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In Pieces

[audio on]​​​​

About the Project

OVERVIEW:

I got the idea for this project from a tutorial that I came across by VFX artist Antonio Cappiello. I found the walkthrough of his general workflow interesting, and it was along the lines of what I was wanting to generate for this VFX piece. So I decided to recreate it using a combination of his techniques and my own. His walk-through is/was geared for intermediate to advanced users of Houdini, Unreal Engine, and Photoshop as it is not so much of a "how-to", but rather a general workflow guide, which is why I feel comfortable posting it. So if you're unfamiliar with these applications or just starting out, a project like this might not be the place to begin. I thought it was a cool challenge and an opportunity to learn new techniques and put my own flavor to it, and ultimately, I picked up some new tips and tricks for future projects, so big shout out and thank you to Antonio!

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My focus for this cinematic was lighting, volumetrics, the effects and a pop of color to create a futuristic/sci-fi style noir. For the storyline and environment, I aimed to create something reminiscent of a hybrid scene from Spiderman (villain abilities testing) and Sin City. The character represents an incomplete or unsuccessful experiment, flashing into a lab's "testing" area, stumbling forward before perishing. This isn’t too far removed from Antonio's original objective, but I wanted to play more with the environment and "look/feel" of the effects. Below are some of the references I was using:

Software Used:

In Houdini, I used the MoCapBidped3 node to create an RBD (rigid body dynamics) simulation of the broken man character. After selecting the animation that I wanted, I used a series of nodes to create a fracturing effect on the character's geometry, packed the fractured geometry, and created the collision objects. I then created a network for the dynamic simulation, attached it to a rigidbody node, and used gravity as the force before exporting the animated frames for import into UE5.

Biped
Biped in pieces
Biped effects network 01
Biped effects network 02

Biped Node System

In UE5, I created the environment using a combination of marketplace assets as well as assets I built in Maya. I added volumetric fog, a PostProcessingVolume, lighting, and created the necessary materials. Using UE5's Niagra system, I generated the "blow-in" effects (lightning, smoke), dissolving particles and effects on the character, and dust particles in the air. I also used animated textures created in Photoshop's animation timeline and Blueprints to create the appearance of the character flashing through tubing. The individual frames for these animated features were then taken back into Houdini to create flipbooks for use inside the Blueprints.

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An example of one the driving material graphs for the character is below:

Characte Dissolve Material Graph

Character Dissolve Material Graph

Rendering (Unreal Engine/After Effects/Motion Array/Media Encoder)-

I used a PostProcessVolume and a Cinematic Camera to provide the lens settings and Depth of Field. Renders were created using a Sequencer. Within the Sequencer, the camera shake and keyframes for the timing of the effects on screen were added (see below). Renders were done using the Movie Render Queue plugin.

 

The image sequences were then imported into After Effects where Audio was overlaid, and slight color correction was added. Audio is from Motion Array. Final renders were generated from Media Encoder​​​.

Animated Sequencer

Animated Sequencer

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