[VFX] Zoomies n Boomies

Intro:

The effect that I’ll be creating is a cutesy/cartoony chained Area-of-Effect spell that could be used in mobas such as League of legends, Dota and Smite. I considered several themes but no other theme/style inspired me more than a cutesy/cartoony one due to the exaggeration that often comes with the style. I aim to show an understanding of the principles of animation and a controlled use of colour to visually communicate gameplay.

I'm fairly new to creating VFX so I hope my current process isn't too misguided. I
have less than two weeks to get this done so managing my time with university
projects and approaching this effectively is a personal challenge I want to
overcome.

Development blog:
 https://itch.io/t/183535/rising-star-vfx-dev-blog-cartoonycute-spell#post-341972

Summation:

Looking back I’m happy I managed to finish the project and ended up with something that I imagined and set out to make. This is my second full vfx effect and I tried my best to consider all sides of design such as font choice and respecting the principles of animation. As the actual design of the effect would probably turn out to be the strongest part due to my lack of experience in creating vfx.

However I really could’ve worked on nailing down exactly what I wanted to do through proper storyboarding. I felt the best way to approach this project was to have a rough idea but be flexible enough to change quickly. Just in case I couldn’t solve the technical challenges that faced me in such a small period of time I had set for working on this.

If you was to look under the hood you will find that the effect isn’t really as optimised & adaptable as I know it could be. If it wasn’t for time constraints I would go over the effect and make it more dynamic and well optimised. This would allow for quick design changes and easy and flexible implementation into a game.

Programs used:
Unreal Engine, Photoshop & 3ds Max