Liquids

In his book, Elemental Magic, Gilland starts off explaining the different types of special effects and starts with water.  He says every fx animator has their 'thing', the one fx they understand naturally, and his innate effect is water and liquids. Mine isn't (it's fire if you're wondering), which my be why I struggled with liquid effects. I also dabbled in a bit of liquid fx for my loopdeloop submission, Instrument:

I kept its main shape constant, but added lines to give it the illusion of moving. The foam at the bottom was very similar to steam - the particles shrink and fade. The places where the forest spirit disturbs the surface was a bit more difficult, I tested giving it outlines, making larger splashes but a soft disruption worked best I feel. 

I noticed that both fire and water have waves of energy. I also noticed in the Dead Cells trailer, the liquid effects starts off in a cloud-like shape similar to smoke/steam (but this is a fictional poison goo so maybe it's not the best example):

I also found an article by Cartoon Brew on The Effects Tech behind 'Moana' by Ian Failes, with interesting breakdowns on how charcter animation and fx animation is integrated together. Even though it talks about 3D vfx, it's character/fx animation of the ocean helped me understand liquids by splitting it into the base movements and details on top:

Another noteoworthy example of liquid fx used to enhance appeal is in the Little Mermaid, I looked at a few clips frame by frame to study it. I observed three parts to it; the main liquid, lots of droplets, and foam:

My Moom tests went...ok. It was difficult to keep track of all the droplets and foam as they splashed about and the perspective angle didn't help either. I should've done some live-action studies of water and maybe used reference to help with this animation.

What went well:

• The chaos of it all makes it look quite realistic/natural, the droplets arc and make ripples on the floor too.

What could be improved:

• Yes
• I animated it very zoomed in, so the particles look very tiny, the splashes aren't big enough but the amount of detail warps the scale slighty, detail=scale, 
• The frame rate, although quite fluid (pun intended), seems a bit off, between the water and Moom, maybe Moom's movements need to be snappier.
• I should do more water tests, on different scales, viscosities, colours etc

Energy, electricity and explosions

I initially classified explosions together with fire, but I felt it might work a bit more similarly to energy and electricity. I found some really useful pixel art tutorials by Pedro Medeiros and even though they are for pixel art, their fundamentals can still be carried over (there were also other fx tutorials too):

Electricity tutorial by Pedro Medeiros

My previous case studies didn't have much appeal-related fx for energy and electricity so I used other sources. I did some studies to break it down and how it interacts with the environtment and characters interacting with it. I analysed a scene from the trailer of 'A Certain Scientific Railgun', an anime where the protagonist has electric-based powers. I identified how the electricity moved and how it flickers. There is a certain element of randomness that helps convey the intensity of the scene:

I also looked at the Dead Cells: Rise of the Giant trailer. I noticed the art style was slightly different from the original Dead Cells trailer, but the appeal of the character remained, the hectic fx helped exaggerate the reaction of the character. 

Note how the explosion make the camera rumble and the electric blast adds a rim light on the character.

I also looked at a few Spiderverse explosion screenshots, and looked at how the debris and smoke moved around.

For the electric energy, I experimented with a few colours, and found that the colours influenced the mood and personality of Moom:

Pure, powerful, solar energy?

Evil, malicious, forbidden energy? (Like Star Wars light sabers)

Sci-fi, digital energy?

Magical, neon energy?

In the end I stuck with blue as it a cool neutral, and provides interesting contrast from the orange and yellows of the fire and explosion. I tried to apply what I learnt to exaggerate and emphasis Moom's actions to give him appeal:

What went well:

• Just observing the case studies frame by frame made it significantly easier to animate and time it,
• This was really fun to animate,
• Both effects involved lots of lighting effects, adding rim lighting integrated the effects with the character better.

What could be improved:

• The crouch pose of Moom with electricity could be exaggerated further (but the focus is on the effects),
• The explosion could be improved with camera rumble for more immersion.

