David Owairu - Embracing Proceduralism

The Landing

A short cinematic experience focused on creating cohesive tools and effects for animation.

My final project for my university course is a cinematic short about an astronaut landing on a planet and trying to claim it for their colony.

The project was an individual project. I was in charge of every stage of the pipeline. I implemented three tools and two setups that work together to create a cohesive environment and effects. I also worked on everything from pre-production to final compositing.

Below is a breakdown of the tools.

Software: Blender(Character modelling and sculpting), Maya(Retopology and Rigging), Substance Painter(Character and Prop Texturing), Houdini(Tool creation, Procedural Texturing, Procedural modelling, Lighting, Layout), Karma XPU(Rendering), Nuke(Compositing)

Mud Man FX

Implementing FX into a provided animation.

This project was a university assignment for the DNEG Masterclass. I created an effect of the character gathering mud droplets from the ground, freezing their opponent into a statue and shattering them to pieces. 

The concept behind the masterclass was to imagine working in a studio setting. We were given assets from the animation, layout and lighting departments. With this in mind, I ensured my setups were as procedural as possible. I also ensured I followed standard techniques for destruction FX to give me a good base for future destruction-based projects.

Software: Houdini(FX and rendering)

Motion Paths Study

A collection of work focused on procedural animation.

This collection of procedural artwork was created for my Visual Studies unit at university. We were allowed to study anything as long as it had a visual output. I chose to focus on Houdini and Procedural animation workflows. All animations were created in Houdini and transferred to Blender for texturing, lighting and rendering. The collection of work is centred around the idea of motion paths.

Software: Houdini(Procedural Animation), Blender(Procedural texturing,lighting,rendering)

Martial Arts Cloth Simulation

A short animated sequence focused on cloth simulation.

With the basics of using Houdini established in the previous project and a better understanding of manipulating points and attributes. I moved to a personal project involving cloth simulation. After discovering Marvelous Designer, I wanted to learn how similar things could be done in Houdini. I went through the entire workflow, patterning, sewing and simulating a garment. 

This time I also wanted to learn the Solaris workflow within Houdini. So lighting and rendering(Karma XPU) were also completed in Houdini.

Software: Houdini(Cloth Simulation, Lighting), Substance Painter(Cloth Texturing), Karma XPU(Rendering).

Nok Culture Sculpture Generator

A Houdini tool for creating procedural Nok Culture sculpture heads.

As part of my cultural heritage assignment, I developed a tool that uses procedural modelling techniques to create representations of Nok Culture sculpture heads found in Nigeria in the 1920s.

Software: Houdini(Creating HDA), Unreal(Testing HDA)

Thank you for looking through my rookies entry!