THE 7 ENTRIES
- Attention Grenade
- Cuteclaw Grenade
- Glitch Grenade
- Lunar Bubblegum Grenade
- Pestilence Grenade
- Uhappiness Grenade
- Void Grenade
THE FINAL EFFECT
At the moment, this is the effect that I’ve spent more time on, so it’ll be my “finished” entry.
You might have to excuse the lack of a high quality video, but for some reason my video editing software broke. I’m currently trying to fix it.
WIP AND EXPLANATIONS
Hi there!
This is my first time participating in a sketch challenge. By doing so, I’m forcing myself to learn new tricks and techniques.
I’ll be updating and editing this post / thread, so keep an eye on it!
STAGE 1: THE CONCEPT
Everyday I’ve got a couple dead hours while travelling. Is in those boring moments when my brain tends to be more imaginative. That phenomena was kind of explained in this Vsauce episode, you should check it out! It’s really interesting.
Today, I’ve begun freeing the left side of my brain. While brainstorming, it’s ideal to writte down everything that comes up, and then, filter those ideas. But this time I did the filtering directly in my head.
Firstly, I chose one of the 7 proposed effects. I got inspired by a Bioshock idea that I really liked. Then, I thought of words that could spark the “aha!” moment. I used verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc. I then imagined a whole effect variation at a time, and wrote it down on my phone. One step at a time!
I’ll begin drawing those ideas soon. 
THE CHOSEN EFFECT
Grenades! That’s right. This is the one effect that brought a spark into my mind. Since to me, a grenade can explode into a multitude of things. I really like exploring and trying new things while stepping out of my comfort zone.
So now, I will share with you my initial 7 ideas for it.
- Pestilence Grenade: a big explosion opens a hole in the ground, from which a giant monster comes out, spits vomit and acid to the floor creating puddles and tries to bite everything that comes around.
- Glitch Grenade: This past weekend I saw Spiderman Multiverse, so I wanted to try out similar glitches to those ones appearing in the movie.
- Void Grenade: explodes, then balls with sharp blades come out of it, and inmediately after that, a black hole forms and sucks them in, slashing the air.
- Lunar Bubblegum Grenade: mutant sugar cubes attached to the floor by a lunar bubblegum, moving fast in all directions trying to free themselves and sprinkling toxic sugar all over the place.
- Attention Grenade: all eyes on you! Explodes with confetti, spotlights suddenly and incrementally appear, aiming towards the center. The floor begins to burn due to the spotlights heat and a beam of light rises up to the sky in a brutal manner.
- Cuteclaw Grenade: explodes into a burst of wool tangles, 5 to 10 small tangles, and a big one that stays in the center. This one explodes again, revealing a giant but cute cat paw that slashes through the air and impacts on the floor three times, producing a vertical glittery explosion per claw hit.
- Unhappiness Grenade: explodes into clouds, a rainbow appears, but since you’re colorblind, you cant see those vibrant colors, and therefore you begin to cry. A pair of circular sunglasses symbolize the eyes. A teardrop falls from each lens. On collision with the flor, they explode.
So, here they are! These 7 ideas are subject to change, but I’m feeling pretty confident with it.
Conceptwise, the idea of having a grenade with something else than a fire explosion, came from the vigor bottles in Bioshock Infinite.
So now… time to begin drawing those concepts.
The idea is to have 7 grenade models, each with a different design, and some animated hands that throw the grenade into the scenario. I want the user to be able to select the grenade too, so I’ll also need a user interface. Having this in mind, I’m currently thinking about the best way to convey this experience.
This is the concept for the hand animations. While the player is selecting the grenade, the hands move in an oscillating back and forth maner, teasing to throw it anytime soon. When the action button is pressed, the hands take the ring out of the grenade and quickly move out of the screen as if to imply the throwing movement. Then, the effect plays. Once the effect finishes, the hands return to their original position. By the way, the grenades I used in the image are the Maciej Hotel Yakuza Grenades from Ghost In The Shell, as I really like Maciej Kuciara’s art.
STAGE 2: THE CREATION
- Pestilence Grenade
This is a very rough block of the pestilence monster motion and timing. Gonna change its shape and overall design soon.
- Glitch Grenade
At first I thought that I’d use this pieces as a flipbook to create a glitchy look, but I ended up leaving them as normal meshes and assigning them different materials.
- Void Grenade
Void cube and blades model blocked, rigged and animated. Ready to implement. The hole mesh will be a sphere.
- Lunar Bubblegum Grenade
Base Lunar Sugar Cube blocked and animated, ready to be implemented. Used some IKs and bendy bones for the gum and the tongue.
- Attention Grenade
Spotlight model done, rigged and animated. Ready to be implemented. Fake volumetric light cylinder mesh done. Confetti needs to be done.
- Cuteclaw Grenade
Ball done, a simple spherified cube. The paw mesh has been blocked, rigged and animated, ready to be implemented.
- Unhappiness Grenade
Basic forms blocked for the sunglasses, rigged and animated. Ready to be implemented and animated into the effect. Clouds done, combining 3D and 2D. The rainbow needs to be done. The teardrop is done and ready to be animated.
- Generic Grenade
I made a generic grenade to use as a dummy for testing purposes. I want to create a unique model per grenade, but this will do until then.
- Hands
Both hands are blocked and animated. Tried to focus on secondary and overlapping action for the animation. Still didn’t spend too much time on them since they are not the primary focus of the project.
- UI
As for the implementation of the elements and the UI, I’ve already got the UI working. Choosing the grenade and using it, controlling the time with a slider, hiding / showing the UI.
