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Hello, everyone.

Havtza here.

And today, we're going to talk about effects in animation.

Up until now,

we focused on animation of characters and object

that have a rigid and constant form

and behave in a realistic manner.

But animation is actually way more than that.

Morphing, shape shifting, magic, fire, water, explosion

and even moving inanimate objects.

All of them is something that is quite common in animation,

and they give you a lot of creativity and personality

whenever you're trying to add something interesting to your project,

not to mention that effect animation looks quite impressive as well

when it's well done

and really sells the impressions of your scene

or even can be the focus of it,

if they're interesting enough.

Today,

I'm going to teach you about the effect

and showing you examples of simple materials

that you encounter a lot in animation.

FX or VFX are the actual names of visual effects in animation.

This is the symbol that you're going to see written

whenever there is an effect involved in your shot.

These are additional animated elements

which add detail and impact to a scene,

and they can be also used to give your entire scene

a more realistic and grounded feel

as well as sell the impression of your character

actually interacting with the environment.

These effects can either be environmental effects

that are part of the background,

such as rain, smoke, water bodies, fire, etc.

Or they can be motivated by the character action themselves,

such as having magic or interaction with the environment

when stepping or when going into or out of body

of water, interacting with different object, etc.

There are also effects that come directly from the character,

such as tails and wounds.

The way that we design an animated effect

will really change the overall look and mood of the animation.

Your effect needs to both fit the character design,

work with the background

and be readable to the viewer

while keeping its purpose of adding detail and liveliness to a scene.

Effects follow the same animation rules and techniques

of any other object that we've animated so far.

They're still going to be affected by the same environmental sources

such as gravity and friction,

and be animated with the same animation rules

as the ease in, ease out, and smear frames that we've done before.

You will use the same timing patterns

to sell the actions and movement of your effect,

as well as use the same types of techniques

that we've done with any other animation,

such as smear frames, impacts and delays

but because effects usually don't have just one simple, rigid shape

that we can refer and divide into parts,

they're also going to be moving a lot more like character details

than actual concrete objects.

Also, a lot of the time,

your effects are going to be energy and force sources themselves

so they're going to move in ways

that are unusual and that we haven't seen before.

Most effects will move using a wave pattern

similar to the way that we've done

with the animation of objects in the last lesson.

The main difference is that most effects

don't have the rigid structure of the character details

and the waves don't result from tension,

and thus they will have more random changes

in the overall shape of the effect

with greater flexibility in morphing and overall different timing

than what we've seen before.

I like to divide the wave pattern

that I'm using into three simple types.

The first type is the blob,

which will appear and change size

from the beginning to the end of the animation loop.

I usually use this type of blob animation with the fire or energy effects

because it seems like it's coming in actual waves or pulses

and you can have a lot of variation

with the timing of each individual blob.

It will let you have a lot more interesting effects

because it would still seem like it's moving

even when the timing is delayed or randomized.

The second wave pattern is the S-curve.

This is most similar to what we've seen with tension.

But unlike tension,

we don't need to have a concrete and repeating pattern for the tension points

because we don't have tension.

Here, we just make a random wave,

but still keep the entire movement consistent

so you don't get to just randomly change the size

or the shape of the movement

and you do need to follow a concrete

and constant starting point in your wave.

The last pattern is the random wave,

which is basically a combination of the two previous wave type.

With this, you can both create pulses and changes

and shifts in the direction of the entire effect

in a way that creates more randomized and natural looking effects.

This type of wave pattern is a little bit more complex

and you can play a lot with it

and I mostly use it

when I want to create more detailed effects,

such as realistic looking fire

or any type of detailed water and spray effects.

This type of wave is typically characterized and recognized

by the large amount of shifts

in the entire volume of your effect.

Basically, with this type of wave,

you can kind of do whatever you want

as long as the entire movement looks coherent.

Once again,

the timing of the wave pattern is

what is going to give your animation, energy and personality.

So faster wave will create more energetic effects

in comparison to a slower pace,

which will give a calmer and smoother appearance.

Also with effects, it's actually more interesting

to combine different frame rates

on different elements of the effect.

With effects,

you can use both 2s and 3s and 1s,

but I personally recommend only using 2s and 1s

because the effects will have large amount of change between each frame

which looks better with higher frame rate

since you're trying to use a lot of quick movements.

You can also create main movements in 2s

and add additional details in 1s,

which creates a really interesting effect

when you're making your animation

or you can alternate between 1s, 2s, and 3s

in the actual effects

to give emphasis to certain shapes which looks nicer,

as well as play around with the timing

and make your overall animation more interesting.

