THE CRUMBLE

''THE CRUMBLE'' is a Houdini CGI scene featuring RBD, PYRO & POP simulations

''THE CRUMBLE'' serves as the final culmination of my journey as a VFX Student for Animum 3D school. This was my last project during the master's degree,  and by undertaking this challenging project I aimed to demonstrate my expertise as a capable VFX artist ready to embark on professional opportunities in the industry.

As a 5 week long project, our aim was to embrace new techniques and workflows similar to the industry standards, and by combining Rigid Body, Pyro & POP Simulations as well as creating my own fully customizable OTLs, I am glad to think that I achieved my purpose.

In the next video you can see first hand what the process was:

When overtaking a project with this dimensions, preproduction and preparation is key. That's why the first weeks of the project I was mainly focusing in creating 8 different and customizable OTLs that would help me developing correctly this project, but also keeping it organized...

If you are familiar with Houdini's workflow you'll know what I am talking about!

THE OTLS

First OTL to build and set up the fracture pieces, depending or not on some custom user points (red input)

This second OTL packs the geometry into packed fragments, creating the bullet attributes for simulation

Next OTLs to set new constraint properties or overwrite old properties

This next two OTLS had it's purpose on creating extra set of constraints, either from scratch or by setting cluster attributes for high quality simulations

Simple OTL to generate breaking attributes and strength caps to all constraints, or specified ones (both Cone Twist or Hard constraints)

Last two OTLs, the first one contains the Solver, and the point exports (with the availability of adding custom forces with a closed HDA), and the second one transforms the simulation with a point 4x4 matrix to stick the pieces, in order to save computational costs.

THE GEOMETRY

For a big project like this one, you need a good geometry.

The building counts with separate materials trying to mimic a real life building (concrete, glass, wood, bricks...). In total there were 6 different materials to work with, wich I split in light and heavy materials to work in two different simulations, one main and the other in a secondary plane.

In the following slider you can see the building geometry breakdown by materials:

A big building like this one generates a big fracture as well. A total of 38.800 pieces that bring the simulation to life and gives the amount of detail necessary to my project needs.

DETAILING

After getting the main simulation all worked up, it was time to level up the game. Thinking as if it was in real life, crumble explosions are generated as the different flammable elements of the building start to collapse, some times even causing the crumble to grow wild.

I decided to add both PYRO simulations to achieve a new level of realism.  The interplay between the RBD and PYRO simulations creates a seamless blend of destruction and chaos, resulting in a visually stunning and believable outcome.

As the building fragments collapses, clouds of dust rise and fill the air, enveloping the scene in a gritty haze.  The careful integration of dust simulation replicates the natural behavior of debris and adds a dynamic element to the composition, further intensifying the impact of the crumbling structure.

By seamlessly combining the power of both simulation with the extra POP Debris, the scene transcends to a whole new level of realism.

Every element plays its part.

THE COMPOSITING

As the final touch to my project, compositing brings everything together in perfect harmony. Through seamless integration of visual elements, compositing adds depth and polish to each frame. 

It is with the final compositing that all the puzzle parts come together, and the project really comes alive as all different simulations merge into a big, beautiful and realistic CGI scene. 

Thank you very much for walking by my side in this nice journey through the building from scratch of this project. I hope that with this breakdown you can get a brief idea of my process workflow, both creative and technical.

I hope you like my project! Don't forget to leave your impressions below 👇👇