More updates. Still no final textures for a lot of the mesh effects. Still need to model and texture the rune stones and spear. I'd guess about half way done with the blocking of everything. Still elements that need to be added.
While working on my current light prison effect, I decided on my second effect for the contest. The idea is a marionette handle attached to an iron maiden coffin in four pieces. The pieces will be dragged along the ground as the handle moves up, collapsing on the target and sealing it with a flash of light and spurts of blood.
The inspiration for this was from Blade Queen Lissandra, with a sort of puppeteer/marionette aspect to it. Maybe a puppeteer champion similar to Thresh from the Shadow Isles, who only comes out during the Harrowing.
I don't think you should upload them on Dropbox. ^^
It's easier on imgur.
Here: http://imgur.com/
Dropbox "blocks" on the first image of the .gif...
Also, you can display your .gifs with a simple (without spaces). ^^
I'm sure it'll be better for everyone.
Anyway! Your effect is looking better and better.
I see you used some kind of distortion effect? I love these. xp
I wonder how you'll animate the disappearance of all the elements. For the spears, I'd see them stand up (thus opening the prison) and fly to the sky, as if they'd be recalled by their master or something. ^^
On the prison itself, I'd see some variations coming up or down, a bit like this:
For the runes marks on the ground, I think they should stay visible as long as the prison is active. Maybe they should even shine more when the prison gets fully active.
I like the little light that stays at the top of the prison. Makes me think of some kind of lighthouse. You could push this as far as making it into a real watchtower, as it's a prison. I'd see some kind of Police Jax, a bit like the Vi's skin.
This could be really great imo. ^_^
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it! I've never used any kind of image site before, but I guess now would be a good time to.
For the spears, I was thinking of having two texture: the original, and then a cracked stone one with the mesh broken up in a few pieces. I was thinking of having them turn to stone and crumble to pieces. I have their opacity controllable as well, so that they reveal only as they pass through the summon circles. It's just disabled for now because I have to hand time the parameter, and I wanted to get the timing for them locked in first.
Added some textures in, although they are still just placeholder as well as the colors. After I get everything set, I'll refine and hand paint my textures with the colors added. Going to paint some quick scorch marks for when the walls fade as well. I'm getting close to starting in on modeling the final textured 3d assets like the spears and rune stone.
It's actually a spear. It is going to replace the placeholder ones in my light prison effect. I was only using those for timing; the new spear will have more detail and a texture as close as I can get to league's art style. Going to texture the blade so it looks like it's made of light. Like Garen's ult for the tip of the spear.
Yup! I've been working on some light rays to shoot up from the impact points too. The spears function as the borders of the prison walls, aesthetically and to hide the hard edges of the pyramid mesh.
I started in work on my next effect to take a break from the light prison. Again, needing to hand animate and time most of the mesh parts of the mesh, I'm just using placeholders for scale and timing right now. Thought I'd throw up a better viewable of my concept and mood sheet. I'm feeling something crossed between Blade Queen Lyssandra and Thresh, with some puppeteer elements thrown in.
Yeah, I think the "drop" with the puppeteer handle is way too long. I'll probably cut that by a few seconds. I'm going to try and cut the lifetime of everything in half and see if that works without me having to hand key everything again.
Got something basic for the buildup on my iron maiden effect. It's 5 am, so I'll clean it up in a few hours. Any feedback on the speed of the chains? The idea was something like Xerath's ult, where he is anchored down for the duration while the ult executes. Also to give the idea that the sphere is controlling the marionette handle through the chains with magic
Really nice already!
Maybe it'd be nice if they'd rotate a bit on themselves before touching the ground.
And also playing with the curves, so that they'd be faster on the beginning of the movement, then slower right before hitting the ground. Don't know if it makes any sense. xp For now, it's a bit too linear.
Maybe it'd be great too if they weren't that straight at first, and only become that linear once they've hit the ground, so that it could give the feeling that they stretch and anchor themselves in the ground, violently.