For this,

you will need to separate your effect layer into separate layers,

with each frame being duplicated

a different number of times to achieve different pacing within layers.

In conclusion,

when trying to animate your effect,

you need to really think about the implications

of the movement that you're trying to make

and the internal properties of your object's material.

You really need to think about which forces are acting on your effect.

Usually it's going to be gravity,

but at a distance or internal tensions are going to affect

the way you animated as well

and with taking into account

your shape design and the purpose of the effect in your scene,

you will need to make changes

to the overall timing and size and details of it.

The really important thing is to make sure

that the effect tells the idea clearly.

If you want your character to interact with the environment

and put around dust clouds,

you don't want the dust to overpower the actual action.

If you want to have a magic effect,

it might be the focus of the scene

so you want to make it much bigger and more noticeable

than what you will normally have.

If you want to sell the illusion of power

or inherent friction or characteristics of the effect,

you might want to use delays in certain frames

so the audience can have a clear view of it.

And if you want to sell the idea

of your effect having a lot of force behind it,

you might want to actually make it affect the environment.

Each decision such as this will determine

which wave pattern you're going to use, which design shapes,

and which timing and techniques

that we've used in the previous lessons

are going to fit best with what you have in mind.

And always remember that

by playing around with the timing and trajectories of your effect

and creating multiple variations to them,

you will create a more interesting and aesthetically pleasing effect.

You really don't want your effect to bother your audience.

So shifting your effect around

and even making it less realistic

just to sell the impression of it

is better than having a repeating effect,

which is boring and distracting.

The next thing to consider when animating your effect is shape design.

Your shape design is going to affect the overall look of the animation

and the type of wave pattern that is best for you to use,

because not all type of designs are going to work

with all types of patterns.

If your design is too smooth,

it might look weird with randomized pattern,

while if your design is too random,

making a smooth or constant pattern

might make it look weird or very repetitive.

This kind of mistakes in the design and wave pattern

can result in very distracting and unpleasing animations.

So it's important to match the shape to the type of effect

that you're trying to create.

Your design also needs to fit

the overall art style of your project and background.

For example,

a more detailed and realistic effect will not work well

with extremely stylized animation

because it will feel jarring when compared to the surroundings,

especially if it's a background effect.

In comparison,

a very stylized effect on an otherwise realistic project

will still be jarring,

but it can also result in a very unique effect

while you seem like you're taking advantage

of the medium of animation

and creating something that is otherworldly in your regular environment.

This is often seen with magic effects,

but this also means that the effect

would not seem like it's part of the environment or the regular world.

So you need to use this type of change in style wisely,

depending on the setting of your project.

It can still be an issue

when trying to animate effects in actual environment

where you seem like you're taking advantage

or they might break the audience's engagement.

The best way to design your effect

is actually to match it to the background.

So first you need to understand

the shape language and art style of the background

and then match your effect to it.

So if your background is composed

of a lot of very realistically drawn details,

making your effect more realistic is a better choice.

While if your account is composed of very simple shapes

or a very flat composition,

it might be better to make your effect more shape based

and make it more stylized.

Extremely stylized effects in an otherwise realistic environment

is still acceptable,

but you do need to understand the implications and risk to it,

as well as make sure that it still looks pretty in the frame

and not too distracting.

Once you have the shape design or visual effect,

you need to think about which pattern will make it look best.

So if you know that your design is more of a pulse-like animation,

it's better to use something like a blob or a randomized wave pattern.

But if you have something that is more long and calm,

it might be better to use the S wave pattern.

You can see this more clearly

when you're trying to animate water, energy, wind

or any other type of rhythmic animation.

The duration of the effect on the screen

is also important when deciding

which wave pattern and shape design you use

because if your effect is constant,

you want something that can be made into a loop

but if you're only showing the effects for a one time use,

or if the effect itself is more like a pulse,

you want something that can start and fade.

So for repeating animation, you can use either wave,

but for something that works like a pulse,

using the blob specifically is more useful

because you have a very clear start and ending point for your effect.

After you decide on your shape, design and wave pattern

that you're going to use for your effect,

it's important to know what timing you're going to give it.

Now, even if your animation is a loop

or if you're trying for a single pulse,

you still need to know

if you want it to move slowly, quickly,

accelerate, decelerate or create any other type of complex trajectory.

For this trajectory,

we're going to use the same effects as we've done before

with the same acceleration patterns of ease in and ease out

as well as trying and make the entire effect

follow a single point with the center of mass method,

even though the effect itself might not have a mass.

