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Have a look at this incredible non-photorealistic lighting VFX created by Technical/VFX Artist and Graphics Programmer krisp-xyz using Blender, a free and open-source 3D software for modeling, texturing, rendering, animation, and visual effects.
According to the author, the lightning bolt was set up by applying a procedural 3D texture to crossed planes, allowing for a convincing 3D effect that can be baked to a small sprite sheet. The final result, the creator noted, was animated at 12 FPS, with different elements having been animated at different intervals, giving the final result a fantastic hand-animated look.
"I used a lot of procedural textures mostly because it lets me prototype quickly since I can randomize them easily and just change variables to experiment with the entire look and feel, plus I can make these animated spark effects way faster procedurally than I could hand animate them," commented the author. "In the case of the lightning bolt itself, it's also a procedural texture using similar methods, but it's 3D instead of 2D. By applying an actual 3D texture to these crossed planes, you get a very convincing 3D effect that can be baked to just a small sprite sheet."
"Impact frames are basically just black/white versions of a couple rendered frames of the lightning with one frame having extra speed-lines and edge detection."
You can learn more about the effect and check out krisp-xyz's earlier works on Tumblr.
If you would like to learn more about using Blender for VFX, here are some great tutorials that might help you out:
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