#fmp3cptdev

This was by far the hardest scene to pull off. I couldn’t get it in time for the FMP deadline because of time and rendering problems, but I still managed to get it the day after (it is now updated on my Vimeo showreel link).

When I was at FMX, I spoke to Rico Dober, their FX Supervisor, and he told me how they are working with destruction a lot now (the summer FX Scheme is also focused on teaching destruction) and he told me how one of the hardest challenges was to destroy a tree, getting the physics and everything right.

To create this scene, it took me a lot of time doing all the steps, and also problem-solving and improvising. It was a real challenge and I enjoyed solving it, but it did take a lot of time.

In any basic destruction rig on Houdini, you need the base geometry. After that, you need to break it down into different parts (in my case: main tree branch, secondary branches, and smaller branches). After that, you need to fracture all these elements, on different sizes, with slight clumping and toning the physics, and since in this case it was a wood fracture, I had to deal with the fracturing process differently.

Once all of that is done, the next step is creating “constraints”, some kind of glue that sticks the pieces together when they break and makes sure everything breaks naturally.

After that, the simulation is created, with forces applied and everything running. I decided to make the fracture in slow motion as well, since there would be more detail and the forces would act slowly. Here’s how it looked from the viewport:

Working with the Ocean Spectrum tools was a lot of fun. I didn’t know how well-made these were, and it’s really fun to noodle around until you find your preferred settings for it.

I enjoyed working with Pyro simulations, since a lot of the work is done in the Render tab, constantly previewing renders of how you shade your simulations.

I had knowledge in this from my dissertation, and it was a fun process overall even though my computer didn’t enjoy it that much.

Since I wrote my dissertation on Houdini, that really helped me have a better understanding when I was working, and I used some of my knowledge from there for my reel.

I made two pieces working with particle fluids for this showreel, which took a bit to get the physics and collisions right but weren’t the hardest projects I made for this.

This project involved training. A LOT of training.

I watched as many tutorials, masterclasses, online lectures, and read as much as I could in the span of two weeks. I tried to learn as much as I could when I was going into each different shot I had planned.

I also tried to think of unique scenes to get away from the “tutorial” look and to show the more creative sides of myself. It wasn’t too hard to think of things to create for the reel. In fact, there are still around 4 scenes that I wanted to create but didn’t have the time for them. I still plan on improving my showreel though, so I’m pretty sure those will come eventually.

Well, some time has passed and I’m back around here to update on this project.

During the last 2 months, I could never really jump into Houdini and start creating visuals, without having a previous idea of what I was doing and how. However, I couldn’t force myself to create visual ideas, and since I couldn’t get any good ideas for pre-visualisation, I never really jumped into the project properly.

Last week, FMX happened. It was amazing, and I loved every aspect of it. I went to all the Houdini talks possible, and learned a lot. I also spoke to recruiters and met some of my favourite Houdini artists there.

What this whole experience did was 2 things:

For one, it showed me how much I actually love VFX and how amazing learning Houdini is. This was really important to me since I hadn’t felt that passion for VFX since I started Uni, and feeling so thrilled about an industry once again made me immediatly want to improve and work.

The other thing FMX showed me, is that I really need a reel that covers the roles I want in the industry. My current showreel was very inconsistent, with very different projects and very different approaches.

So, where does all of this lead us to? During FMX I made a choice. I am making a brand new Showreel as my Final Major Project. I am going to actually sit down, learn, and work for the first time in a long while, and I am going to get something done that will showcase my skills and preferences better, and help me get a job.

I’m aware that this may hurt my grades, and that changing an FMP all of a sudden is not a very smart idea. However, I knew that my other idea wasn’t going anywhere, and that I had done 0% of the work up until that point. If there was something that was going to motivate me to do work and improve, it was going to be making a diverse showreel, showing different tools from Houdini and putting everything together in an industry-friendly format.

Another motivation is that Double Negative are running an FX Internship for graduates, and I definitely want to apply to that. The deadline is May 11th, the same as the FMP deadline, so I’m definitely going for that with my showreel.