You can still break it down into simple parts

depending on how much movement

you want to have in each individual one of them.

You also need to match the type of wave patterns

along the entirety of the effect

so if you have something that is quite big on the screen,

such as the animating water or any other liquid in the environment,

or having a very big fire or wind

which affects the entire screen,

you want to divide each individual part in the effect

into its own small animation, which follows its own trajectory.

This will give more variation and more interest to the overall effect.

But what you also need to consider

is that the amount of detail affects the timing of your animation,

because if you want your effects

to be clearly seen and understood by the audience,

the more details you're going to give it,

the more frames you want to use to show it.

This, of course, clashes with the idea

of using the timing to show the energy

and the overall movement of the effect.

But because you have more details,

it actually might work better

to slow down and elongate the timing on certain parts of the effects

that you want to give emphasis to.

Otherwise, you might not be able

to actually see the effects correctly.

So here, unlike where we're animating objects

which are more rigid,

we might want to stretch reality a little bit

just to give emphasis and a more aesthetically pleasing look to the animation.

Here you can see that

if I want to sell the effect of the water drop

having more details,

I need to lengthen the entire effect a little bit

just to give us more time

to actually properly animate each part of the effect.

But when the water drop is a little bit more simple,

it's okay to make it move quickly

because you don't need to absorb quite as many details.

The inherent properties of the materials that you're animating

are also important for deciding the timing.

If you want to show a certain characteristics clearly,

you need to give enough time for the audience to see it

when adding animation of effects with a lot of details.

So for example,

if you want to show something that is more powerful

or something that has elasticity,

you might want to add a delay

on the important frames that clearly show that effect.

So again, you're going to stretch the timing a little bit

just to make sure

that the idea of the effect itself is communicated effectively.

When it comes to animating your effect,

you need to consider both the properties of the material of the effect,

the wave pattern that you're choosing to represent these properties

and how your shape design is going to affect your timing

with the amount of details

and wave patterns that you've chosen.

Different types of materials will react differently

depending on their own internal properties.

By understanding

where your affect originates from, what inherited property it has,

and what are the forces that affect the effect in the surrounding,

you can predict the trajectory,

the effect we'll take

and use the correct timing, spacing and wave pattern.

I'm going to be demonstrating this idea

with a couple of examples of different types of materials.

Starting with a fire blast effect,

here I chose to have a fire which originates from a single source

and works around the screen in a pulse pattern.

Here, I'm going to make the fire disappear after the initial pulse

but if I wanted to make the fire stay on the screen for a longer period of time,

I would have chosen a pattern which allows for repeated movement,

such as the S-curve or a repeated blob

as opposed to a single blast.

It also means that I would've kept the entire effect a little bit more contained,

because I would want to be able to clearly tell

where it starts, finishes

and its presence at every single moment of its appearance on screen.

A fire blast is kind of similar to a ball throw

because it only has force propelling it at the start of the movement

and the rest of it is continuing to do the momentum.

This means that the fire is going to decelerate

while losing its energy

and because it loses its energy,

it's going to expand more and more while losing the original trajectory

because the energy of the fire itself needs to disperse into the environment.

Because this fire doesn't have a fuel source,

it's going to disappear when losing its energy.

So basically I'm having a pulse or blob wave pattern

with a small concentrated fire at the beginning

that slowly fades into the environment

before completely disappearing again.

The reason I chose a pulse wave pattern in the first place

is because I knew I wanted the fire

to originate from a single small point,

expand and then disappear into smaller points once again.

You can apply this reasoning to any type of effect that you want to create

and just match the wave pattern

to the idea that you have in your mind,

even if you don't want to think

about the realistic implications of the effects

and the materials that it's made out of.

For a second example,

let's try and animate water.

Water has mass to it

and this is expressed by using more traditional animation rules

which keeps the entire object more rigid.

But unlike solid objects,

the water tension is not strong enough to keep its shape

when it experiences an impact.

This requires a morphing

of the original shape of the water.

So this time, we're basically going to divide the water blob

into several different parts with their own mass,

according to the trajectory

and the overall state of the water during the impact

for each individual frame.

So when the water first hit the ground,

it's going to lose some part of its energy

which going to affect its trajectory.

The part which hits the ground is going to stick to it

while the rest of the water is still going to move due to momentum.

So what we're going to do

is actually split and stretch the water across the floor

as long as the water is still being impacted and is moving

until each part of it is reaching the end of its trajectory and settling down.

