Reel Breakdown - JS – Visual Effects Artist

Joaquim Santos | FX Artist
2013 Demo Reel
Welding Arm
One shot project at Bournemouth
University
(BU).The
CG
arm
was
modeled,
animated, shaded and rendered with
multiple passes, in Houdini. The flame
and sparks were created using particles
in Houdini for added speed and
control.The final look on the sparks is
obtained through a mixture of motion
blur and over bright material. The flame
passed several instances in development,
having started as a metaball, advancing
to sprites, points and finally small
spheres copied onto points. In comp
some of these shots were combined. The
compositing was done in Nuke.
Software: Houdini | Nuke
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Lincoln from Steven Spielberg
Full body roto done while working at
Framestore. The jacket was keyframed
by hand, almost frame by frame due to
the wind flapping the cloth. The rest was
a mixture of Sillhouette's Point Tracking
and Mocha Planar Tracking. The mask
was used in Nuke as a garbage mask to
get more detail into the keying of the
image and to export the final mattes.
Software: Sillhouette | Mocha | Nuke
_______________________________________________________________
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +351 919 038 474
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +447743015424
Underwater Scene
Dry to wet conversion.
Lamp modeled and animated in Houdini.
Volumetric effects of the lamp done in
Houdini, using v_litfog. Used an image
treated in Houdini Composite to create
fake caustics. Rendered in multiple
passes that were composed in Nuke.
Used acquisition footage shot in an water
tank to simulate the particles.
Software: Houdini | Nuke | Photoshop
_
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The Refinery
For the reel I opted for a black
background but kept the title that shows
the idea behind: a refinery fire! With this
shot I wanted to get some experience
with Pyro. To achieve the necessary
aggressiveness of the flames and smoke
and give the impression of wind pushing
it, the Fluid Source was tweaked and
several of the parameters in the Pyro
Solver
were
tested
and
changed
accordingly. The Pyro shader had several
iterations and the Smoke and Fire tabs
had the lookup Ramps extensively
changed to achieve extra detail. All
models done with Houdini and rendered
with Mantra's PBR. All compositing done
in Nuke.
Software: Houdini | PFTrack | Nuke
_______________________________________________________________
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +351 919 038 474
Corfe Castle
Destruction sequence of one wall at Corfe
Castle. The objective was to use an RBD
simulation that could be as procedural as
possible. Almost all the steps had a file
or ROP node to write out the .bgeo and
read back in, to keep the workflow fast. I
used Voronoi Fracture and a combination
of scattered and painted areas to
pre-fracture the geometry feed to the
Simulation. Used a glue network with
attributes
created
that
could
be
animated, in terms of Distance Threshold
and Blend to get different speeds and
behaviors. Some parts were kept glued
together while others would dissolve.
From the chunks I derived the smoke,
with a Pyro Simulation and the particles
that become random sized and shaped
debris. Rendered as multiple passes in
Houdini and composited in Nuke.
Software: Houdini | Nuke
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Space Scene
Full CG Scene.
All the objects were modeled in Houdini.
The Hubble is being occluded from a
massive object coming from deep space.
Used images from the Nasa Blue Marble
site to create some simple custom
shaders, with height information (to
derive displacement) and so on. The
Earth is a series of increasingly bigger
spheres with the shaders applied to it.
Star maps were created in 2D, in Nuke.
The Nebula was a real volumetric smoke,
from which I used just a part.
Software: Houdini | Nuke
___________________________________________________________
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +351 919 038 474
WIP SECTION
Volcano Explosion
Very early WIP.
Objective is to simulate a volcanic
eruption, complete with all the elements
needed to achieve realism, simulation
wise
(volcanic
plume/pyroclastic;
secondary smoke, debris, smoke from
debris...), while learning more of Pyro
and Fluids in general. Major motion and
elements have been achieved, but there
are still some areas to improve. The
experience has been productive in all
areas, especially in terms of learning to
better optimize the scene!
Smoke was done using Pyro, the debris
were pre-fractured and feed into the
Dynamics simulation.
Software: Houdini | Nuke | Photoshop
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Waterfall
Early WIP.
Objective is to simulate a waterfall
complete with all the elements needed to
achieve realism, while learning more of
Fluids in general. Major motion and
elements have been achieved, but there
are still some areas to improve. The
importance certain key areas and
settings was a lesson well learned!
Software: Houdini | Nuke | Photoshop
Music from Soundcloud.com – The Awakening by Seizon
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +351 919 038 474
Website: http://js-vfx.com | Email: [email protected] | Mobile: +351 919 038 474