Visual Effects Of Awesome / Web Original

• DEATH BATTLE!

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• There is a subgenre of YouTube Poop known as Flash Poop, which is when the Poop tries to tell a story through the use of visual effects which go above and beyond the usual norm for YTP. A good example would be this video.^note It's a regular Poop until the 4:20 mark.
• The Slender Man Mythos tends to have nice visual effects, especially in terms of the wicked distortion that goes on when Slendy's about, but in particular Tribe Twelve's greatest strength is its spectacular Slenderman-tentacle effects. They may not be shown for long periods of time, but seeing them is awesome. Similarly, the sadly deleted series AKoolStick or SAVETHEARK had badass tentacles and jumping Slender Man, in addition to some of the best distortion effects ever used for the Slender Man Mythos.^note And the guy who made it made tutorials.
• Ryan Vs. Dorkman. Two visual effects animators stage a lightsaber duel in an abandoned warehouse. End result: millions of views, worldwide adulation, and its own page on The Other Wiki.
• FedConIX (2009) opening video, features a CGI short film featuring the USS Kelvin from Star Trek (2009) exploring a ringed planet when they are attacked by what looks like a squadron of Klingons. In swoops the Enterprise to save the day. Honestly, of all the computer-generated models, this video was the most seamless ever. Every phaser and torgedo blast, every asteroid, they even showed the subtle difference in the metal plating of the older Kelvin and the newer Enterprise. Awesome? Ya think??!
  • That is the (awesome) work of Tobias Richter, king◊ of◊ stunningly◊ gorgeous◊ fan art◊.
• French Baguette Intelligence: The editing of French Baguette Intelligence's later videos has been praised by many viewers. A notable example of this is the animation of Manfred von Karma with a revolver in Vegan Cannibalism is the Future, which has become the subject of several memes.
• There she is!!. As if the whole damn thing wasn't gorgeous enough from the beginning, the scene where the screen explodes at the airport in Step 5 is something else.
• Jon Lajoie's video for "Pop Song", which parodies the music videos of young male pop singers such as Justin Bieber.
• Season 8 of Red vs. Blue is this with Rooster Teeth's addition of Monty Oum (the maker of Haloid) into their ranks. Not only is the CG very cool in it self but even better is that it is put into several Halo 3 levels perfectly. And then the fights (especially ep. 10 and 19) is just jawdropping, especially for a online-show. Episode 19 takes the cake however, as the characters fight amongst cliff in the process of collapsing around them, and an entire ice shelf breaking off. (ep 10 can be found here)
  • EVERYTHING by Monty Oum counts, but the Red vs. Blue Season 9 takes the cake. Here's the trailer, and it only gets better from there.
  • And then Season 10 cranks it up even further, culminating in Episode 19, when Tex & Carolina duke it out in zero-gravity aboard the bridge of the frigate Mother Of Invention as it flies through a planet's atmosphere - trailing fire and glowing with reentry heat - and then makes a sliding crash-landing on a beautifully rendered snowy locale. You'd swear the Rooster-Teeth boys got 343 Industries themselves to help them out.
• Speaking of Monty Oum, RWBY gets better looking with every Volume. Even though the first volume was occasionally a little rough, Volume 3 added upgraded facial rigs for more expressive characters than in past episodes, and Volume 4^note the first produced entirely after Monty's passing uses all new software and a new cel-shaded art style with plenty of visual treats.
• Freddie Wong. This one man can do what entire effects studios strive for.
  • He also directs the new Video Game High School on YouTube, which brings his fantastic visual effects up to eleven.
• The guys over at Corridor Digital must have sipped from the same Fountain of Visual Awesomesauce as Freddie Wong.
• The animated short The Chase, by Philippe Gamer. No words can describe it's beauty, especially on a low budget.
• Homestar Runner, mainly starting with "A Jorb Well Done", pretty much teaches us how well you can animate with Flash (minus the Powered by The Cheat shorts, but's that's intentional).
  • Keep in mind that most of it is done at less than 20fps. Now tell us it isn't impressive.
• The Backwater Gospel, an animated short about a small town who is terrified by the appearance of the Undertaker, whose arrival always means death. The animation is 3D, but looks very sketchy and gritty, and the whole thing has a dark, eerie and extremely atmospheric feel to it. Points for when (spoilered because it's best if taken by surprise) the Undertaker's wings first flicker into view and the scene where all the villages turn on each other and rip each other to shreds, which is almost entirely in silohette. Even just the detail put into the props, such as the Tramp's guitar, and the little details like only animating the details of the eyes during strong moments of anger and fear, is absolutely fantastic. And all from a small group of college students.
• The Mata Nui Online Game, featuring creative, colorful, stylistic and expansive Scenery Porn with several drastically different landscapes and fantasy architecture. Though some of the animation can be rough at parts and it may not seem that impressive compared to modern standards, but considering it was released in 2001 as a freeware Flash-based point-and-click game, one can easily understand why even slow dial-up users kept waiting patiently for every next bit of scenery to load.
• This video may just be a demonstration of projection mapping, but it's a glorious demonstration of projection mapping. It was made in-camera, with no cuts and no post-production.
• Naturally, there are a good many tutorials on how to pull this off, in addition to software and plugins for them that serve the single purpose of generating this (i.e. Adobe After Effects)