Also, another idea would be to make them go up a tiny bit, a few frames after they've hit the ground, so that it feels like they tear the group apart a bit... Eh, I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense. xD
Just random ideas about this. ^^
Anyway, keep it up!
Thanks for your feedback! I get everything that you're saying, and you're right, they are to stiff... Since they are static meshs, I'm not sure how I'd get them to bend. Should I rig them and then animate them by hand in matinee? These are working in cascade as a particle system as of right now. Each chain is also two elements:
The first is the moving chain mesh with a translucent material, so I could control the opacity. The chain mesh is larger than the spear, so I have the opacity at 0 and the chains set inside the mesh (they poke out the ends). As they exit the mesh the opacity transfers from 0 to 1, but even at full opacity, the chains are still semi transparent. They don't have the look of something in league (the mesh clips upon itself and looks bad, even at 100% opacity)
The second element is a second set of chains with an opaque material that spawn upon impact with the ground. The opaque looks much better, and more league, but no way to control transparency.
I could easily do the speed up and rotate. I'll try slowing down the whole distance and speeding up the beginning. My only worry is that it starts getting too fast that the player's eye can't follow it, and that it looks like it spawns half way to the ground. I'd like to keep the look that you can see the spears poking through and exiting the sphere.
I got called into work today, so I'll have to apply what I can after I get off. Hopefully I 'll have some updates on the chain, and more elements to show off tomorrow morning ^_^
I'd say this kind of fx needs to be animated with a rigged system... =/
For the speed, I think you could maybe spawn the chains, make them float around a tiny bit, make them fly up for the anticipation, then fix them right into the ground. Think of an octopus-like, sinusoidal movement.
I'm aiming to keep both my effects under 4 seconds from start/buildup to finish, since nothing in league lasts longer than that. I'll rig my chain and mess around with trying to animate it and import the animations. I've never done that before, so I suspect it'll take me a while. I'll try and add some progress to the damaging part of the spell at the same time
There is still a lot of placeholder art in this, and more I want to add. Didn't get done much the past week because un expected stuff came up. I hope to have a lot more done by tomorrow. At least I finally set up matinee and the scene for both effects
EDIT: there are a few things where the timing is off or not long enough, I just thought I'd toss this up before I went to bed. Also sorry for the choppy gif, something went funky with my screen capture program I guess
This is a really cool. Though, I don't understand the correlation between the chains on one sphere and the marionette on the other. It just feels disconnected. Maybe if the spell came out of the ground instead of from above it would really pull it all together? I'm not sure, what are you thoughts?
Well, my thoughts were I needed a build up on the "casting" sphere. My idea was to have the ghostly chains anchor the sphere down while it casts the iron maiden spell, like Xerath's ult. He's immobile, and you see lightning arcing off him to the ground.
I need to rotate the marionette handle and its parts to mach the angle of the summon chains shooting into the ground. Looking at it now, my timing is off between when the chains shoot out, and when the marionette handle floats down. It should fade in and float down right after the summon chains attach, so there is a relation between the two.
What are your thoughts on the blood? I'm trying to give it that league look. My reference was Darius' and Chogath's ults.
A couple of suggestions if I may, you've mentioned you still needed to work on the timings of your spell, I think that's probably the biggest thing holding it back right now, it currently feels too linear. Right at the start I would love to see the chains wobble a bit as they get fired to the ground, like a harpoon, now they just extend with no anticipation. Following up, I'd like to see the cross animate in in a more interesting way, and perhaps fire out the chains in the same manner, dragging those metal pieces up from the sides, all of those appear in a single frame now, it's like a cut in action. It would be nice to see the metal pieces slam together with more weight as well.
Next I think you've got too much contrast in the size of your shapes and particles, a lot of the smaller cracks in the ground and sparks would probably get lost at a distance during gameplay. The chains don't read too well either, I think you could make the links bigger but slim them down in diameter.
Additionally I'd love to see you give more directionality to your blood and really go overboard with it in Kill Bill fashion, make it spray out of the cracks, pooling at the sides.
