Just signed on to do the VFX for an indie horror/comedy film called Hold the Fort. While I may help with other effects later, in the next few weeks I’m focusing solely on the death scene for one of the main monsters, who explodes in a poof of dust! It’s a quick 4-5 frame effect, but requires some more complicated 3D modeling and simulation work. Today I had a brief meeting with the director to go over the creative, and have since started working on some RnD.
The raw shot I’m working with:
What I’ve Done So Far:
With test geometry I’ve setup the base physics for a pyro sim in Houdini, using a super high divergence value to blow the smoke out. The creative is to have an explosion of dust start from the center of the monster and spread out. It needs to be fast and forceful and go out in all directions!
Action Items:
- RnD
- Try emitting individual particles to drive the expansion outward in smaller chunks
- Make explosion more wide and less vertical
- Make simulation less like smoke and more like dust (adding viscosity didn’t work… so maybe turn the pyro sim into particle sim?)
- Have explosion source spread along surface
- Actual effect (once actual shot assets are received from Director tomorrow)
- Match move rough geometry (look into Maya ID match move for this?)
- Consider using velum for cloth/body tearing apart during explosion?
- Buildout scene/lighting/camera to match
Let’s rock on!