Elemental Magic

Chapter 4 Liquids

 

 

This is perhaps the most important chapter in this book. In the same way that Richard Williams spent much of his energy breaking down walking and running characters in order to best describe the basic principles of character animation in his cornerstone animation book, “The Animator's Survival Kit,” I will focus a lot of energy on the design and physics principles that come into play when animating water and other liquids—principles which apply to some degree no matter what kind of effects you are attempting to animate, and no matter what medium.

A flapping flag, curling smoke, or a leaf flying in the wind—all of these effects contain principles that we will need to learn if we first master (or at least attempt to master) ...