Can you recommend me resources that go as in depth as possible about timing explosions? Like times, speeds, size, physics etc. And how to push it for the best player/viewer experience.
I’m wondering if some gold is hiding in tutorials that are specific to a software/engine so I’m not coming across it. I wouldn’t mind watching tutorials regardless of the software if I learn about timing and shaping the experience in general.
The best I’ve found so far are the feedback videos on the VFX Apprentice Youtube channel btw. I might sign up for their monthly at some point. Unfortunately the new stylized course might be what I’m looking for but is out of my budget.
(Please don’t suggest to just look at real references, I’m already doing that)
In my experience, and what most seasoned VFX artists seem to miss, is that a good explosion isn’t just about the hotspot and pyroclastic clouds, it’s about what happens in the following scenes. For a blast to feel real and impactful, the effects should be seen and felt for many seconds afterwards. This might be an invisible blast of hot air which reaches your target, blowing back hair and clothes, blowing out windows, and it might mean debris raining down all over the place, kicking up all kinds of secondary effects after the initial blast has cooled.
Also, I find a lot of pyro artists don’t play with color enough. We usually see a single variable driving color based on age, density, heat and pressure, but who’s to say you can’t toss a few color generators into the mix - different materials burn with different color flames so give us a break from the standard orange to grey and add some complimentary colors. Give us something we don’t expect. CG pyro is a dime a dozen these days so sit back and consider the meaning of your scene, and give us something we haven’t seen before.
Thank you so much, that was super useful! The secondary effects reminded me of a talk by the creator of the Unity asset ‘Feel’. He talked about that what makes flying a helicopter so much fun is the stuff on the ground getting bend and blown away.
The colors are a good point too, especially in games. It’s common to see any kind of mono color, but rarely interesting combos like your orange/green. I’ve been challenging myself to always create some color combos that I feel like shouldn’t work (and most often they don’t when I do it, but at least I’m getting better).
Anyhow, thanks again and for my next practice VFX I’ll go totally overboard with the aftermath to explore it more.