• Freeware program MikuMikuDance (MMD for short) is made with the intent of producing 3D animated films with an ever-increasing selection of models that can be designed at your own leisure. While a good chunk of the videos firmly end up in the YouTube Poop category due to obvious Off-Model problems or limited knowledge of the software's abilities, once in a while perfectly choregraphied gems will be found. Some MMD Cup competitors take the cake for the insane amount of effort put into it.
• YouTube user minusT is a proficient user of open-source 3D animation software Blender, which is far more extensive than MikuMikuDance mentioned above. His speciality? Recreating Bullet Hell boss battles from the Touhou Project series in 3D. You'll probably never look at a 2D-scrolling shoot-em-up the same way after witnessing these pieces of art.
• Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. Each episode just looks better and better than the last (save for the "digital world" in Epsiode 4, though this is Stylistic Suck), with increasingly better puppet effects and tons of Medium Blending. The mixture of puppets, realistic props, 2D and stop motion animation, and CGI makes for some great Scenery Gorn.
• Satellite City has some brilliantly twisted, creative, and cool character designs for its interdimensional CGI creature cast that look good even in still images, but the sheer level of intense emotion and expression that creator Sam Fennah's able to wring out of the distinctly non-humnaoid characters is nothing short of astounding. Not only that, but the animation is done primarily by Fennah alone, and completely averts No Flow in CGI, something that major studios have trouble with, let alone one guy working for free. Every character either has a thick, lush and realistic coat of fur, human-like hair, flowing clothing, or all of the above, and even the subtle details stand out. You can see the characters visibly breathing, and getting soaked through by a light rain in one scene.
• Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • For the most part, Lewis playing so many characters is accomplished by only showing one at a time, or using fairly obvious splitscreens. Then comes the redone version of the Entity finale, which includes a shot of Linkara walking around '90s Kid, completely seamlessly.
  • The kicker was during the first battle with Mechakara. Not only was Lewis fighting himself in that battle (first as the Ninja Style Dancer, then as himself), but he also utilized Triple-Vision to allow himself, 90s Kid, and Harvey Finevoice to stand together and fight Mechakara as a team.
• The Nostalgia Critic's Mad Max: Fury Road review had a ton of hand-built props and sets, done by Jim Jaeroz in three weeks, and Tamara's Furiosa costume (complete with prosthetic arm) made even her Squee.
• Paul Johnson, aka "OtaKing77077", makes stunning animations rotoscoped over 3D models, creating videos comparable to high-quality animations from the 80s. His best-known work using these techniques is this epic tribute to Star Wars. He also payed homage to R-Type.
• Too Many Cooks features a foray into science fiction, parodying Battlestar Galactica (1978). The sets and spaceships are all computer-generated, but they look astonishingly like actual cheesy sets and model shots from the late 70s.
• Among the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan-artists:
  • Duo Cartoonist deserves accolade for their "Children of the Night" animated music video alone. The animation is very well choreographed and reaches quality of the original show.
  • JanAnimations's animated shorts are comparable in quality to the original show as well. Check out the "Don't Mine at Night" music video for a good example. (Unfortunately, most of his pony videos, such as the ones with Button Mash, fell prey to cease & desist takedowns; but you can find mirrors around the internet, e.g. here.)
  • But perhaps the greatest of all is "Lullaby for a Princess", a fan video produced over the course of two years showcasing Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon and ultimate defeat by her sister. The visual effects are absolutely stunning, surpassing the quality of the show itself at several points; most notable is probably the battle in front of the eclipsed sun, which you would swear was the climax of a professional big-budget animated movie.
• Almost all of the animations by Vivienne Medrano, best known as the creator of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, and previously for the fanmade music videos, especially. Her animation is surprisingly fluid, bouncy, and expressive, on par with many traditionally-animated feature films.
• SallyRose975's Sonic The Hedgehog post-2018 Fanvids use a lot of dazzling transitions and video effects typical of an effort-invested Fanvid. A good example. (SallyRose975's fanvids are indeed flashy, sometimes even Epileptic Flashing Lights, so not recommended for those with photosensitive epilepsy.)
  • On the topic of Sonic The Hedgehog Fanvids, SonikkuLoveStudio's Lyric Videos are simply professional-looking.
• This mash-up of the "Take On Me" music video and the Steamed Hams segment of "22 Short Films About Springfield" seamlessly inserts Seymour Skinner into the sketch portions of the video to great effect.
• Mundo Canibal has some impressively composed scenes in certain animations from 2009 onwards (especially considering the animations are all done by only two people), inserting multiple visual effects using only Adobe Flash. One of the best examples is a scene from the 2011 episode "Tomelirolla no Templo do Pastor Metralhadora", when Pastor Metralhadora summons the "Noah's Titanic", with a gorgeous lighting effect; the full process for this scene can be seen here◊.
• WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK.: The whole series is made by transferring videos onto actual VHS tapes, with a camcorder being used for the real-life segments, to make the eras feel more realistic.

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