World Destroyer - Houdini and Redshift | Breakdown
This FX piece was essentially a tribute to my childhood. I referenced some of my favorite comic books and movies that I used to read/watch as a child. My love for FX and CG was sparked by movies like the early Superman, played by Brandon Routh, the not-so-popular 2004 Daredevil, played by Ben Affleck, and the visuals from Ghost Rider.
The scene was worked over five months, going through countless iterations, mainly over the fracturing and texturing of the RBD simulations happening on the ground as well as a fair bit of look dev to achieve the dystopian / end of the world look I had imagined at the start of the project.
World Destroyer was rendered entirely in Houdini and Maxon Redshift and composited in Nuke. Responsible for all aspects except building models (sketchfab / kitbash)
Process
I started by referencing The Man of Steel, taking inspiration from the countless heat vision scenes and scenes of dystopia/destruction from The Last of Us to lay out and imagine the city where this destruction would occur.
I rendered 13 AOVs inside Redshift to have complete control over the lighting and look without having to go into Houdini and render all the frames again. I then spent a week compositing the AOVs to reconstruct my beauty render, dialing in the depth of field, bokeh, lens blurs, and lens flares, and polished it up for the final render.
Ground Fracture Setup and VEX
Fracture Process
Edge Glow Procedural Material Setup
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