oh hey guys let's talk a little bit
about the process and the thinking that
I went through creating the visual
effects for spirit firebrand
so in this breakdown I'm only gonna talk
about the stuff that's playing on him
when he's not casting abilities so here
we've got the fire in his hands and the
headdress and those we would call idle
particles
it's the particles or the effects that
play all the time whenever he's just
running around or just standing there so
I'm gonna break it down between two
parts we'll start with the hands and
then we'll start and then we'll move on
to the headdress and when you're
thinking about these different effects
the number one thing I want to look at
is how they relate to the rest of his
body
so first with the hands I'm looking at
you know these bright colors and at
first when you see this you think oh
it's dark energy right but there's a lot
more going on to in it than just dark
energy there's also some light parts
we've got different things like the
pinks and the cyan color and then the
dark dark purples and blacks so let's
look at the different components that
work together to make up those hand
effects that we see there first up first
off we've got the globe and in this case
because I want to do dark magic I'm
gonna invert the glow and I'm gonna make
it black so it's not light at all you
can see the texture that we've got down
here and then on the left it's just a
simple fuzz ball and then I'm gonna
break down how that fuzz ball moves
which the first you might be thinking
Jason the fuzz ball isn't moving
but once we see the outline on there
let's see what I mean
so get this outline going and you can
see now that the balls are growing and
shrinking which adds this really subtle
movement to that dark mist that's
floating around his hands another cool
side effect that we get to doing the
texture this way is that his fingers
kind of clip through that dark and so it
looks like he's kind of holding on to
the darkness right in his hands coming
out of the darkness and it's dipping
back into it it's a nice side effect of
doing it this way next up we've got
these glowy bits now this texture here
that you see on the left was actually
created by a different artist
and you'll see that there's a bit of
genius to it that the artist was
thinking
so they've offset the different spots
slightly from the center you can see the
four different quadrants there are the
four random dots that it'll pick and
play here and by offsetting those the
dots kind of dance around a little bit
in his hands which creates a nice effect
if we look at the outline on this
particle we can see that they're coming
in all different rotations and that the
width and the height that's scaling over
time it's actually spawning a lot of
these little dots to add up to make that
look in his hands and then we'll slow it
down a little bit here so that you can
see some of the motion and how the color
transitions over time so these dots are
basically hasn't slowed down yet there
we go not slow so these dots are
basically like I said earlier working
together to create one kind of mood or
piece right and you can kind of see as
it's in slow motion that there even
though they're all spawning in the same
location because the dot is offset
slightly it's shifting around a bunch
and then that color over time goes from
that bright teal down to that pink as it
fades off and that's a nice color depth
to it we're just working with a you know
a white dot over there but because I'm
thinking it over time as it transitions
it creates this kind of like prismatic
rainbow effect in the center and this is
going to be the core of the effect or
the bright spot it's gonna pop out
against that dark you'll notice that
each one of these colors exists on
brands body so he's got the purples and
he's got the teals
and by hitting a range of colors
together I can achieve a little bit more
color down okay so here we've got the
dark flame and we can see this is
picking between eight different flames
you can see the texture there over on
the left that I used so one of those
eight is appearing randomly in his hand
and they're scaling up and it's going
down and these have a slight color shift
over time you can kind of make it out
here they're going between like a bluish
and a purplish but it's all really
really dark so it's kind of hard
see without slowing down a little bit so
we slow it down and you can see that as
it's fading out it's going into that
reddish kind of color you can especially
see it over on the right side out on the
edge there it's going from dark dark
blue to dark dark red as it scales down
and they're also moving really quickly
which makes a very chaotic kind of vibe
to the whole thing which is nice so this
is going to work with that dark fuzz
ball that we saw earlier to create a
feeling of that dark magic and I make
sure that that darkness is rendering or
the distorts behind that additive
element that I created earlier along
with the the next additive element that
you're going to see in a minute but like
I was saying earlier the colors are all
colors that we find on brands so that it
feels unified it feels like the energy
is coming from him and then it's a part
of him here we've got the other additive
element you can see here that they're
also moving very quickly very rapidly
and chaotically and as they travel
upward they're getting really big really
fast so it feels like a nice
concentrated energy at the bottom where
it's bright cyan and then as it fades up
quickly and rotates it goes into these
these pink colors and then once we show
that cards here you can see that it's
only randomized like only some of the
textures are getting really big but a
lot of them are staying really small and
that can be done with a you know random
numbers in the effects engine that I
work with so that only a few of them get
really big and it feels kind of like you
know he's a little like you know
aggressive puffs and jolts and that kind
of thing that are jumping up out of his
hands again it has the chaotic feeling
which brand is all about uncontrolled
chaotic energy so it works pretty good
