Particle & dynamics showreel

[kogden]

a good start

you have some alright comping skills more then anything though!
and you rigid body stuff is certainly well on its way! well done.

your fire though.... needs a bit of love, they seem a little more game effects then pre-rendered, but maybe that was the look you were going for ;)

out off all the shots i really enjoyed the road smashing i think you should lead with that shot! Its a well contructed, decently lite piece, that has a resonabley complex process behind creating it.
Then followed by the avalanche down the side of the mountain.
Then the chimney stack collapsing (may need more shadow on the dust, meaning shadowing from itself) also smaller pieces when it breaks, remember there made of brick.
Then i would say the watch tower, only thing with this is maybe having a few of the bricks stay together in larger chunks, just like they are still cemented together.
and i figure that is commercial work for tv at the end? maybe re-edit the order on this though, but thats a personal call.

overall everything is pretty simliar in quality which is a great thing, i still have trouble sorting that one out! But the fire needs a little more love, ie more tendrily and licky.

good work though keep it up!

kieran.

[Ben-Davis]

I think the reel definitely proves you have talent in particles and dynamics, but you may want to work on your comping and lighting. The main thing that stood out for me was that the CG didn't really sink into the live action plate. For example the warehouse fire looked very CG because of the lack of colour correction, having said that the actual dynamics were pretty good. Overall it is a good demonstration, it just needs a little polishing.

[sunomo]

Thanks Kogden and NLight for all your comments. I agree that the fire/smoke is a bit on the crap side - I'm working on the voxel settings to get it licking and moving just right - also the colour correction.

Kogden - very surprised you were so impressed with the road smashing shot - that was probably the most simple and easiest shot of the whole lot to set up - although it was a recent one, so maybe all the experience I'd gained setting up all the other stuff up helped out in doing that one really quickly!

Cheers, Ian.

[Wiro]

I assume you are looking at applying for film and TV work?
You may want to look at refining the animation of your FX. While good lighting and comping skills aren't expected, a feel for look and timing is crucial and at the moment it all still feels very rough.

Some things to look into:

- your sims consist of very blocky, evenly sized objects. Break them up more, make interesting things happen to the way they fall. The tower in the second shot for example falls very evenly, despite the two-stage destruction.

- your smoke FX have very visible puffs that just fade off. One would expect more complex behaviour like blends between hazy and thick, churning smoke. Are these fluid sims? If not, maybe look into adding some fluid dynamics.

- Not so sure what the water shot is supposed to showcase. Is that a waterspout? There are no ripples in the water and no sense of scale due to the huge water drops.

- the fire FX look ok aside from the saturation but could also use some breaking up as they too look very even.

- In the road shot it would be nice to see the chunks breaking up into smaller chunks and trailing dust and pebbles.

- the falling chimney is probably my favourite because it displays the most realistic behaviour. There's scale to it. Still, I'd expect much more smoke and smaller debris as it falls. The actual chimney smashing in the end is totally off-scale again though and looks more like a ceramic vase.

I'd probably cut out the other live-action stuff since they contain minimal FX and instead concentrate on getting the shots before spot on. I think that for even entry-level FX work the reel needs some polishing.
Don't worry too much about the comping or lighting, just get the motion and detail right.

Wiro

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