Moom (and gloom?) base animation

I finally rendered out and animated all the Moom base animation. I didn't need it to be perfect, just needed the movement to be there, although I did practice my 3d animation skills (and also animated the facial expression to help me visualise it)

(The sounds are simple, the focus here is on the fx work on top of it, but at the end of the day, I have an almost cohesive short showcasing my fx tests)

Smoke, steam and dust

Following the note on how vfx enhance anticipation and secondary action, I noticed a lot of the actions in the case studies relied on smoke, dust and steam to help sell the action and make acting more appealing. Using Actionvfx's large collection of free digital vfx, I tried to breakdown smoke and dust effects (alongside Joseph Gilland's Elemental Magic).

My case studies gave me an idea of what smoke and dust look in a stylised way:

Dust studies with spacing chart on the side - usually have a fast action and spread and a slower dissipation stage

I also did some tests to apply what I learnt to some Moom animation:

I decided to go with a lineless fire (since it glows) and smoke with a slightly darker outline following my fire styles experimentation. 

I also tested to see if the difference between smoke and steam was just its colour, but I found results similar to what Gilland explained.  

What went well:

• Analysing the different stages, (action, spread and dissipation) helped me time the animation better,
• The stomp and the fire allowed me to animate both smoke (from the fire) and dust (from the stomp),
• Making the steam react to the head bobbing helped give the steam a wave-like motion.

What could be improved:

• Using Actionvfx resources might not be too accurate, I could've used real reference (although that would be less safe?),
• The steam is too steady as it follows a straight line, even though I used After Effects to warp it a little, it's a bit too uniform,
• The smoke at the end of the fire is a bit too centralised and uniform, I should've added a few more wisps,
• The symbol on Moom's face might be distracting the appeal of 2d vfx.

Updated Game Plan

Instead of animating a 2D character to go with the 2D vfx, I decided to use Moom as a base. This saves time, and also lets me concentrate on the vfx more.

I roughly storyboarded the actions Moom would do and the fx to go with it. 

Updated "character design" of previous character, it's just Moom with symbols on his head.

Although Moom's face will be animated to help sell the action, it will be covered with the symbol so the effect of 2d vfx on appeal can be tested.

Fire Tests

Fire Swap

Since both Hades and the Beheaded One have different appeals, one being a protagonist and the other, an antagonist, I wondered how much their fire contributed to their character appeal. I decided to swap their 'fire styles' to test this.

I used scenes where their fires exploded and changed colour so their actions would be a controlled variable and true to their character. I animated a rough character (since that is not the highlight of this test), and animated these:

Hades animated with the limited animation style of the Dead Cells trailer 

The Beheaded One animated in an (almost) Disney style

In these 'new' versions, Hades feels like a more comical character, and less intimidating, while the Beheaded One feels like a strange, mysterious character. Needless to say, their appeal has definitely been affected by the style of fire.

What went well:

• Testing out the styles from before really helped while making these,
• Keeping the character animation unchanged helped show the effect the fire art style had on appeal,
• The fact that they are on opposite ends of their respective stories helped contextualise and prove that fx do influence character appeal.

What could be improved:

• A lot of this could be defined as character animation, I may have to try to find out the difference between character and fx animation.

Fire

By the second week, I felt fire was an easily recognisable and intriguing 2d effect, so I chose two characters whose fires play an important role in their character appeal. Hades and The Beheaded One.

I also did some studies of fire itself to familiarize (using reference footage of a bonfire on Guy Fawkes day):

To keep myself informed I also used an excerpt from the book, Elemental Magic by Gilland, J. (2009). Gilland states the difference between character animation and fx animation is that fx animation isn't restricted by the rules of character model sheets. All that matters is that one keeps the art style consistent, so I broke down the art styles of the two first:

I also tried to recreate the motion of the fire in its own art style

Although these gifs don't loop, it does provide me with a basic understanding of how the fire moves.

I also noticed that the fire is used a lot as secondary motion, to help sell a movement, but this is a different principle of animation (not appeal)

What went well:

• Using reference footage helped me understand the core mechanics of fire so I could apply it elsewhere,
• These fire types are constrasting, but are based in reality which could help explore my topic question (maybe I could try animating them in the opposite art style?),
• Breaking down the styles before trying to recreate the fire animation helped me get into the style of the fire.

What could be improved:

• Reference footage was for fire on a larger scale, I could have used more reference (online reference would be a safe alternative than making it myself),
• I should probably have looked at real fire first, I understand that these are stylistic interpretations of fire, and that by recreating it I am straying further from the original