Ron Doucet and the Collideascope Animation team have provided us with a pair of excellent animation FX tutorials on the studio blog.

First is a step-by-step walk-through on how to build an “energy field cycle.” Not sure what that means? Here’s what it looks like in action (animation by Jake Macher):

More recently, Doucet posted an elaborate smoke tutorial, which covers a variety of different variations.[link]

Fans of the groundbreaking 1982 Disney film Tron will get a kick out of this. Ron Doucet at Collideascope dug up some clips from their 2002 work on Teletoon’s series Ollie’s Under the Bed Adventures (now Olliver’s Adventures), and is using the material in his Flash animation class to teach special effects. The episode he chose from the series sees Olliver get sucked into his PC, where he’s dumped into the Tron universe. Here’s a few clips (no audio):

Head over to Ron’s original post to see heaps of model sheets, more effects clips, and if you watch closely you’ll also see a reference to the video game classic Q*Bert.[link]

Three Legged Legs is a “directorial studio” in Santa Monica that just can’t seem to do anything bad. Not that they’re trying, but I just know when I click on a link to their work - I need to get a napkin ready for the drool. They did the GE Samurai commerical, the eco-minded, short film Humans! and more recently a gorgeous color-explosion for Havaianas.

More recently, the formidable artists at Three Legged Legs teamed up with BBDO for Mountain Dew’s Amp Energy Drink. They produced three :15 second spots in 5 weeks - all traditionally animated, and they were smart to bring on a very special CHF’er - Kathleen Quaife. Her effects animation really stands out in these pieces, and she was proud to announce that she drew a great deal of the water, fire, lightening and smoke in Flash. The majority of the production was actually completed in Toon Boom and finished in After Effects, with the traditional animation drawn right into the computer with Wacom tablets. Congrats to the 3LL team, creative director Casey Hunt and to the other animators Eric Benson, Jahmad Rollins and Dylan Spears.

Jake Macher, one of the talented animators behind the MSTRKRFT music video featured here in July of 2006, is quite the FX whiz. He’s been creating glass-shatters, explosions and lens flares for Collideascope Animation for years now - all in Flash. According to Ron Doucet, an animation director at Collideascope, Macher’s FX sequences often involve over a hundred layers.