This has been an awesome sketch contest! I have definitely pushed myself to learn so much more than I did before starting this sketch and I really appreciate everybody’s love and support.
So I guess I’m late to the sketch-party but school kept me occupied all month. But now since its memorial day weekend I have some time to spend on this sketch! Its inspired by Chinese VFX Awesomeness stylized fire tornado spell. I really couldn’t find the artist name so if anybody does please do let me know. Here’s the artist’s QQ: 954461225.
Cool to see one of my favorite style, this tornado is already looking very good !
As for now i can’t think of any specific advice / critique, you’r heading in the right direction, but maybe some ground effect between the outer smoke and the inner tornado would do some more magic, just a thought
Thanks for your comments. I really love this style of FX too and really want to get better at doing them. I definitely agree to add some more ground effect elements between the smoke and tornado will give more magic! Will try to iterate on this for sure.
Thanks for the feedback. Changing intensity of the emitters over life time definitely sounds like a great idea! I will try adding that into it when I integrate the start & middle of the spell.
Woaw you make it look better in no time ! this ground effect really add some depth, it has some Monster Hunter Freedom unite vibes into it idk why, also the sparkles are much more alive too i like it better.
As a total beginner I was hoping you could maybe explane how you made the main body of the tornado. Is it just a mesh with some kind of panning texture or is it something more complected.
Hey dude. You’re totally on the right path. It is done using meshes with panning noise texture and alpha erosion. Also the “main body” of a tornado has Vertex Offset.
For modelling the actual mesh try using this method:
Lovely stuff. Good energy in there. The screen shake really adds up.
You could add some swirling fiery elements close to the core of the tornado to break the shape of it, something that blend well with the tornado. Probably larger in scale than your dots.
You could use a different texture on your bright dots (or even several of them for that matter). I’ve got something against round soft glow, I find them quite boring. The shapes on your dirt are so much more interesting!
It would be nice for you to export a longer sequence, this feels too short, I feel like I want to watch it for longer. (which is a good sign)
Added a start and end to the tornado spell! Still haven’t changed the main tornado yet. Been swamped with classes at school for the new month! I have everyone’s critiques in my notes, I promise I’ll try making as many improvements as I can before time limit!
Worked on timing and color values. Tried working on as many critiques as I could and going to call this done for now. GL to everyone else who also joined into the sketch!! Thanks for the help and support!
I think the start and end are weaker than the core of your tornado which has great qualities. I’d focus on that if I were you, you’d need a lot of work to get everything to the same standard.
I’ve put a hold on this piece for now because I’m swamped with my classes at school at the moment, but I’m totally interested in making it better when I get more time. I have your previous critiques in my notes.
How would you suggest changing the start and end to make it stronger?
To me it doesn’t feel like the start / end belong to the tornado.
How do you go from the round start to the tornado pillar? I’ve just noticed some elements rotate in the beginning, all I could seen the first 5 times or so was a growing ball. So I’d invert the emphasis. And maybe you shouldn’t even use that round shape at all.
Then I’d add some vertical motion during your quick transition to drive the eye upwards. The current pace with an almost instant transition is nice ans snappy but the motion in the 2 phases seems to contradict itself.
Then then end feels very void and empty. Where did all the matter go? It doesn’t feel like it vanished somewhere. Maybe get the debris to fall or make it feel like it really exploded. Right now it feels it’s just… gone unnaturally.
Find some way to make the motion harmonious. Again you were spinning upwards and suddenly the tower become a point. it doesn’t flow if you see what I mean.
I hope I’m not too harsh with you.
To be fair, since you have a lot to do, you could also just cut the start and end and focus on another assignment. The core of the tornado itself is very nice.
That being said, you’ll often have that sort of structure with effects: into / looping / out so this can be an interesting exercise.
Good luck !
Not at all!!! I totally appreciate you taking the time to give me tips and help make my FX better. I’ve been staring at it too long so I really needed an opinion on what I can do for the end and beginning.
Adding motion flow for the eye to follow is something I did not consider at all and will be very interesting to implement when I can find the time. I will definitely keep this principle in mind for all my future FX. Thanks a bunch for the detailed breakdown @mkalt0235.
For the most part i think mkalt got it, the end feels like it has nothing to do with the tornado itself, but concerning the begining i have to disaprove i guess it’s a question of taste, but the round shape feels like it belong to a naruto-ish style, it is a common thing in anime to use glowing energy ball for things like beam or explosion, it needs more motion and i totaly agree with that tho.
Maybe the glowing energy ball could like shake more and more until it expend verticaly into the tornado (releasing the energy abruptly),
as for the ending i would personnaly go for some swirling fire and smoke dissipation (my own opinion)
also with so much energy the ground should be burnt like crazy at the end of the effect
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I totally appreciate you taking the time to give me tips and help make my FX better. I’ve been staring at it too long so I really needed an opinion on what I can do for the end and beginning. 