Anyway, don't take this to heart, it's just my thoughts. Looking forward to seeing your progress!
I really appreciate the feedback. To be quite honest, all of this is done in cascade atm, which does not support animations. I don't know how I would go about combining animations with the rest of this. I'm sure it would look much better if I did, but I don't know how to rig, and have very little animating experience I've been trying to do what I can within the limits of cascade and static meshes.
Any advice on how to give the pieces colliding more force? We aren't allowed camera shakes.
You can do some basic animation in cascade using velocity/life, size by life and rotation rate. I don't know what your main 3d package is but basic rigging for skeletal meshes is very easy. With 3ds max, after you animate your meshes you just need to make a dummy and link all of them to it, so you have a basic bone hierarchy for unreal, then you import it in as a skeletal mesh.
You could add more impact to the collision at the end by using custom curves. If you make them start slow and slam together with speed you'll sell the impact a lot better. You could even do a small bounce when they slam shut all with curves.
A quick update. Since it doesn't look that great, I'll be scrapping my "Iron Maiden" effect for this contest. Instead I'll do a faster effect with less animation-involved meshes. Concept is a PROJECT: Leona ultimate. I'll have it roughed out by tonight, and hopefully polished by tomorrow afternoon
Replies
Also, I think I'm posting my images the wrong way. They keep posting as thumbnails, where everyone else's seem to post at full size. Any suggestions?
A rough update for my first effect. Would love some feedback on the speed of the spears. Speed in vid is pretty close to the actual speed in cascade
More updates. Still no final textures for a lot of the mesh effects. Still need to model and texture the rune stones and spear. I'd guess about half way done with the blocking of everything. Still elements that need to be added.
Critiques welcome!
The inspiration for this was from Blade Queen Lissandra, with a sort of puppeteer/marionette aspect to it. Maybe a puppeteer champion similar to Thresh from the Shadow Isles, who only comes out during the Harrowing.
It's easier on imgur.
Here: http://imgur.com/
Dropbox "blocks" on the first image of the .gif...
Also, you can display your .gifs with a simple
I'm sure it'll be better for everyone.
Anyway! Your effect is looking better and better.
I see you used some kind of distortion effect? I love these. xp
I wonder how you'll animate the disappearance of all the elements. For the spears, I'd see them stand up (thus opening the prison) and fly to the sky, as if they'd be recalled by their master or something. ^^
On the prison itself, I'd see some variations coming up or down, a bit like this:
For the runes marks on the ground, I think they should stay visible as long as the prison is active. Maybe they should even shine more when the prison gets fully active.
I like the little light that stays at the top of the prison. Makes me think of some kind of lighthouse. You could push this as far as making it into a real watchtower, as it's a prison. I'd see some kind of Police Jax, a bit like the Vi's skin.
This could be really great imo. ^_^
Well, here are my thoughts. Just random ideas. ^^
For the spears, I was thinking of having two texture: the original, and then a cracked stone one with the mesh broken up in a few pieces. I was thinking of having them turn to stone and crumble to pieces. I have their opacity controllable as well, so that they reveal only as they pass through the summon circles. It's just disabled for now because I have to hand time the parameter, and I wanted to get the timing for them locked in first.
Can't wait to see all of that!
Lets see if this works...
And it's easier and faster for everyone! ^_^
Can't wait to see your future gifs.
Added some textures in, although they are still just placeholder as well as the colors. After I get everything set, I'll refine and hand paint my textures with the colors added. Going to paint some quick scorch marks for when the walls fade as well. I'm getting close to starting in on modeling the final textured 3d assets like the spears and rune stone.
EDIT: Spear work; base model prepping for zbrush
I'll have a gif up soon
Maybe a bit too slow? ^_^
Got something basic for the buildup on my iron maiden effect. It's 5 am, so I'll clean it up in a few hours. Any feedback on the speed of the chains? The idea was something like Xerath's ult, where he is anchored down for the duration while the ult executes. Also to give the idea that the sphere is controlling the marionette handle through the chains with magic
Maybe it'd be nice if they'd rotate a bit on themselves before touching the ground.
