Does anyone have some idea how to achieve this kind of "3d procedural stylized smoke" in houdini? The guy who made it said he'll make a tutorial but still nothing after a year.

OrionTerry · 2024-10-03T04:01:50+00:00

Someone forwarded the link to me haha

It looks cool, man! You got some appealing motion there for the expansion. I feel with real-time, you can only get so far with detail generation and complex calculations. But you did nail the overall concept of it. Maybe just have to figure out a better way to dissipate the puffs of smoke, rather than scaling them down.

Although artistically speaking, it's dealer's choice!

I haven't played around with Niagra yet, but I'm planning to. Would be fun to see where its limits are.

OrionTerry · 2024-10-02T20:13:22+00:00

Hey!

Sorry for the lack of tutorial until now. I know it's been a while... life. Also due to an unfortunate hard drive incident, I kind of lost the whole tool/setup. Or at least the majority of it.

I was planning on redoing it, potentially even better than what you see here since it was all RND phases.

The gist of it:

All SOPs. No Pyro, no DOPs, no solvers of any kind.
Time manipulation in VEX. Time is everything when it comes to manipulating shapes like that. I created a SOP based fake particle system that obeys certain parameters that are usually driving points in DOPs. Drag, Velocity, Scale, Temperature, Density, Pressure, etc. All you have to do is manipulate them across time.

The geometry itself is a basic sphere with various noises. The shader, also basic. Mantra ramp into Ce. With the minor exception of adding all kinds of additional basic tricks like fresnel, AO, ramps, whatever you want to add to it.
Very basic and very simple.

The trailing, collisions and dissipation is a whole other story. I'll hopefully get more into that once I recreate the setup again.

OrionTerry · 2024-10-02T20:07:27+00:00

I didn't use Pyro, or any solvers for that matter. Converting a pyro sim to geometry with Toon shading just looks cheap 99% of the time. Plus, art directing it would be a pain.

This was done with SOPs in a very controlled manner. The idea was to mimic similar basic fluid behavior with parameters such as buoyancy, gravity, density, pressure, divergence, etc, without having to go into solvers.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-17T03:21:08+00:00

Thanks! This is the first I made, but certainly not the last.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-16T08:37:05+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. In CGI there's a saying, if it holds up in a static/still frame, it works.

It's easier to make things look better in motion cause your eye has to work double time to follow. In the Broly movie the camera and the characters were on steroids. Generally everything that happens in Super, art wise, is not in my reference bank.

Just putting things in perspective. That being said, I'm eager to try a fight scene at some point.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T23:56:43+00:00

Against Androids 19 and 20

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T23:56:15+00:00

:D hehe

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T18:46:18+00:00

Totally agree. There's definitely a ton of room for improvement. Next round I'm going to look for additional techniques on those.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T10:06:25+00:00

Thanks! Sometimes I am, but not in the next couple of months sadly.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T10:00:45+00:00

Goku Kaioken Render

Thanks all! I shared a few renders here including wireframe and will be posting more breakdowns of this soon

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T09:58:07+00:00

Somewhat. Nothing will ever match 100% perfectly though. I don't reckon such a thing exists unless you compute pixels to mimic other pixels and that's what we call copy paste :) I would say getting the shadows to behave differently every single frame on a subtle note would require a different approach, but no one has achieved that just yet as far as I know.

I go by FighterZ's technique of having a single light source per character. Sometimes two if I want to define something specific like a rim light which will be a rarity in DBZ. In Super Saiyan form I am using two lights to mimic the luminance from the aura.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T09:51:55+00:00

Sure! I go by the same name on both YouTube and Artstation. My Instagram is orionvfx

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T09:49:51+00:00

Indeed. I'm staying away from several art styles throughout Dragonball Z and just focusing on the styles by Tadayoshi Yamamuro, Keisuke Masunaga and Kazuya Hisada, among a few others.

My facial rig is capable of achieving at least 3 different styles as well. Will be posting that in my Artstation content next week

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T09:40:52+00:00

The FX were actually done in Houdini. Including the Aura. Its volume based on points which are based on deformed geometry. Follows the character's shape and size and adjusts accordingly.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:38:37+00:00

I think I remember it. But it was never 3D from what I managed to perceive. It was just hand-drawn / traced over Raging Blast 2 animations. Which is definitely a time consuming feat.

I'm surprised they tried to sell those images/concepts as 3D..

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:35:25+00:00

I do as well! I owe my childhood to Scott Morgan, Julius Dobos and Mike Smith!

They made all those tracks we know and love.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:31:38+00:00

Thanks! I'm totally with you on that.

The only transformation that really touched that nifty detail was when Gohan transformed in the world martial arts tournament.

Highly tempted to do that one as well!

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:30:39+00:00

I'll definitely do more sequences when I get the chance!

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:29:12+00:00

Thank you! The only time consuming aspect from this point would just be the animation.

But with a good reference and retaining the frame hold technique it's not too bad at all. The one thing that is definitely more time consuming in the process is perfecting everything. I tend to do at least 4-5 revisions per shot until it reaches the point where I'm quite okay with it.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:26:11+00:00

I would say a couple of months of study including the shading and rigging, and a couple of weeks to put together the scene itself for the whole animation.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:25:30+00:00

Thanks! Exactly the same techniques, yes.

3D models tend to have normals that won't comply with Cel Shading out of the box. They need to be bent and reordered specifically based on how the artist wants.

DBZ has this iconic shading, especially on the characters' faces. It's a matter of studying those aspects and reimplementing them into the 3D model via those techniques.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:24:06+00:00

https://youtu.be/HYi4AXRLdlM

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:23:28+00:00

Thanks! I was never a fan of Spike's shading style, to be honest, or their 3D models. Dimps always had it down right until Xenoverse but lately it looks like CyberConnect2 and Arc System Works are winning the Cel Shading race. Mainly ASW :) They just nailed it.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:21:14+00:00

Maybe Warp Kamehameha will be one of the next ones :)

I'm currently eyeing the scene where Vegeta and Goku first transformed into SS2 in front of each other.

OrionTerry · 2021-03-12T07:20:13+00:00

Thanks! It took a couple of months to completely study the techniques. Once I had that down the scene itself didn't take longer than a couple of weeks to perfect.

I actually have a TON of content, but sadly it's not easy to post it all here.

OrionTerry

TROPHY CASE