I need a good blood splat effect, sudden, for example where somebody's head is hit with a mallet or their car runs into a wall. It needs to be sudden and cartoony and subside fairly quickly.
I find that everything I'm doing looks too slow or too fast. You can see some of the stuff at youtube.com/spogley. It needs to be comically violent, I just can't seem to achieve it.
Any pointers - would a particle layer be the way to go?
Blood splat
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
I always do this (gee, it sounds like my stuff is violent -- well, only in a funny way :>) with just a simple vector shape animated frame by frame. You can control pretty precisely the effect, but it WILL be quick (only a few frames or so for impact).
If you need guidance I'd suggest breaking down any cartoon in which this happens (and you like) -- easy enough to do directly in AS since you can load an .AVI as your background and step through it frame by frame (and even create your animation by tracing, although obviously you want to do this more as a learning exercise -- after you've done this route you can "make it your own" by adding in your own special touches.
Family Guy/American Dad have a lot of these.
If you need guidance I'd suggest breaking down any cartoon in which this happens (and you like) -- easy enough to do directly in AS since you can load an .AVI as your background and step through it frame by frame (and even create your animation by tracing, although obviously you want to do this more as a learning exercise -- after you've done this route you can "make it your own" by adding in your own special touches.
Family Guy/American Dad have a lot of these.
The trick is to animate less ...
A really violent splat would be done like this: one frame no blood, next frame all blood, then pulsating/flowing some time, but not longer than half a second. (The same trick applies to any hit: animate the anticipation, then the hit in just one fram, and some debris rolling around after taht.)
A really violent splat would be done like this: one frame no blood, next frame all blood, then pulsating/flowing some time, but not longer than half a second. (The same trick applies to any hit: animate the anticipation, then the hit in just one fram, and some debris rolling around after taht.)
It's funny to me sometimes how my tastes are at odds. I can watch and enjoy horror movies with no problem... but I have to cover my eyes during those real medical shows or even dramas like CSI or House. I can watch an alien rip someone apart but I close my eyes if someone is getting an IV or injection with a needle. Or they crack someones chest on ER to massage the heart. 
I never have learned to enjoy these "funny" blood splatter cartoons for some reason. I suppose if I grew up on a farm like my parents I would be able to appreciate it. My mother tells stories of her mother chopping the heads off of chickens and then they keep flopping around or even running.
-vern
I never have learned to enjoy these "funny" blood splatter cartoons for some reason. I suppose if I grew up on a farm like my parents I would be able to appreciate it. My mother tells stories of her mother chopping the heads off of chickens and then they keep flopping around or even running.
-vern
Thanks for all thoise helpful replies, which I've more or less got to grips with.
Re the blood, my stuff isn't actually gory, it's just this poor little sap who gets snuffed every week.
John Cleese was very interesting talking about the poodle flattening scene in A Fish Called Wanda. He said that they needed the scene but it had to be funny, not cruel. They finsihed up with the dog utterly flattened, like a pancake, in the road. He said it was the only way to do it, anything realistic simply looked cruel.
No one normal wants to see a dog crushed (well, not MOST dogs, anyway) so by making the denouement cartoon like, you made the scene funny, not sadistic.
Re the blood, my stuff isn't actually gory, it's just this poor little sap who gets snuffed every week.
John Cleese was very interesting talking about the poodle flattening scene in A Fish Called Wanda. He said that they needed the scene but it had to be funny, not cruel. They finsihed up with the dog utterly flattened, like a pancake, in the road. He said it was the only way to do it, anything realistic simply looked cruel.
No one normal wants to see a dog crushed (well, not MOST dogs, anyway) so by making the denouement cartoon like, you made the scene funny, not sadistic.