Credits:
Design Director: Dan Pierse
Styleframe Design: Ramona Clarke
Simulation: Jason Smart
Design Director: Dan Pierse
Styleframe Design: Ramona Clarke
Simulation: Jason Smart
For the broadcast package of The Masked Singer Season 7 on FOX, I was tasked with creating animated smoke simulations based on styleframes designed by Ramona Clarke.
For the creation of the smoke, I used SideFX Houdini's amazing sparse pyro solver which allowed me to quickly iterate on various setups until I landed on a workflow that fit
the look and feel of the styleframes as well as worked for animation purposes.
the look and feel of the styleframes as well as worked for animation purposes.
Here is a breakdown of that process:
It was important during my development process to make sure the smoke collisions produced
a clearly defined shape as shown here in the styleframes.
a clearly defined shape as shown here in the styleframes.
Smoke emission for all the sims was handled with simple deformed spheres that animated randomly over time, causing the density of the smoke emission to vary throughout the sim.
After inputting the direction of the smoke for each emitter, I added custom velocity noise
to break up the movement and speed for additional variation.
to break up the movement and speed for additional variation.
Throughout the development process, I tried different methods of emitting smoke as well as different color combinations and various collision methods.
After finishing the sims in Houdini, I exported VDB sequences that were then imported into C4D
for final lighting, shading, and rendering using Arnold.
for final lighting, shading, and rendering using Arnold.
Final compositing of the smoke renders was done by Dan Pierse inside After Effects:
Thank you and I hope you enjoyed a look into this process.
