Strikes and attacks

(Epilepsy Warning: Contains Flashing Images!)

Strikes and attacks are some of my favourite 2D vfx (since its very easy to miss but adds a lot) so over the summer holidays, inspired by Into the Spiderverse and the Dead Cells trailer, I did some impact tests to mess around with flash frames:

I also couldn't actually use primary live action sources for this as it is a technique used to make motion easier to follow (it's basically motion blur with artisitic liberties). The Dead Cells trailer had lots of strikes and impacts, and by recreating it, I got the sense of speed and energy.

A simple swipe attack

Weapon attacks with medium energy spikes and camera shakes

A flash frame with a knife spark, abstract blurs too

The Moom test turned out to be quite interesting - I had two scenes, one was an aerial slice, and the other was the rock receiving multiple slices.

 The aerial slice was a straightforward, I simply needed to follow the arc of the slicing hand (or emphasise this, since the camera moved too), then manually add some motion blur, and correct the chaotic timing of the base Moom animation. I made the slice glow red a little to match the strike symbol on Moom's head:

Moom leaps into the air and slices the offender

The rock slicing was a bit more difficult to do, but I used the same arc principle to guide the motion. I also used the spark burst similar to the Dead Cells trailer, with the background flickering between black and white. To match the fx to the base, I put some subtle lighting effects on the rocks too:

(The rock slicing is a bit too flicker-y, but it should only be on screen for one loop)