FX / VFX resource sites

discoharuhi

I recently found CGJOY / CGWELL websites, and they have these amazing courses on FX. But they require a chinese SSI / Phone Number to sign up or something, I found those sites abundant with chinese information on FX / VFX, and was wondering if there's any type of equivalent in english?

http://bbs.cgwell.com/

https://www.cgjoy.com/train.php?mod=course&order=classid&cid=1

I'm specifically interested in these types of FX

https://www.cgjoy.com/train.php?mod=busywork&bid=15175
https://www.cgjoy.com/train.php?mod=busywork&bid=15235
https://www.cgjoy.com/busywork-15179-1.html
https://www.cgjoy.com/busywork-15312-1.html




Knowing that there's a literal course on there and no way for me to sign up annoys the heck out of me lol

These are all done in Unity3D, I currently use Max/AE and know a bit of unity.

Eric Chadwick

We have a few resources listed here, might help
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Special_Effects

Eric Chadwick

Those fx are pretty neat. You can reverse engineer them without too much difficulty, once you realize they're a layering of a bunch of different elements, which are fairly simple each on their own.

Download those fx example videos they show, and scrub back and forth, examining them frame by frame. 

The key in creating great fx is timing; telling a narrative thru animation principles. Squash & stretch, anticipation, exaggeration, etc. 

Learn the fundamentals of classical animation. They are very much in force with painterly animation fx.

In Unity, learn the mesh animation system, the material system, and the particle system. 

discoharuhi

Thanks! I've watched various tutorials on the 12 fundamentals of animation, I'm going to go start learning those unity systems right now. I have a quick question though. Are these FX easier to create in Unity than they would be in MAX / AE? I want them for video production, but it actually seems like UE4/Unity is used  a lot more for these types of FX. A recent animation video I watched, I realized it was created by a game company, and I think the explosion FX in it was also created in their UE4 game engine instead of MAX, cause a lot of their games have similar FX already there lols

Eric Chadwick

No, generally it's easier to animate in a non-game engine. The tools are less limited, and there are less rules to follow.

Animation for use in a game requires you work within more limits, because the effect has to run in real-time, being rendered "live" at 30fps or greater. It also has to fit within a limited amount of memory (RAM).

After Effects is generally more suited to 2D animation, while 3ds Max is more for 3d. Each can do the other though too.