Shiwa - sketchbook

hi all! im leaving the youtube tutorial nest to create some of my own vfx, hopefully for potential portfolio pieces, so i decided to start a sketchbook so i can get some feedback n share what im working on.

for my first piece, im doing a fireball spell w a celestial theme. here’s where it’s at:

let me know what u think n if u have any notes or pointers thx !!!

2 Likes

been a while since i used this, but thought i should revive it to keep a record and to hold myself accountable !

i saw a great reference for a grass-type sword slash, and it gave me the idea for what im working on atm:
grassblade_combo_compressed

3 Likes

made a little bit of progress ! i added a dummy and some hit effects but i thought it was still lacking for a portfolio piece so i decided to spice it up a bit. im thinking now of how i might make the third hit extra special. off the top of my head i could make the slash bigger and add a zelda-type sword beam, but feel free to throw me any other ideas or suggestions while i go reference hunting ^-^

grassblade_combo2

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been lazy and not making much progress but managed to do some. i pretty much followed through with my original idea for the last attack. it does feel a little lazy and uninspired but i also felt like the animation i chose doesn’t give me a lot to work with in the first place so oh well! i edited it a bit to at least give it more drama.

grassblade_combo3

im pretty happy with how the charge turned out! although i sort of built it weird and ended up spending way too much time needlessly overengineering it.

grassblade_combo4

i used ribbons following invisible sprites which were animated using the rotate around point module so i could more freely adjust their position and curvature as well as evenly distribute them. however, that module only writes the points’ positions, and so they have no velocity, which was an issue when i wanted to add little grass particles following the curvature of the trail. also for some reason i had decided to make the trail points rotate around the camera’s forward vector, even though the camera is in a fixed position… but at least it’ll be useful if i ever want to capture another angle!

i think im getting close to the finish line with this, so i’ll do my best to stay motivated and keep chugging along these next couple days!

2 Likes

been keeping the ball rolling and im just abt there! i added a good bit of polish and most importantly changed the sword beam to a tornado which makes more sense thematically with what im going for and because i already use subtle wind elements (which might need to be reinforced) and curl noise forces. here’s what i have now:

grassblade_combo5

i don’t think there’s much left to do. i do think the tornado doesn’t feel very grounded so i want to add a dark grass patch trail following it. the hard shadows have also been bothering me for some time, and i think the dummy could get a little bit more airtime, but please feel free to leave any other feedback or suggestions!! whether it be in the textures, timing, or presentation, i want to make this as good as possible before i grow tired of looking at it, and i have no doubt that i’ve become blind to some things at this point.