Animation! Kicking up water - where does it go? (Patreon)

Hello $10+ patrons! It's time for another piece of animation. I wrote a bit about water animation below to go with it. I also included the full video, the test and the source file. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you do, please let me know!

Water is an interesting thing to animate. A liquid that we come in to contact with every day, but don't think much about. As an animator, the task of conquering water in 2D is a challenging one. Water gets all over the place, and when it splashes it's pretty much impossible to keep track of all of it. In effects animation, something that all the particles you draw must do is "resolve" - essentially, it needs to go back from where it came (liquids), or animate itself into non-existence (a flame, firework, a puff of smoke, etc). When you kick water up into the air or splash it, suddenly you've created a great problem for yourself - all that water has to come back down.

Fortunately, water is so volatile as an effect that when you're watching it your brain can't possibly keep track of everything that's going on. Many tweening shapes can droplets can be "cheated" by merging in to each other, falling behind something and disappearing, or simply flying off the screen. But you can't do it too much, or the water looks like it's evaporating in to thin air. And you can't do it too little, or you'll find yourself creating an effect that's far too complex! Water, like any other effect, must be broken down into more simple, manageable shapes, while still maintaining believable physics that keep it looking like water while it's moving.

The animation you're looking at is part of a scene from the long since canned Juniper's Knot animated sequel that I worked on briefly while I was with Dischan. In this scene, Lydia, the main character, is daydreaming at the river. To put in to perspective how seemingly trivial this tiny splash is, take a look at the difference between the splash isolated by itself and the size of the entire scene.

So you can see why in an instance like this, trying to simplify the splash as much as possible, while still making it feel real. Even with all that considered, the splash was easily the hardest part of this scene.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this post. I have more effects animation to share and I can talk about it in more detail if this has been a fun read. Someday when I hit my $1500 goal, I can make effects animation tutorials! In the meantime, I did hit my $750 goal today, so we're halfway there! I'll go into details about that tomorrow. 

If you have Flash CS5 or higher, you can also take a look at the FLA source file for this animation and see the keyframes for yourself!