automatic atomic mushroom clouds

dm · Post by dm » Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:30 pm

I have to emulate a number of different atomic blasts, so I was wondering if anyone had any ideas how I might automate that some. have to make a ball turn into a mushroom, as it's going up-and several times over with different shapes.

an aside: Producer on the job I'm doing right now made this comment:

"You animators spend more time trying to figure out how to save time than if you had just done the work".

thanks.

-dm

Oh, Anime Studio Pro, outlines of the blast (regular old flat cel look-no particles or anything fancy-sort of a 50's style pencil drawn look, actually)

DK · Post by DK » Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:33 pm

Holy Guacamole!!! I think making an Atomic blast is one of the hardest types of explosions to create let alone automate it......you could try seperating each of the elments of the blast into layers then duplicating them for each other explosion and playing around with the timing and sizing of each layer ,ie the undulating ring of smoke that slowly rises and the mushroom cloud.

EDIT: Here's a reference

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OMB-rnHo5 ... re=related

Looks like there's more than one smoke ring, you could probably break thre explosion down into about 4 layers.

Cheers
D.K

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:50 am

I don't know of any shortcut for this. So I would try to do it the old-fashioned way:

1. Study your reference material. Fortunately this is available in the 'net.
2. Do some pencil sketches on paper of the important stages.
3. Animate roughly the big volumes of the explosion until you have the right timing. In AS this could be done with just a bunch of semi-transparent circles, a kind of blocking.
4. Go over it and animate all the details, then inbetween carefully.

I must add that this is a task a frame-by-frame software would be better.

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:58 am

Take a look at these:
collideascope special fx
This studio has just closed down, so I don't know how long they'll be up there, but some great (traditional-type) fx tutorials if you're quick!

HTH

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:49 am

I've got an idea that seems to have worked ok in an initial test, I will do another that will probably prove better and post it , the anme file and an explantion.
I think it's pretty neat, a good problem to solve...

dm · Post by dm » Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:33 am

jahnocli wrote:Take a look at these:
collideascope special fx

It's on blogspot, so it may just stay around.

The smoke tutorial is down the right alley. Right sort of look too. Thanks for that. Maybe Flash is something to try. I'll have to mess with it some (I never use it)

Have to make the end forms-broad top, spherical top, etc. are most important. Figuring that some of the growth, and that 'stem' can be reused, with minor modifications.

Cartoons I've seen done already [mostly] just do a final shape without the whole growth (basically like six frames cycled for smoke rolls) Naturally, we need to do the whole thing (which I bet they'll cut to the typical 'shot' anyway).

I look forward to chucky's idea.

thanks again, all.

-dm

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:54 am

OK this is a very simplified version of what you could get using a quick particle effect with path for the particle layer plus copied groups with layer rotation in y, then another path for the whole lot.
Add a layer shadow on the topmost group which blends from a hot colour to a whole shadow for the cloud mass and you're done.

As I said it's rushed so I didn't bother maintaining the mushroom shape, the real point was the volume of the cloud with the rotation of the plumes, that was the trickiest bit, the rest is just tweaking.

I kept it as a quicker render for my own comfort, and I fudged the non cloud part too, but it wouldn't take much to make this into a full blown and realistic effect.
It might have some 3d ish qualities too as the layer rotations give it a 3rd dimension.
The trick was to keep the particle shape layer to rotate to camera and the path of the particles to have a z depth.
If you like it pm me and I'll send 534 kb anme file the file

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 11:26 am

Nice effect Chucky! I'd love to take a look at the file.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:22 pm

Yes, I would love to see that file... there is drool running down my chin and I have this creepy smile on my face.

-vern

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:42 pm

Wow!

dm · Post by dm » Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:17 pm

That's nice. Thanks for the effort.

Is there a way to make the particles render as a flat 'drawn'-looking thing?

-dm

toonertime · Post by **toonertime** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 5:03 pm

could you upload the AS file for us all
to pirate from?

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:34 pm

Good morning everyone, Hey thanks for the approval rating

.
Sorry I didn't post this before, I was caching some z's.
Ok, here you all go, below is the link for the anme file it, needs a little work to make it REALLY good.

..DA BOMB..

IF you want a toon render just take the blur off the shapes , you could even turn the lines on ,also take the blur off the shape shading as well.
Unfortunately there are many copies of the layer so, that could mean a rebuild of some kind or a one by one sort through, If I had known I would have done that, I was trying to decide myself whether to go toon or realistic.

If anyone makes improvements, it would be great to see how that goes.