I think I learned about four different ways to make something like a tornado in Blender and it probably took a month to finally get it the way I wanted for this image. Sadly the time it took is probably more related to the fact I’m using a 2015 Mac laptop.
Again, this was designed to be viewed in a feed like Instagram where the video autoplays and is virtually indistinguishable from a still image in terms of presentation. I wrote a bunch on Instagram about the thing you let yourself focus on.
I’ve always been interested in cinemagraphs. I like the idea of a still image moving that is different that a still image or a video clip. I made one of my daughters years ago, but I didn’t pursue it much farther at the time because there wasn’t really a great way to display it. Now that the NFT movement is finally causing people to value the digital viewing experience, I am more motivated to explore this once again.
But my concept of having only the tornado move worked better in theory than in real life. To my way of thinking movement in good cinemagraph should elevate and add to the piece and not merely be a gimmick. It just wasn’t flowing right to my eyes.
So I started by adding movement to the character which you’ll notice, and some motion in the light on the ground, which you probably don’t (at least right away). But what is so amazing about our perception is that even though motion often attracts our attention, our reality detection supersedes this. I found the lack of movement in the trees was actually distracting. So I added some very subtle movement there added, too.
This is made with a self-portrait. The street is made up of several photos of my street and stitched together in one, 3D software, photo and video editing software.