WILLIAM REN

VFX Artist / 3D Generalist / UIUX /  Graphic Design


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About

 
CGI Short Film :    
Collaborating with four others to experiment with UE5 animation and render pipeline.    I    Houdini Pyro, RBD - Unreal Engine 5.3    I    2024









Details
Project Brief : In a team of five, we set out to create a short film from start to finish, with all assets produced by team members. This included modeling, texturing, environment creation, lighting, visual effects, compositing, and post-production.  And finally using UE5 to render.

My primary role in the team was to handle destruction effects . Additionally, I contributed to directing, technical art tasks, and Sound Design.












 Disciplines :






Credits :  




Instructor :
Houdini: RBD Simulation
Houdini: Pyro Simulation
Unreal Engine 5: VDB & GeoCache
Unreal Engine 5: Post Processing
Sound Design
Editing

Minghao Zhou
Ashling Tu
Ezra Hill
Jamie Tseng

Moshe Mahler


VFX Shots Only









Model Preparation







 Preparing  for RBD destruction.


After getting hands on this amazing model our artist creates. 
I need to make it destruction-ready. Since the destruction only 
takes parts in the middle section of the ship. It is beneficial to 
split the ship into 3 parts and simulate it with different complexity.









Wood Material








Pre-fractures.

Custom wooden pre-fracture ends up with 4,800 Pieces.
Using the squash, scatter, and stretch technique.


Constraint networks.


Wood doesn't shatter into individual pieces when it breaks. 
They are somewhat soft bodies where some of the pieces 
will be connected. To recreate that, I must relate them in
 a way that they form convincing wooden fractures.






The left image is all the constraints between the pieces.
Each dot in the image represents an individual piece.






Main Destruction







To convince the "underwaterness"


Drag

Drag_Spin

Those two magical nodes are the key to creating an underwater 
feeling of destruction effect. I can adjust and animate the amount 
of drag dynamically throughout the impact to make 
the most of the animation.







Dust trails and Shockwave







The image above demonstrates the steps to generate smoke trails from debris



Trails Effect from Debris


To achieve realistic trail effects from the blast, I selected specific pieces of debris to serve as sources for the trails. After converting these pieces into volumes, I used a pyro simulation to fine-tune the behavior of the sand and smoke, leveraging their velocity to create a natural flow.





Ground Shockwave


The shockwave is essential for conveying the impact's power, and it’s simulated separately to allow flexibility and efficiency in making adjustments.

It originated from particles emitted outward, which were then simulated using a DOPnet pyro setup to fine-tune the drag and fluidity. It was then combined with the trail effect to create a cohesive, rounded look.