How can I create animated card graphics like in Hearthstone?
- by Appeltaart
In the game Hearthstone, there are cards with animated images on them. A few examples:
http://www.hearthhead.com/card=281/argent-commander
http://www.hearthhead.com/card=469/blood-imp
The animations seem to be composed of multiple effects:
Particle systems.
Fading sprites in and out/rotating them
Simple scrolling textures
A distortion effect, very evident in the cape and hair of example 1.
Swirling smoke effects, the light in example 1 and the green/purple glow in example 2.
The first three elements are trivial, what I'd like to know is how the last two could be done. Can this even be done realtime in a game, or are they pre-rendered animations?