[Help] How to achieve this kind of Dissolve?

[Sig]

Hey, there!

I’m really seduced by how the air/dust behaves on this work:

Pin en Efectos epicos

I’m not even sure if this is entirely a dissolve.

I followed the link and turns out the author is here on the forum with us!
He did a brief guide on how he achieved it, but I stumbled on things my starter mind still can’t comprehend.

Here is the link:

Write-up: Tornado & Explosion – Harry Alisavakis

He says:
“Uses a cutoff value to clip the pixels according to the texture’s grayscale value (without the rounding, for more values).”
I believe this refers to how he make part of the texture go invisible, is that right?

I’m working on this explosion effect and I made the sphere dissolve out in a smooth/gradual way, which I’m cool with…but the spinning energy dissolve is just awful hahaha. I think a more abrupt and chaotic dissolve will fit it better.

Anyway, can someone please elaborate a bit more on how to achieve this? Or drop a video/guide.

Edit: I just stumbled on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wMNpvsn7AY and I’m watching it right now.

Plus I want to add how things are set in for the dissolve of the spinning spiky piece:

[raytheonly]

Hello Sig!
First of I try to decipher the sentence for you. You did understand the gist correctly.

“Uses a cutoff value to clip the pixels according to the texture’s grayscale value (without the rounding, for more values).”

Cutoff: is basically the name of a value that fits the context.
Clip the pixels: clipping is also known as “discarding”. We discard the pixel information on that point, so we can see through the mesh. (the shader function is called clip())
texture’s grayscale value: greyscale textures are basically gradient information between 0 and 1 (mid gray being 0.5).
I try to rephrase it “we use a value to discard pixels with the texture as reference on which pixels to discard”

For more information on that topic, there is a great thread on this forum:

What is your Alpha/Opacity Mask/Clip/Erode Animation workflow like?

Hi! I love opacity mask animation in shaders! I’m usually utilizing the Blend function on Illustrator to create “blended” shapes and it’s viable for simple shapes but when you go for a pattern, it quickly gets out of hand so I’m wondering if there’s an easier solution. A super simple example I’ve created to demonstrate my workflow: (Of course, I would have created the shape in shader with Math operations but this is for the sake of an example ) These are just 2 triangles: …

What I can give you as feedback already:
I like to break down components of an effect into primary, secondary and tertiary “layers”.
Primary is mostly for information purposes and the base of the effect.
Secondary is for emphasizing movement and impact of the primary.
Tertiary is for parts that could be left out, but help to give it footing in the world.

In Harry’s explosion I would break it down as
Primary: the fire orb and the orange glowing around it.
Secondary: the darker contrasting orb swirl and the grey-brown “dirt”
Tertiary: imo none. it could be some sort of pebbles that get blasted away in this example.

I hope this helps you!

[Sig]

@raytheonly

Hello Sig!
First of I try to decipher the sentence for you. You did understand the gist correctly.

“Uses a cutoff value to clip the pixels according to the texture’s grayscale value (without the rounding, for more values).”

Cutoff : is basically the name of a value that fits the context.
Clip the pixels : clipping is also known as “discarding”. We discard the pixel information on that point, so we can see through the mesh. (the shader function is called clip())
texture’s grayscale value : greyscale textures are basically gradient information between 0 and 1 (mid gray being 0.5).
I try to rephrase it “we use a value to discard pixels with the texture as reference on which pixels to discard”

Hey, Ray! Thanks for clarifying. I believe this “translation” is beyond welcome by newbies - me included.

After a lot of trial and error and more than 10 hours on the PC, I got to something I like!
Here it is: Screen capture - f0ff00efca13f39785caca0f696af85b - Gyazo
It is still a WIP and I plan to change some stuff already.

@raytheonly

For more information on that topic, there is a great thread on this forum:

Hi! I love opacity mask animation in shaders! I’m usually utilizing the Blend function on Illustrator to create “blended” shapes and it’s viable for simple shapes but when you go for a pattern, it quickly gets out of hand so I’m wondering if there’s an easier solution. A super simple example I’ve created to demonstrate my workflow: (Of course, I would have created the shape in shader with Math operations but this is for the sake of an example slight_smile ) These are just 2 triangles: …

Others have linked me this post too. I kept revisiting it to understand some stuff hahaha.

@raytheonly

What I can give you as feedback already:
I like to break down components of an effect into primary, secondary and tertiary “layers”.
Primary is mostly for information purposes and the base of the effect.
Secondary is for emphasizing movement and impact of the primary.
Tertiary is for parts that could be left out, but help to give it footing in the world.

In Harry’s explosion I would break it down as
Primary: the fire orb and the orange glowing around it.
Secondary: the darker contrasting orb swirl and the grey-brown “dirt”
Tertiary: imo none. it could be some sort of pebbles that get blasted away in this example.

I hope this helps you!

Hmm I like this layering way of thinking.
Hmmm I agree there is no tertiary layer on the explosion. One could say the air/dust, but I think that is way too bold to be a tertiary. I think it is crucial for the impact, hence secondary. Though I believe if this effect were to be implemented in a more “general” way, like “normal” skills/abilities which are used constantly, this big air/dust would end up being left out or “minimized”.

Thanks for your attention! And yeah, it surely helps!