The Evolve Concept
When you tell me make an Evolve effect, in essence, the first thing I’m going to think of it that you are asking me to make is a Morph effect. To create that effect, I think I would be using things like the procedural nature of Houdini (if I knew how) or morph targets to assist the creation of such an effect.
Yet for this months Official VFX Sketch, as far as I can tell what is being asked for is a state change, and the effects that sell that change. This intrigues me, as well as makes me go… I can’t do that. I don’t know how to do that.
SO! Here is what I’m planning to do, and figure out. I’ve always wanted to do something with the Epic Assets from Paragon. In particular, grab an animation and have effects occur that reflect the motions of such animation. Simply for the reference of the lot of you, I recommend giving Gideon, Kwang, Morigesh, Serath & Sevarog a look. These characters have a few animations that are very vivid casting animations, which as mentioned recently, is very low in supply.
Of those characters, after lots of analyzing and concepting on my part with so many of the animations, I’ve selected “Anim_Emote_Master_Levitate_T3” from the Character called Gideon as the starting animation, which will then transition to “Anim_LevelStart” from the Character called Sevarog.
In other words…
<Cheesy Dramatic 90’s Anime Music>
FOOLS! YOU HAVEN’T BEATEN ME! THIS ISN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM!
<Constipated Screaming>
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
<Constipated Screaming/>
Character off Screen: Oh. My Goodness. Look… he’s… CHANGEING!
… (20 minutes later)…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA… BUWAHAHAHAHA FOOLS! BEHOLD MY # FORM!
<Cheesy Dramatic 90’s Anime Music/>
In otherwords it’s Pokémon, but with more screaming. Neat.
Oh, and one more thing… I’m not going to care about the deadline for this, which honestly is a rather refreshing thing to say outright. I don’t care about the badge thingy, I care about the effect. So if next months subject is cool too, which it probably will be, bummer.
This is done when it is done, not when the month ends.
Things I don’t know / Weaknesses / Potential Problems
Skill – As usual, I’m doing something that feels to me WAY over my head.
Pre-Existing Assets – I’m building off of assets with a set Pre-Set Shader Structure that will make some shader based effects a touch more work then I would like. May present interesting problems.
Blueprints – I only just recently got a foot hold on how this system “thinks”. How it works. I am still very new to blueprints, I expect a lot of my issues will be wanting to do something but not knowing the “Code Node” if you will, the password of what I need to search to find what I need. Or the process of connections. That said, what I intend to do for now with blueprints isn’t too complex – I just want to trigger the whole of my effect animation and all through…
Sequencer – I’ve never used this. I’ve used matinee a little, but not Sequencer. I don’t know how powerful this newer tool is. LEARNING!
GDC’19 – I’m not going to be able to progress on this effect while at GDC 2019. 
Time … sort of. – This kind of rolls with the above, as what I have in mind VS what I know means I don’t know if I’ll “Finish” AKA Be Happy With within the month. That said, If I don’t – so what. This sucker is getting finished, as mentioned.
Life – Thus far, each time I’ve come back from GDC “with a plan” life has gone 0-110 REAL quick, and thus I’ve had to focus on other things. I… seriously… hope what has occurred doesn’t become a trend into this year, but if it does – I’ll disappear from this, and this will be unfinished. The exception to the rule.
Reference Ideas:
The Mask - Dorian Transformation.
Ghostbusters - Gozer Dissipating
Dragon Ball Z - Frieza’s First Transformation
Dragon Ball Z - Freiza’s Third Transformation
