Rebelway Rookies FX Challenge

This is my final entry for the challenge.

It's a small portion of the shot but it was a great learning experience for me and has helped me find areas for improvement.

This is a slow motion demo of my final entry since the FX happen so fast.

This is a viewport playblast of my scene so far.

Although transparency details can't be seen in it, it's helped me get a smooth transition of the fx for the creature breaking out the container.

Working in Houdini, I built a workflow for the destruction of the creature's container.

This was a first pass to have a procedural workflow that I can make artistic and technical changes to.

These are the colliders for the RDB simulation of the container deformation.

For this first pass, I put in a variety of size and speed of them. 

Some move slow or fast, some are larger or smaller in size.

These activate the RBD fractured pieces.

They're activation bounding volumes that move along with the colliders.

This is the RBD simulation for the container deformation.

It's a mix of glue and soft constraints.

When the glue constraints break, they switch to soft constraints, giving it a bending look.

This is a first pass and I still need to make some tweaks.

This is the deformation of the RBD simulation applied to the original geometry.

From this first pass, I need to make some adjustments.

The window-like panes on the collider I consider to be a sci-fi material similar to polycarbonate or a layered polymer.

It cracks and breaks in certain places.

Here, I am activating the revealing of the inside faces of certain pieces to reveal the cracks before the break.

The polymer is deforming as it cracks and breaks.

This is a test render of the transparent material cracking.

I'm hiding the inside faces until I decide to activate the cracks so that they don't show up in the render until the desired time.

This was only a test pass, it's not the final cracks and breaks.

Here I'm slicing the container.

It may seem a little weird but it should get weirder when I add some magic and other effects.

This is the creature collider and resulting simulation for when it breaks out of the container.

The creature's movement affects the sliced pieces.

I may add some additional forces here along with magic effects.

Bending Metal 

This is one of the types of FX that will happen when the creature breaks out of its container.

I can bend it anywhere on this piece of geo.

This is the bending metal effect in the context of the scene.

I made this video to plan out the timing of this effect and the other effects on my list.

The star you see coming up will be used to slice the metal container.

Those particles at the base of the container are FLIP fluid particles and serve as a placeholder for liquid to be.

Setting-up the main area of the scene for the FX.

Created a cave environment for the scene.

Still in a concept stage.

Will be modifying it, improving it, as I work on the FX.

Did some more concepting. Cut some ideas and found some new ones.

Going for a cave environment.

Currently laying out and modeling cave environment and scene geo.

More modeling work in progress of scene geo

Modeling of Scene Geo, Work In Progress

Building on the initial concept idea I had in my head, using a variety of references.

Block-out, Layout of Scene Geo

site glitch?

site glitch?

After watching the helpful briefs I started my process with a little story description..

Story Description

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The demon creature had been trapped on a remote planet for a very long time.

The security of the devil’s trap has been compromised.

A deep space guardian has been sent to the planet to resecure the creature.

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I did some brainstorming and came up with several ideas. Decided to start with the "devil's trap."

Initial placement idea for FX in this area.

Setup some initial light sources in Houdini to get an idea.

The main lighting, I think of as coming from something like the moonlight of multiple moons in the sky. These lights are currently a cool pale blue color.

The environment is a warm red. I setup an environment light to be that color but would need to change the sky to get the full effect.

This image was rendered in Houdini's Mantra renderer which I plan to be using for the remainder of the competition going forward.