VIDEO
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DESCRIPTION
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Mesmerized by industrial design, I find myself repeatedly drawn to manufactured materials. Initially built in 2023 as a technical experiment with Houdini and EmberGen, I revisited it in 2024 to add detail and sculpt a concrete look that felt tempered, nuanced, & opulent.
STILLS
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New Visuals
03—1
The original visuals felt lacking in richness, so I desired to elevate them another level. I did this by adding more moments of value and color. I also spent more time in the final composite.
New Visuals
03—1
The original visuals felt lacking in richness, so I desired to elevate them another level. I did this by adding more moments of value and color. I also spent more time in the final composite.
Fluid Closeups
03—2
An advantage of having high-detail sims is that one can push in quite close without losing much resolution. Some of my favorite moments are closeups where I tried experimenting with the variety of options on hand for depth of field in redshift.
Fluid Closeups
03—2
An advantage of having high-detail sims is that one can push in quite close without losing much resolution. Some of my favorite moments are closeups where I tried experimenting with the variety of options on hand for depth of field in redshift.
Unused Sims
03—3
I had a few sims that didn't make the cut, in fact, only 3 of the 8 or so I made are in the final video. Mostly, these misfits, while beautiful, didn't push the resolution I was looking for.
Unused Sims
03—3
I had a few sims that didn't make the cut, in fact, only 3 of the 8 or so I made are in the final video. Mostly, these misfits, while beautiful, didn't push the resolution I was looking for.
Bokeh Look
03—4
This is the most modified shot from the original. I felt that abstractifying it further offered a greater contrast than it originally had.
Bokeh Look
03—4
This is the most modified shot from the original. I felt that abstractifying it further offered a greater contrast than it originally had.
Title Card
03—5
The title card came together quick! I wanted to get it done fast so this was done using the fluid solver in X-Particles. It's a simple setup using a high surface tension setting, alongside an animated attractor. The type animation was done in Cavalry, which is a software I've been falling in love with lately.
Title Card
03—5
The title card came together quick! I wanted to get it done fast so this was done using the fluid solver in X-Particles. It's a simple setup using a high surface tension setting, alongside an animated attractor. The type animation was done in Cavalry, which is a software I've been falling in love with lately.
Need a new hard drive...
03—6
As I worked on the project, I continued to push the resolutions of the sims coming from EmberGen. Some of these simulations contain hundreds of millions of voxels, which means... gigabytes per frames when meshed...
Need a new hard drive...
03—6
As I worked on the project, I continued to push the resolutions of the sims coming from EmberGen. Some of these simulations contain hundreds of millions of voxels, which means... gigabytes per frames when meshed...
03—7
Need a new hard drive...
03—7
Need a new hard drive...
03—8
Need a new hard drive...
03—8
Need a new hard drive...
PROCESS
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This was a technically daunting project, made much easier by the speed and quality that EmberGen produces.
Normally, simulating smoke and fluid at a high resolution is an intensive CPU task. EmberGen steps around this by simulating everything on the GPU. Modern graphics cards are blazing fast, and much more suited for visual tasks. The sacrifice in a bit of flexibility feels worth it for the payoff of quality/speed.
Houdini is incredibly flexible, but that ends up being a double edged sword when trying to get things done quick. For masters of the software it may be different, but I’m no Houdini God! I found Houdini to be perfect, however for turning the sims into 3D objects!
I’m not yet comfortable staging scenes within Houdini, so I set up the shots within Cinema4D. This allowed me to not worry about the complexity of the project and focus on nailing a pretty look!
SCOPE
~3 Weeks
CREDITS
Gabe Nadel
EXTRA
Oh boy, more fluid sims... how original...