Patreon Peeks 26: Rendering an Abstract Musical Drone (Patreon)

Hello! This week, I wanted to share some steps behind a deceptively simple and innocuous effect in my video about Pan-Pan, the indie puzzle game. You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/T8sL5Flwl8E

Several times throughout the video, I bring up an amorphous cloud effect whenever I reference how Pan-Pan's soundtrack is all built off of a musical drone on the note C. It needed to be something that, like the music in Pan-Pan, changes very slowly and minimally, and intrigues the mind while not overpowering the space one needs to think. And I'd just like to show how to build that effect, in 4 simple steps!

Step 1: paint two clouds. I used digital paint with a very rough watercolor brush.

Step 2: put them on top of each other, on two different layers!

Step 3: some effects to differentiate the layers. I chose an effect in After Effects called Channel Blur. It blurs the image, but with distinct amounts for the red, green, and blue channels. So, for instance, I can have only the blue blur in the top image, and it sort of tints the cloud blue, but with some interesting color splotches because it's not uniformly painted. If I blur a different channel on the cloud beneath it, the colors interact in interesting ways.

Step 4: Make 'em spin! This image is fine to look at I suppose, but for a video we need some motion to keep it interesting. So, I have each layer slowly rotate in opposite directions.

This allows the channel blur effects to play with each other and accent certain colors at certain orientations. At a slow enough rotation speed, it'll be quite a while before you get the same cloud shape twice. And even then, because everything is hazy and details don't really stand out, I'd say this effect could last a really long time! Just like the drones in Pan-Pan...