I finally tried my hand at a fire cycle. There are some things I want to improve on it, but it was fun to try something new. :D
http://vimeo.com/11037844
Campfire Fire Cycle
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Thanks for your comments, guys. :D It's not rotoscoped. I'm following the basic approach from the book "Elemental Magic." I reread the section on fires this morning and now I realize that he recommends animating fires in several passes to build more structure into it. I only did this one in two passes, which is probably why it was difficult to add separate flames coming off of the main flame. One thing that was driving me crazy was that the small flames that fly away look like they are chunking off. I realize now that the flames should attenuate and pinch off. Next time I'll follow the book much more closely. The crappy thing is that I'm thinking the best way to get a really fluid look in AS is with switch layers animated on ones. Might even be best to draw it out by hand first.
[edit] I say crappy because a fire seems like a logical thing to use point interpolation on. But all the details extending in and out of it make it very messy to use point motion. Unless! Just remembered the technique of putting un-outlined shapes on top of outlined copies of themselves...!
[edit] I say crappy because a fire seems like a logical thing to use point interpolation on. But all the details extending in and out of it make it very messy to use point motion. Unless! Just remembered the technique of putting un-outlined shapes on top of outlined copies of themselves...!
Taking another stab at animating fire. This time I animated a fireball following the example in Elemental Magic pretty closely to try to understand the flame behavior.
http://vimeo.com/20981220
http://vimeo.com/20981220