so that's all the different elements
that work together in his hands and
these elements together are all what we
call camera facing quads quad because
it's a square you can see they're all
just on the square card in the one case
made it a rectangle because it's
stretched and camera facing because no
matter where you move the camera we see
the same textures over and over again
and here they all are
altogether you can see just how much
color depth there is because the colors
are all over the place but I've placed
the certain colors in certain places to
achieve certain results generally
speaking on this color palette the
scions are the hot points where it's
brightest and then the dark purples and
Pink's are where the energy is cooled
off and expanded out and kind of burned
off and yeah so all the colors work
together in harmony we made sure to pick
a palette that we could stick to and
that worked I actually had to experiment
quite a bit to find a palette that
worked and this is what we landed on and
it kind of goes together pretty nicely
so that was the hand effect now we're
gonna move on to the headdress the head
dress has some really wacky stuff going
on this is kind of cool because we're
gonna start breaking that down as well
to figure out what makes it up so we can
see that it's glowy it's the highlight
of the character he's darkest at the
bottom and then up at the top he's the
brightest with the most contrast so to
get that contrast we need this dark
texture first and this texture here on
the left that you see is just the simple
painted spikes that we put on to what we
call mesh that's attached to the head
and this is what the mesh looks like
it's just a 3d shape that moves wherever
the head moves right and it's blinking
here because it's one fading in after
another which kind of again like this on
the hands creates that kind of ambient
fading effect with that misty dark shape
so this is going to be the backdrop
that's gonna help the brighter colors
pop out and have contrast on top of the
darkness next up we've got the base
texture of the headdress and this one is
an additive render mode which basically
means it's like there's a light shining
on it versus just a you know simple
color that's blended into the background
just makes it feel more glowy when you
look at it and that guy's just paint it
onto another mesh now to kind of show
you a little bit more of how this
texture works I put it on a flat card
here for you
and you can see that this flat card it
kind of has this weird like ghosting
feeling to it like it kind of the edge
of it seems to be vibrating just
slightly and by showing the outlines of
the mesh you can see a little more
clearly what I mean so you'll notice
that it's spawning multiples of this
card or this mesh right and they're
sliding back just ever so slightly away
from Graham's head which case that
little bit of a gap in that a little bit
of a fade over time and you can see how
the colors are fading up there on the
edge because the edge is picking up the
color fade that we put into the effect
so that's the texture all splayed out
and then here's another texture that's
going on this one actually tiles top to
bottom which means that it repeats you
know if you look up at the top of the
texture and then down at the bottom of
it you'll notice that the two hook up
together seamlessly that way I can just
infinitely scroll this texture up over
the mesh constantly and it creates this
interesting like wispy feeling to it
pretty simply by just painting wisps
right and then we map that instead of
just being to a card we map that to the
actual headdress shape so here it is
scrolling on that headdress and along
with the texture is growing up we've
also got this mesh doing the same thing
as the other one which is that
undulation where it's like spawning
multiples of the mesh that feedback
words and this is kind of a trippy frame
I know it might look like your camera's
doing weird things or the monitors doing
great things but that's just the
multiples of that mesh constantly
spawning and moving backwards away from
the camera and so it's also changing
color over time from Blue's to purples
just slightly to give it that that nice
flavor of color that blends together so
here's the scrolling mesh with the base
mesh together and because they're both
additive the whites and the the right
sides are blending together they're
adding together and it creates this
feeling like they're one texture like
there's one object even though they're
two separate elements that I layered
together they're blending mode allows me
to
this illusion that feels like it's
pulsing energy like it's coming out and
then we add on the the dark shape which
is slightly bigger and that gives you
the nice dark outline which again
creates the feeling of negative energy
right it gets this dark magic because
it's surrounded encased and shrouded in
this black mist so we've got all those
together and then I just added something
very similar to what we saw earlier on
the hands down on his head to kind of
fill in that space but that way when
he's walking away from the camera you
don't just see a bald head underneath
his his mask there and that's what we've
got here so there's all the effects
working together we've created a
hierarchy of emphasis down at the bottom
of his feet is the darkest part of the
character we ignored putting any effects
on his body all of the lighting down his
body that you see is just painted on
there it's static it's not doing
anything
so put all the emphasis out on his hands
and up on his head and it all works
together to draw your eye and to make
you feel like he's full of dark energy
and he's striking some cool poses the
things pretty highly of himself thinks
he's pretty awesome
a lot of dark magic energy going on and
then we're gonna see him walking around
a little bit here in the dragon pit so
you can see it from some other angles
you see that dark magic coming off of
his hands some of the particles are
bound to his hands and others kind of
stay where they spawned and so it looks
like leaving a trail when he walks
around so there's brand and I hope you
guys learned something