Hot Rod Flames - Animated

gtcable · Post by **gtcable** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 2:34 am

I'm in need of creating the typical hot-rod flames (not realistic flames) you see on motorcycles and sportsters. It would be no problem for me to create stills of these stylized flames.

But I need to have them animated with the flames licking up. Anyone know of a tutorial that can pull that off? Doesn't have to be Anime Studio Pro. Could come from AE or any other source.

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:46 am

Well I recently got a book called Elemental Magic that explains how to animate fire and other special effects. I haven't gotten a chance to really go through it yet. But it shows some fire animation with cartoon flames that could be simplified to the hot rod style.

But there are probably some tutorials online, too. And then there's always the option to look at fire animation and use it as a guide to figure it out. Aku's eyebrows from Samurai Jack may be roughly similar to what you're going for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5qXlMZl ... re=related

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:48 am

Flames are something best done frame-by-frame. You could work out a rough sequence on paper, scan it in and use it as a reference.

A simple recipe (I think I lifted that from Halas-Bachelor's "Timing for Animation") goes like this:
Draw some vertical wave lines, these will be the "motion paths" for the burning gas. Draw a big rhombus at the bottom of a line and let it follow it to the end, decreasing in size with every step. Repeat with all wave lines, starting at different frames. Remove overlapping lines so you have a solid flame body at the bottom. This could be done within a short cycle of 12 drawings.

Hm, wavy motion paths? I guess we could use the "snake motion with bones" trick here, see elsewhere in the forum ...

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 10:55 am

If anyone finds a good tut for flames like frame-by-frame or anything it would be great if it was posted here. I'm curious to see how it works. Tried conceptualizing what slow says but I can't quite click it around in my brain.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:36 pm

Create a straight chain of bones in #0. Change these into a wavy line in #1.

Create some vector frame shape in #0. Move it by layer translation only from #1 - #24. Reduce its size during this movement. The bone chain will distort the shape.

Multiply this bone/vector combo, vary starting point, shape, and speed. Try to let it appear as one fire via layer transfer modes, or just us it as a sketch to create frame-by-frame flames.

And because I'm in an especially nice mood today, here's the scan from the book (John Halas, Harold Whitaker: Timing for Animation):

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:40 pm

slowtiger wrote:Flames are something best done frame-by-frame.

Don't you mean flame-by-flame?

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:59 pm

Don't you mean flame-by-flame?

No, I'm not chinese ...

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:57 pm

This got me interested in flame animation again so I started reading up on it in my book. For hot rod flames licking up, the arcs in your flame design must appear to reverse because the gas is constantly moving away from the combustion source so new flames take the place of old flames. If the tip of a particular flame is curled to the left, the top half of the hook will break away and disappear leaving you with something curling to the right.

[edit] Hmm, I thought I was adding something new, but now that I read it again, Slow Tiger's tutorial addresses this issue with the wavy bone chain.

gtcable · Post by **gtcable** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:50 pm

Really stunning response SlowTiger & everyone! More than I could have hoped for. I'm putting together a TV commercial for a local burger joint. It's not fully animated, but I'll be sure to post the result when I'm done here.

MAHALO NUI LOA!

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:24 pm

Thanks!

justiceleague · Post by **justiceleague** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 7:27 pm

! assume, you are going to use anime studio for this purpose!

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Tue May 04, 2010 11:25 pm

slowtiger wrote:
Don't you mean flame-by-flame?
No, I'm not chinese ...

LOL i bet i read this 100x over the last month and never "got it" It just hit me "flame by flame" LOL

gtcable · Post by **gtcable** » Wed May 05, 2010 12:26 am

Well, nature of the beast. Being pressed for production time I did what I could.
Here's a YouTube link to the final commercial. The client is very happy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ZuTe130ug

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Wed May 05, 2010 1:02 am

gtcable wrote:Well, nature of the beast. Being pressed for production time I did what I could.
Here's a YouTube link to the final commercial. The client is very happy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ZuTe130ug

OMG that's a huge sandwich.

You did the flames at the beginning and end of the commercial?

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Wed May 05, 2010 9:50 am

The flames are somewhat dark, but that's a plus, I think. Nice work.

(A spot like that would be quite impossible in german television - do they really serve burgers that big??)

Hot Rod Flames - Animated

Hot Rod Flames - Animated

Oh yes. I came to the right place!

Final Commercial

Re: Final Commercial