Rafael Chaves - FX Showreel

FX SHOWREEL

FX work I produced during my time as student at University of Hertfordshire. Contains work I created for my graduation film 'Synthesis' which I developed along with 4 other teammates, as well as for live projects set by ILM and DNEG, personal university projects and work for my second year film.

All FX were done in Houdini, most were rendered in Karma and some in Mantra, compositing in Nuke. Read below for breakdowns of the showreel pieces.

LINKEDIN

'SYNTHESIS' Short Film

Laser Disintegration/Materialization

In the short film SYNTHESIS i was responsible for the FX on the main transition shot, in which the jungle environment disintegrates and a dystopian factory environment materializes to reveal the truth about the reality the orangutan finds himself in.

The transition/reveal shot was achieved by running each individual environment asset through a custom setup, entirely in Houdini. Each asset was remeshed and cleaned for simulation, the trees were split into 3 levels of detail to improve optimization based on proximity to the camera.

The assets then ran through a procedural disintegration/materialization tool that was adaptable per asset in which a spread solver is used to drive: 1. particle simulations for the disintegration; 2. laser beams and points; 3. geometry light that follows the laser contact point; 4. sparks simulations; and 5. pyro simulations.

The assets with FX are then instanced in Solaris. To achieve the effect of a gradual disintegration, the jungle assets are retimed based on the spinning camera movement.

ILM Live Project - Destruction

ILM's brief was to create a wall destruction shot, including its construction with multiple layers and combination of solvers, but how to do it was creatively open. Somewhat inspired by a 'Game of Thrones' shot, I went for a bell crushing through a church wall. The wall combines layers of concrete, insulation and wood + a window of concrete and glass, adding to a more complex destruction. I also added a marble stage, a wood altar and wood benches, all fractured and simulated.

For the main RBD there are constraint systems for each wall layer + between each layer. The bell has soft constraints which makes it deform as it hits the wall. After the destruction, there is a secondary RBD sim to create the debris, as well as a POP sim for the smaller debris. Lastly a Pyro sim was done to add a layer of dust to the destruction.

Responsible for all except bell model.

DNEG Live Brief

DNEG's brief was to create the a magic attack FX, they provided the environment, character models and animation and the rest was open creatively. I choose to work on a water / ice effect, inspired by 'Harry Potter' and 'How to Train Your Dragon'.

The effect is broken up in different layers: 1. build-up FLIP; 2. build-up Whitewater; 3. droplets FLIP; 4. droplets Whitewater; 5. attack FLIP; 6. attack RBD (ice debris); 7. ice spikes geometry; 8. PYRO simulation (ice impact); and 9. POP simulation (ice impact).

The most challenging aspect was nailing the build-up water shape and timing. It was achieved by a combination of velocity fields, sphere collision, pop replicate and a custom gravity force. Whitewater for the build-up was tricky as the solver's buoyancy and gravity did not work well with the custom radial gravity. The solution was to input extremely low values and increase the adhesion settings so the whitewater would stick and follow the Flip better. All layers required many iterations to arrive at the final result. Simple shaders and lighting were done in Solaris, rendering in Karma and compositing in Nuke.

Rocky Shore + River Projects

Done for the 3rd Year Showreel brief at University of Hertfordshire, I took on these personal projects to explore water simulations further. Rock assets and textures from Bridge Megascans.

For the rocky shore, an ocean spectrum setup drives the velocity force that generates the waves on the flip simulation. For the river, velocity is generated by running a proxy simulation with reseeding and using the result of that as input for the high resolution sim. For both projects the flip particles serve as the source for the whitewater simulation and a wetmap solver that multiplies reflectivity on the shader of the rocks. Shading, lighting and rendering in Mantra and composited in Nuke.

Wall C4 Explosion

Done for a Houdini Simulation brief for University of Hertfordshire in 2nd Year, in which a wall needed to be constructed and destroyed with more than one solver. The wall was constructed with multiple layers based on building wall references, and the destruction was based on C4 explosives footage. Adding to the main RBD, particles and pyro solvers, I added flip and whitewater simulations for water leaking out of broken pipes. Shading, lighting and rendering in Mantra and compositing in Nuke.

'Immemorial' Short Film - Time Fracture FX

Immemorial is a live-action short film I produced with 2 other students in 2nd Year at University of Hertfordshire. A man is trapped in a time loop, and while trying to get out of it, he triggers a machine that fractures the environment in pulse-like glitch.

I was responsible for the Time Fracture FX, which was driven by normals transferring, and added to the main fracture are particles, pyro and debris simulations. The shot was the only full 3D shot in the live action film, so the room was recreated digitally and textured with camera projection of images of the real shooting location. Shader, lighting and render in Karma, compositing in Nuke. Environment, corpses and clock machine modelling by Chien Huey Yeow.

Jungle Instancing/Layout + Pipeline (SYNTHESIS)

Still for 'SYNTHESIS' I was responsible for assembling all assets and layout out the jungle. Instancing for the jungle assets was done inside Solaris in Houdini. Instancing is driven by a mask by feature based on the big trees' ambient occlusion for plants, rocks, leaves and thinner trees.

Instancing is split between 3 different levels of detail based on proximity to the camera, which combined with a camera culling system improves performance of the heavy jungle scene.

Thanks for reading!