ball shape as they break off and then dissipate. p.194-195\u00a0 <em>Higher level primitives like this ball could be used to either deform or structure a base flow.<\/em> The difference between smoke and fire may be encapsulated in apriori. But should they impact the base flow? Or a more detailed, intermediate flow?<\/li>\n<li>Unlike smoke, steam is water evaporating, which means that it can have the quality of &#8220;disappearing&#8221; as it resolves. Smoke can dissipate also, but it is prone to breaking down into smller shapes. We must be vigilant in small-scale smoke to keep these shapes from looking like popcorn, where the shapes are niform in size, design, and spacing. Bilateral symmetry is the kiss of death in organic effects. If you can draw tline bisecting a path of steam or smoke into two similar halves, you are approaching the Rorschach inkblot test phenomenon. p.200-201<\/li>\n<li>In this diagram, we see that initially the smoke ises up very fast, driven upward by the intense heat of its source fire. As the heat begins to subside, the smoke slows down, reacting to the cooler air it is running into. The warm and cool air colliding will cause the smoke to meander and twist slightly at this point. As it rises further, it spreads out, moving slower and slower. The cool air above forces the smoke back on itself, creating a slow rolling effect as the smoke being pushed down gets sucked back into the rising warm air once again. p.205<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p176.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18571\" title=\"p176\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p176-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p194.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18581\" title=\"p194\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p194-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p195.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18591\" title=\"p195\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p195-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p205.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-18431\" title=\"p205\" src=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/p205-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Magic<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Attempting to imply scale and perspective in our magic effects can ! be extremely difficult because we don&#8217;t have any of the normal referen,ce points that we do when we are creating effects elements &#8216; which commonly occur in real life. So we need to exaggerate our scale and perspective, even more than we do with special effects in general, when we are animating magic. p.236<\/li>\n<li>Only about 10% of the dots you draw actually need to follow through precisely from one drawing to the next, the majority can be very random, as long as they support and follow the basic structure of your animation. p.243 <em>Suggests a similar statistical approach for painterly rendering&#8230;<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Props and everything<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>The most common types of folds are pipe folds, diaper folds, zigzag folds, spiral folds, half lock folds, falling folds, and inert folds. A pipe fold looks like it sounds, it&#8217;s a long, cylindrical fold with a concave surface that begins with a pinched top and flares slightly outward toward the bottom. If you hang a robe on a hook, these will most likely be the types of folds you will see. A diaper fold is the result of cloth being suspended from two contact points. If you take that same robe and hang it from two hooks, the resulting pipe folds will meet in the middle, causing them to crease into one another. Zigzag folds are a series of tight, interconnected back-and-forth folds, creating a zigzag pattern. We typically see these types of folds in complex ribbon-work and in crimped dresses. Spiral folds are small, cylindrical convex folds that wrap around arms and torsos with lighter types of cloth. Most ; Greek sculptors employed an inordinate amount of spiral folds in their clothed figures. Half lock folds occur when a character bends a leg or an arm, thereby creating a series of interconnected folds at the locus of the joint. Falling folds occur when a hanging cloth begins to collide with a surface, causing the bottom part to bunch up in a complex array of folds. Lastly, an inert fold is just that- . inert. There are no underlying forces or geometries affecting its . makeup, it&#8217;s just a random piling or bunching of folds. The best example of this is an unmade bed. p.265-266 <em>Cloth should be modelled at the fold level, using these different types of folds and morphing one into the other&#8230;<\/em><\/li>\n<li>One of the things that jumps out at me when I consider these two balls made of entirely different materials, striking a solid surface, is that the trajectory path of action, timing and overall energy patterns of the two, are extremely similar. What does change is the shapes and patterns of the actual breaking object, dictated by its molecular makeup-the way its molecules hold themselves together, and the way they break apart when their ability to adhere to each other is challenged by an abrupt impact. p.278 <em>Means that there&#8217;s an underlying structure that could be used and manipulated (much like a ruf) for animation.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joseph Gilland The art of drawing and animating special effects Every wave, ripple, splash, lick of flame, 1 or plume of smoke has beneath its details a natural energy form much like a human&#8217;s underlying form of skeleton and muscle. Gravity, hot and cold air, and any number of outside forces may inform that energy &#8230; <a title=\"Elemental Magic: the art of special effects animation\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/?p=18241\" aria-label=\"Read more about Elemental Magic: the art of special effects animation\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[621],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18241"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18261,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18241\/revisions\/18261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.labri.fr\/perso\/barla\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}