I''m the artist of a 2 man game team. Our game is a 2d animated platformer. I''m getting fairly good at character animation but apparently that''s not translating to, for the lack of a better term, effects animation. I did pretty well with fire, but my attempts at steam/smoke were not as good as I would have liked. What can I do to be better with animating gasses and liquids? Beat monsters to death with a lollypop. www.happybigfun.com

The best way to tackle this, in my opinion, is to get yourself a couple of action movies on DVD, then get familiar with the pause/slo-mo buttons. Just get a good, clear image and make some sketches until you understand how the various forms move. You could also study some animated effects work in some higher-quality anime vids like Akira, Metropolis, or Jin-Roh...it may be easier to learn from an animated feature because in most cases the actual form is already clearly defined with a distinct outline.

Hope this helps...

-ian!

it also depends on how you want to make such effects.most 3d render and animation software does have the posibility to use cartoon shaders...so do your effects with a plugin like particles ,and render it as 2d-bitmaps with cartoon shader...

tilesets games sprites
http://www.reinerstileset.de

All very good points but another way to enhance your skills especially at 2D game effects would be to look at other games!
I always wanted to design a 2D based beat'em'up a few years back and started to download the roms of the games such as Fatal Fury, King Of Fighters and play them through either Mame or Nebula. By using the wonderful screen print command I could take snap shots of each animation, even slow the speed of the game down by pressing the correct commands (usually an F1-F12 button).
Once these pictures had been taken I could study them frame by frame, inch by inch, to see exactly how they were designed and illustrated. But I guess it all depends on how this game is going to be standard 2D or is it SVGA 2D?

[edited by - Turmoil on March 15, 2003 7:34:36 PM]

Umm... It''s 800 x 600 in 24 bit color. Any more technical and I''ll have to ask the other half of our two man team. So, no online tutorials or anything like that huh? I was kinda hoping for the easy way. I haven''t learned 3D that well so that''s out. That''s our next game.

Thanks for the advice, I may or may not follow it. My fluid work isn''t bad by any stretch, but it''s not to the same standard as my character animation which I am really proud of.

Beat monsters to death with a lollypop.
www.happybigfun.com