Hello =) I am learning to make particle effects and special effect animations so that I can help work on a 2D side scrolling RPG. I know how to use Photoshop and Illustrator pretty well, I know enough about Flash to make simple animations, and I will be working with the Flat Red Ball particle effects engine. I am very new to this and I have been experimenting with making special effects by drawing out my ideas in Illustrator and trying to animate simple shapes with the engine, but I would really like some help, as I don't feel I've been doing very well on my own. So far I have been looking at screen shots from video games that I like and trying to copy the effects, but I would like to get as much information as I can to help me along. If anyone knows of any special effects tutorials or books that may be useful, please let me know. I have not been able to find any at all. Maybe I haven't been looking in the right places? Thanks in advance. =)

It sounds like your trying to do 2D particle effects? This would just be a sprite would it not? Here's more information on how to make sprites...

If this is for 3D particle effects, then I think Photoshop and Illustrator are the wrong neighborhood. You should try 3ds Max (expensive), Maya (expensive), XSI (expensive), or Blender (freeware and pretty good, too!). Does that help you any?

I have been using the lens flare tool in Photoshop to create some really neat effects but it is becoming a problem trying to remove the backgrounds. I understand that the lens flare is a filter and requires a black or dark background to produce the results I'm looking for.

I have tried double clicking the layer and adjusting the blending options to make the background transparent, but this makes the image look distorted and takes away a lot of the detail. I am trying to create effects like the one in this picture



It looks like the lens flare filter is used to create the star effect. Also notice that the effects often have transparent part to them (like the arrow appears to have some transparent parts near the base but not near its tip).

I would like to make effects similar to this one with a transparent background so that it can look like these effects, without having to have an abnormal looking background color behind the effects.

Any information on this would be helpful

Thanks

To be honest, I've never run across a good tutorial that specifically addresses how to make cool looking particles. I think your best bet would be to look up general special effects tutorials for photoshop. There's no magic to it, just skillful drawing and filtering skills.

The basic theory for making something transparent without background artifacts is to isolate all the colour on its own layer so there is no background for it to blend with. It can be difficult to do this if you start with something like a lens flare that is tied to the background in the first place. You may want to remake the lens flare by drawing it manually on an empty layer (draw shape, glow, blur, etc). You can always keep a black layer underneath so you can see clearly and then hide it before exporting.

Also keep in mind that most in-game effects have additional animation like scaling, tinting, fading, or even animating through a sequence of textures instead of just one (for example: often fire will be done with actual video capture of a real flame). Particles can often look pretty lame on their own, but awesome when combined in elaborate ways. Don't expect to be able to click a couple buttons and have AAA quality effects; it takes a lot of time and experimentation to do it well (effects artist is an entire career path!).