Ismael Martínez - Houdini FX Artist - Reel 2024

Hello everyone and thank you for viewing my entry, I hope you enjoy the projects and the story behind them.

I was responsible for the core of the explosion, shockwaves that surround it, lighting and compositing.

One of the main challenges of this project was undoubtedly the gigantic scale since each of the simulations is made on a real scale, the core of the explosion has more than 2.7 km in radius, the shockwaves that surround it more than 3 .2 km radius and the camera is located about 9km away

For the lighting I ended up using a huge Point Light to be able to illuminate the shockwaves and the environment, I also used an hdri to raise the lighting a little, the compositing process was also a challenge since balancing all the layers well and getting that monochromatic tone and recreating all the lens effects was quite a challenge

For this project I wanted to recreate an abstract piece but without losing the realistic look.

For the magical effect I made different layers to have total control over the look I wanted to achieve.

All RBD simulations are simulated separately, controlling the direction of the pieces through force vectors in order to achieve movement and control the shapes.

The creative process to reach the result of the final piece was quite complicated since I had to try various types of environments and effects to achieve my vision.

As a lover of classic Ford Mustangs, I wanted to recreate a fast and chaotic chase scene.

The main objective in terms of effects was to create an explosion with a very impactful timing and with a lot of detail, using different types of emitters (grains, RBD) to create the different layers that compose it.

For the shots I made an impact detection system to create the pyro and RBD emitter

I also wanted the entire environment to be impacted by the explosion, doing different RBD simulations for the posters and vellum for the cables and plants.

On this occasion I wanted to simulate an atmosphere of mystery, in which at the end a character is revealed, also adding more story elements such as the body of the foreground with the gun in which you can see a sinister face achieved through lighting

For the water simulations I divided them into 4 by distance in order to have the maximum possible detail and control.

Also adding different atmospheric effects such as fog, wind, smoke and rain to create an atmosphere of mystery.