Visual Effects

Canon Fire Shot

A large futuristic cannon slowly taking aim towards the sky and firing.

● A very straightforward shot with only one simulated element (muzzle flash).

● Assets were kitbashed together in maya with the exception of the cannon barrel.

● The barrel was modeled in Houdini and textured in Substance Painter.

● Rendered out in Karma render inside Houdini.

● Comped inside Nuke

(software used: Maya, Houdini, Substance Painter, Nuke)

WIP renders of cannon

Canon Fire Shot Breakdown

Crash Shot

A shot of a large ship crashing into a body of water

● The shot was separated into background and core elements during the breakdown.

● Most of the elements in the background were kitbashed except the ground and railings which were modeled in Houdini.

● The ship was fractured in stages followed by the pyro simulations in the ship.

● The body of water is a displaced grid and the flip simulation is sourced from Houdini’s pyro burst source for a more defined splash shape.

● Rendered out in Karma. Flip simulation was rendered an additional time in Mantra for layering in Nuke.

(software used: Houdini, Nuke)

Crash Shot Breakdown

Explosion

A live action shot of a building with a simulated explosion composited in.

● Matchmoving was done in Nuke.

● RBD and explosion was simulated in Houdini.

● A shadow mask, glow mask and reflection mask were rendered out for compositing.

● Rendered out in Mantra

● Comped in Nuke.

(software used: Houdini, Nuke)

Explosion Breakdown

Tsunami

A shot with a large tsunami crashing into a city

● Shot was broken up into various elements like hard surfaces, water body, splashes and misting.

● Buildings were copied to points that were scattered on a grid for efficiency instead of manually placing down buildings to populate a city.

● The large body of water was a simulation using a wave shape as its boundary flow, split into 3 layers for optimization.

● Displacement was then applied in render.

● The splashes were simulated using a moving object as its origin.

● The misting was done with a pyro system.

● Masks were rendered out for compositing purposes, for when the body of water collides with the building, to make the area of collision brighter.

● Rendered in Mantra.

● Roto was done in Nuke to blend the splashes with the body of water.

(software used: Houdini, Nuke)

Test renders, before and after displacement

Tsunami Breakdown