FX TD Demo Reel | Xuan Shen

Within the 12 months of studying Houdini I strived to recreate realistic scenario with simulations of the following elements: particles, pyro, rigid body dynamics (RBD), and procedural modeling.

I believe with my passion in developing my visual effect skills I will one day be able to bring imagination into captivating visuals on screens.

This project draws inspiration from a news segment capturing a blizzard that swept through Quebec City.

In this scene I assembled the building using multiple Kitbash models to recreate the Victorian house look in Quebec. Then I scattered multiple layers of snow on the geometry in a procedural way so they piles up as the wind blow. 

Different particle sims was created to layer the falling snow in close up, mid and background. The flakes blown off from the snow piles on the roof was advected by pyro sims to imitate an air field.

The fire is a recreation of a rupture pipeline caught on fire after an explosion at a countryside.

The group project was pitched and decided to recreate several sequences from the 2019 movie Midway.

I worked on the pyro and smoke trail for the falling plane in the middle of the frame and the destruction RBD sim of carrier Akagi's deck. From this project I learnt how to integrate pyro velocity from another artist's pyro simulation to advect my rigid body dynamic sim. 

Collaborating with my classmates was not only an immensely enjoyable and memorable experience but also synchronized a professional studio workflow.