And also playing with the curves, so that they'd be faster on the beginning of the movement, then slower right before hitting the ground. Don't know if it makes any sense. xp For now, it's a bit too linear.
Maybe it'd be great too if they weren't that straight at first, and only become that linear once they've hit the ground, so that it could give the feeling that they stretch and anchor themselves in the ground, violently.
Also, another idea would be to make them go up a tiny bit, a few frames after they've hit the ground, so that it feels like they tear the group apart a bit... Eh, I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense. xD
Just random ideas about this. ^^
Anyway, keep it up!
The first is the moving chain mesh with a translucent material, so I could control the opacity. The chain mesh is larger than the spear, so I have the opacity at 0 and the chains set inside the mesh (they poke out the ends). As they exit the mesh the opacity transfers from 0 to 1, but even at full opacity, the chains are still semi transparent. They don't have the look of something in league (the mesh clips upon itself and looks bad, even at 100% opacity)
The second element is a second set of chains with an opaque material that spawn upon impact with the ground. The opaque looks much better, and more league, but no way to control transparency.
I could easily do the speed up and rotate. I'll try slowing down the whole distance and speeding up the beginning. My only worry is that it starts getting too fast that the player's eye can't follow it, and that it looks like it spawns half way to the ground. I'd like to keep the look that you can see the spears poking through and exiting the sphere.
I got called into work today, so I'll have to apply what I can after I get off. Hopefully I 'll have some updates on the chain, and more elements to show off tomorrow morning ^_^
For the speed, I think you could maybe spawn the chains, make them float around a tiny bit, make them fly up for the anticipation, then fix them right into the ground. Think of an octopus-like, sinusoidal movement.
There is still a lot of placeholder art in this, and more I want to add. Didn't get done much the past week because un expected stuff came up. I hope to have a lot more done by tomorrow. At least I finally set up matinee and the scene for both effects
EDIT: there are a few things where the timing is off or not long enough, I just thought I'd toss this up before I went to bed. Also sorry for the choppy gif, something went funky with my screen capture program I guess
Added some more elements to the channeling. Haven't gotten to dig back into this too deep yet. Feedback still needed and welcome though!
also, if anyone could tell me how to embed the video so that the whole thing shows up, and not just the link, I'd appreciate the advice
I need to rotate the marionette handle and its parts to mach the angle of the summon chains shooting into the ground. Looking at it now, my timing is off between when the chains shoot out, and when the marionette handle floats down. It should fade in and float down right after the summon chains attach, so there is a relation between the two.
What are your thoughts on the blood? I'm trying to give it that league look. My reference was Darius' and Chogath's ults.
A couple of suggestions if I may, you've mentioned you still needed to work on the timings of your spell, I think that's probably the biggest thing holding it back right now, it currently feels too linear. Right at the start I would love to see the chains wobble a bit as they get fired to the ground, like a harpoon, now they just extend with no anticipation. Following up, I'd like to see the cross animate in in a more interesting way, and perhaps fire out the chains in the same manner, dragging those metal pieces up from the sides, all of those appear in a single frame now, it's like a cut in action. It would be nice to see the metal pieces slam together with more weight as well.
Next I think you've got too much contrast in the size of your shapes and particles, a lot of the smaller cracks in the ground and sparks would probably get lost at a distance during gameplay. The chains don't read too well either, I think you could make the links bigger but slim them down in diameter.
Additionally I'd love to see you give more directionality to your blood and really go overboard with it in Kill Bill fashion, make it spray out of the cracks, pooling at the sides.
Anyway, don't take this to heart, it's just my thoughts. Looking forward to seeing your progress!
Any advice on how to give the pieces colliding more force? We aren't allowed camera shakes.
You could add more impact to the collision at the end by using custom curves. If you make them start slow and slam together with speed you'll sell the impact a lot better. You could even do a small bounce when they slam shut all with curves.