VFX
Houdini Cloth Sim
In this project, I modeled and experimented with cloth sim in Houdini. The goals for this project was to have a model with modular components, that reacted with each other to make it easy to change. In this case, if you change the length of the lamp post, the lamp shade will follow with it’s height. I wanted the cloth sim to slowly blow away from the lamp and tested many different variations of wind and cloth elasticity to achieve this effect.
Houdini Fracture Sim
For this project, I experimented with fracture sims in Houdini. I wanted a spear to go through the dragon skull and shatter that area with the impact. This sim was tricky because fracturing objects in an explosive manner was fairly simple to do, but only fracturing an area of the object proved to be more difficult. I played around with different forces, density of the object, and masking the area I wanted to fracture to eventually create something I was happy with.
Houdini Trails and Particles
In this simulation, I wanted to challenge myself and learn how to do trails on moving objects in Houdini. I wanted to have a magic flying broom with lots of sparkles and trails coming from behind it as it flew. After creating a quick animation in Houdini, I then started experimenting with the trail sim. There are many resources online about trails and how they work, but I was having issues with keeping them from flying everywhere when the broom does a flip. The particles were very easy, masking the area in which they spawned and playing around with the appearance was all I needed to do for them, but the trails required a lot more fiddling to get to a place I was ok with. I eventually was able to find a sweet spot for the orbiting speed, and spawn location on the broom, to where I was happy with this final result.
Houdini and Niagra Simulation
In this project I wanted to merge my knowledge between Unreal’s Niagra system, and Houdini. I simulated the banners in Unreal, and used a mix of Houdini and Unreal to simulate the blanket. I used Houdini to mold the blanket to the baby dragon, and then used Unreal to simulate any of the cloth hanging from the ledge.
Then, I used Niagra to simulate the fireflies around the lantern, as well as the fire behind the window. I combined all of these pieces as well as some ambient sound, to create this cozy scene.