You need to make sure

that each part of the water that is still moving

is continuing the same trajectory as before

because there is no new force

which is acting on the water at this stage.

Next, we have lightning.

Lightning, similarly to fire is an energy source itself.

But unlike fire, it holds too much energy

and it's not going to lose its shape or strength

relative to the distance from the source,

but by interacting with other object

and discharging the energy into them.

The lightning will only cease to exist

when the electric energy itself is completely disturbed

so we're going to show the effect

both in its shape, its timing and the effect

that it's going to have on the environment.

If we don't show the environment,

we're just going to make do with the timing and shape of the lightning itself.

Lightning travels much faster than fire,

and it's actually cannot be fully expressed in a low frame rate,

even if we're doing big spacing between each frame.

For something that moves quickly or has a lot of force to it,

I use 1s n animation, at 24 frames per second.

But they still want to have a very clear trajectory

and wave pattern to the lighting,

even if it does move quickly

To make it easier for the audience to see the trajectory,

what I'm going to do is make the overall movement on 2s

but then divide timing on 1s

and make it flicker as well to make it seem more energetic.

You can play around with the amount and speed of the waves

when adding the lighting to create different types of effects

as well as playing around with the overall timing of the camera.

If you want to show the power of the lighting,

even without flickering or with slow frame rate,

you can show it by comparing it

to the speed of other objects in your scene.

Basically,

you can try and make every other thing move in slow motion

and the lighting move in regular motion

to sell the impression of the lightning

moving a lot quicker than any other thing in your shot.

The important thing about animating lightning

or any other effects we've allowed to force behind it

is to have a very quick originating point

and then emphasizing its strength by adding more frames, dedicating

to showing it at its full size.

Wind, similarly to lightning, is a force

which actually directly affects the hair itself.

Meaning that it will not be dispersed

by interacting with the environment

and it can cover large distances quickly.

The wind itself does not have one shape,

but it will act in accordance to your chosen pattern.

With wind, you can use blobs patterns to show pulses of wind,

to show wind which is constantly blowing

and affecting the environment.

You can also have a combination of them

to show both your character actions

and the environment around them in a more interesting way.

I personally like to combine

both the effect that the wind has on the character with a S-pattern

and also show the strength of the wind by using pulses.

The wind is also much quicker than any other thing in your scene.

So I personally like to animated it on 1s

and also add smear frames to it.

But unlike lightning,

which is very much a focus of the scene whenever it is present,

the wind usually is going to

only be accompanying the environment and backgrounds

to sell the effect of your characters interacting with it.

So you still want to create a design which is not too distracting,

even with smear frames.

Another type of effect

that you're going to see quite a lot,

especially in realistic animation, is spray.

This is the case

where the liquid does not have enough internal strength

to keep its initial shape together.

This will cause it to split into multiple different smaller parts

which are affected by air resistance.

This is basically the liquid version of the fire effect

that we've done at the beginning.

Instead of having a small originating point,

expanding and then disappearing,

the spray effect is going to switch and combine

between the water effect and the fire pulse effect

that we've done before.

But instead of keeping its shape

until it hits the ground and expanding

and then disappearing slowly into the air,

the spray effect is going to expand while being in the air

and it's still going to move downwards,

even when breaking into smaller parts.

With spray,

you want to have quite a lot of details and little dots

because we want to really show

that each one of them has mass.

You don't really need to keep track of every single particle,

but it will help your animation look better.

In this lesson, we have multiple options for exercises.

You can either follow along with this video

and create new effects from scratch as a beginner,

or you can actually take the previous exercises

that we've made in lesson 10

and convert them into effects.

So basically you take the timing and the motions that you had before

and try and put an effect on top of them in a realistic manner,

while keeping in mind

how the motion of the object itself is going to affect the effect.

Again, keep consistency and good line quality

when creating this exercise.

And you can make as many of them as you want with many variations.

For extra difficulty,

try and combine these effects with the character animations

that we've made in the last exercises,

if the motion allows it.

To recap,

today, we've learned about

how effects are animated using different wave patterns

and how the design of your effect

and the timing that you want to give it are going to choose for us

which pattern is best to use.

We've also learned about how to analyze what idea we have in mind

and how to apply it to the correct wave pattern for our animation.

And lastly,

we've learned how different objects and material properties

might affect the way that we're going to animate the effect.

And talked a little bit about customizing the timing

and look of the effect

in order to match the setting point and the idea behind it.

Next lesson,

we'll finally start looking into cinematic animation

with animation in perspective.

Thank you for watching and see you next time.

Bye.