How did I deal with…?

Simulating Visual Effects for a Render Time Environment

The goal of this project is to make a short film with only 1 scene, 1 character and a natural environment behind her, including trees and water. Here you can see the short film after Post‑production.

The many solutions I'm implementing for the visual effects (VFX) in this environment consist of:

nParticles & force fields

These pictures show the simulation and animation progression of the Volume Axis Fields (VAF), the splines driving the spirals and place holders for the nParticles swirling through the tunnels:

For the nParticles, I'm texturing 9 types of images with alpha channels on simple 2 sided geometry. I'm using Instancers for the geometry:

Wind on vegetation

I'm using Paint Effects and replacing their shaders with MIA to get photo‑realistic Subsurface Scattering (SSS). Detailed trees layer for foreground, a simpler one for middle ground and cardboard trees for background. The advantage of this method is that Paint Effects have a module that automates wind simulation on leaves and branches:

nParticles on air

I'm using a fluid volume container to simulate mist in the air:

And additional nParticles plus different turbulence and wind fields to simulate granularity on the air particles:

Volumetric lights

I'm using a couple of volumetric and flare lights to project shadows on the camera. That way I can get more SSS behind her hair, dress, water and tree leaves. I'm rendering the volumetric lights directly from maya into EXR sequences and compositing later in Nuke:

For more information on compositing, visit the following case study:

Water material

I'm using a NURBS surface for the water in the foreground with an MIA, including a procedural‑animated ocean water noise in the displacement node of the material's Shader Group:

Here you can see the composite, before and after reflections:

Nucleus particles on character

For the girl, I'm using nCloth for the dress and wings, and nHair for the hair. Also, an Alembic low poly version of her body to act as attractor and collision object for the nParticles swirling in the force fields:

For more information on VFX and rendering environments, characters and props, visit the following case studies:

Visit these case studies to learn more about rendering and compositing: