Hey, all. Long time on-and-off lurker of these forums. This is my first entry. I’ve mostly only done FX for my own hobbies/personal projects and would appreciate any feedback!!
My thought process is an ability similar to Diablo’s barbarian war cries. Anyone within the radius of this, would receive increased defense (and swirling rocks/yellow wisps). So I went with the obvious symbolism of rocks and accented with the color yellow, since a lot of video games have adopted yellow to represent shield over health.
Hey, don’t take me too serious because I’m still just a beginner.
About the Ground Blue Ring/Shockwave
I noticed the blue ring on the ground shrinks near it’s death - what do you have in mind for that? It came to me that, maybe, you wanted to make it feel like the energy gathered back to the center and that energy formed the shield. If that is the case, I think you should work more on that so the energy gathering back is more noticeable.
It vanishes way too fast in my opinion. Maybe it could linger for a little while before fading out, so the range of the spell is more noticeable/readable. You could also try to use other elements besides the Ground Blue Ring/Shockwave, like some kind of energy or grouned cracks, I don’t know.
Plus, maybe have the HDR cranked up for a moment when the spell “hits”, again for making it’s range more readable when it’s cast.
About the rocks that come from under the ground:
Add more stuff to it? Make it more impactful, bold. The way it comes out of the ground feels a little timid for me. It could be some kind of energy, sparks, or ground cracks around the area. Make it more contextualized so it’s more believable. Bear with me: “what is making them get out of the ground? Is it a stomp? This stomp generates some energy, so let’s make this energy more noticeable. And, since its a stomp on the ground and rocks are getting out of it, maybe ground cracks are welcome in the area where the rocks show up”
Even though I said all of it, be careful to not go over to the point it’s way too polluted/noisy. If you have too much going on, the effect can lose the initial purpose.
Hey! Thanks for the thorough critique!! I will try and play more with the timing, textures, and color of the wave. I think right now it runs too parallel to the rocks so the rocks lose a lot of their impact. I’ll try and make some anticipation with it, hopefully that gives the rocks more “oomph” via contrast.
Update:
discarded the rotating wisps and went with a more explicit symbol for a powerup/defense. Added more oomph to the ‘activation’ part of the buff with camera shake and a light source.
A little hard to work with the anticipation part of the FX, as I’m basing this off a Diablo/ARPG style buff - where you expect some immediate feedback/effect.
Hmm I’m not a big fan of the genre so I might be suggesting stuff leaning in a different mood/intent.
I would sync everything for maximum impact: Stomp happens, then: Shockwave + Rocks growing out of the floor + Dust + Debris coming up + Camera Shake
Shockwave
Hmmm I think the shockwave could grow faster to it’s final size and lingers a little before fading out.
Dust
For me it feels a little bit off for the dust to show up after the Rocks have fully grown out of the ground
I believe the dust kinda “outshines” the rocks. Plus, the way it looks right now - mainly it’s color and size - makes it harder to notice the rock shapes. I would tweak it’s size so it grabs less attention of the eye and it’s color so it gets a little bit more “contrasty” when near the rock shapes.
Is there a way to set the dust quads to be rendered behind the rock shapes? You could try that too.
Floating Spining Rocks/Shield
It looks cool already, but I would set different spinning speeds for different sizes. Like, have the smaller ones go faster them the bigger ones. Maybe have more “layers” of it, with different sizes, speeds and proximity from the character. Also, I believe some airy/dust would pair well
