Can you believe it? I’m finally back again with another semester of learning, having fun, and suffering with VFX in Houdini! After my very informative experience throughout my independent study with Professor Nelson Lim last semester, I decided I wanted to continue where I left off with a new independent study for the fall. I’m very grateful for Nelson being willing to take me on and work with me for another semester, though this one is already different than my previous study with him-- we actually have a small group this semester of 4 students including myself that Nelson decided were worthy enough for him to guide in some independent VFX projects! While it will definitely be a new kind of experience to get used to, I’m looking forward to working alongside my very talented peers this semester and also collaborating on a big VFX project with them.

So, what’s my poison of choice for this semester? It’s something that was mentioned to me many times by industry professionals as an essential type of VFX that all VFX artists should know, though it can also be quite unwieldy and challenging… it’s pyro VFX!

After my very brief venture into smoke simulations last semester for finishing touches on my Scarlet Witch project, I couldn’t lie that I was as intrigued as I was confused about the world of pyro and smoke sims in Houdini. I also believe that it makes sense as a next step for me after my journey with particle simulations previously along with my foundation in sparks, though I know that certainly doesn’t mean that it’ll be an easy thing to learn. Nonetheless, I am cautiously excited about learning how to bend flames to my will!

When it came to searching for a reference shot for this project, I won’t lie that I was pretty hopelessly lost at first. I scoured the internet for every kind of fire VFX I could find, from Game of Thrones to Harry Potter. To my dismay, I couldn’t really find a clip that inspired me and made me want to emulate its style. That was of course until I was talking to Nelson about my dilemma, and he recommended that I check out an HBO show from a couple years ago titled “The Nevers”. I hadn’t heard of this show previously, though after doing some research to find my reference shot, it definitely seemed like it was up my alley. At a very basic level, the show is about a gang of Victorian women with magical abilities-- I know, I know, I ended up back where I started with a magic effect, but I think it provides a great opportunity for me to bridge my knowledge between what I know how to do and what I need to learn!

Specifically within The Nevers, the clip I ended up deciding on featured Annie “Bonfire” Carbey, a powerful and very badass fire-wielding mage. The pyro VFX utilized for her magic immediately intrigued me with how it was ever so slightly stylized but still quite realistic, utilizing lots of sparks and the interactions between different kinds of fire that does Annie’s bidding when called upon. The end result is quite striking and dynamic both in movement and aesthetics, so I’m very excited to try my hand at recreating it.

Just like my last project, after I selected my reference shot, I made a FX breakdown where I really scrutinized every frame of the effect to break it up into small pieces for me to tackle one by one.

Not only will I be working towards creating the VFX for this shot, I will also be trying my hand at compositing my effect on top of real-life footage! This is another thing many people told me would be beneficial for my portfolio to really showcase my effects to their full potential, so I’m eager to see the kind of difference it can make in my final product. Two of my peers also participating in this independent study were gracious enough to help me out in filming myself for the base footage, though very unfortunately our work was lost to a corrupted SD card. That footage was planned to be part of my deliverables for this week, but of course I do not have it anymore, so it’ll have to wait until another week.

For now, since I didn’t really have any actual scene setup to do for this project, I went ahead and started trying out some preliminary pyro simulations in Houdini to start to get a feel for the first part of the shot that I’ll be tackling. However… to put it lightly, my first attempts at this pyro sim were quite the disaster, so no updates here on that just yet. Hopefully next week I can show something at least somewhat successful for my first real work in progress pass at this project!