Environmental Effects HELP

Parralax

Hi all,

I am doing a project for university about environmental effects and just had a few questions,

1. Can animated materials be classed as an environmental effect
2. Apart from weather what other environmental effects are there?

Thanks

SirCalalot

Not wanting to be awkward, but your questions are a bit vague.

What is your definition of environmental effects?
Are you talking about weather effects, or just special effects around a level in general?

The first thing that you need to do is ascertain a proper definition yourself.

ImSlightlyBored

Animated materials can be classed as an effect - if you mean, a plane with an animated material on it to produce an effect, then yes, it doesn't have to be a particle system. But not all animated materials are effects.
Aside from weather, there's a lot. Speaking from an FX point of view, its stuff like:
Atmospherics (Smoke, dust, fog, steam, etc)
Water/fluids - dripping pipes, spurting water sources, large or small bodies of water, puddles.
Ambient effects - Wind, directional air bursts, floating paper. Fire patches - a classic is a burning barrel, because what game doesnt have a burning barrel?

Best way to think of it; anything that's animated, but isn't a character/personality. There's exceptions to this rule, but this should make it easier to think of.
For environments, they are meant to aid and help the composition and breath a bit of life in to the scene where applicable.

Parralax

Thanks all,

ImSlightlyBored - Yeah it seems like barrels tend to spontaneously combust in the gaming world, just been trying to get my head around what constitutes an environmental effect. My goal is to enhance my pre-existing city environment and I like your ideas of fog, dust, puddles and floating paper as well as various weather types.