I was lucky enough to have may place among such talented artist at REEL FX. I joined the crew in the finish line, I have worked 6 months with them.
I got many different effects to work on. There were plenty of shots so it was one of the main goals, that the effects must be procedural and easy to apply on each shot.
One of the biggest challenge for me was the magic trail system around the stick at Dragon King´s palace.
There are wide shots close shots, even continuous shot when the camera follows Monkey King and flows into the palace.
The tricky part is to keep the effect readable and good-looking from distance from close as well.
Although I love me some simulation, the trail system not contains any simulation, I wanted to keep it real time so we could iterate many variations. So I was able to control many factors like quantity, length, speed, width, colour.
I did it eventually with in a foreach loop, which gave me the opportunity to randomize all the factors needed.
The animation contains two keyframes - carve tool, start and end keyframes + rand offset.
I could use this setup for the shots where we saw the effect from the distance.
For the close shots I created a simplified setup (we didn’t need that many trails) so I could animate the effect so it looks good when appearing behind Monkey under the water.
For the swirling bubbles I created many different simulation system, and merged them together. Of course the animated pscale was essential due to camera distance.
The other bigger challenge was to create Wangmu´s signature lightning power.
First I got a bit timid but then I found so much joy working on it.
The setup I made was also procedural, real time feedback is very useful. But also I left the opportunity to modify the effects by hand so each shot is spectacular.
The setup is good old connect points based on attribute. Since it is a very fast effect, I wanted to add as many directed random animations to it as possible can be. Attributes changes each frame, every 5th and 7th frame… you get it. Also contains a final touch I am really proud of and give it so much character, is a pop simulation, so it creates some “leftovers” as I called it, when the lightning left its fracture just for a frame so its not that mechanic but a bit continuous and organic.
All in all I really loved the project, hope u saw the movie and loved it as much as I do.
Cheers,
Balazs
I got many different effects to work on. There were plenty of shots so it was one of the main goals, that the effects must be procedural and easy to apply on each shot.
One of the biggest challenge for me was the magic trail system around the stick at Dragon King´s palace.
There are wide shots close shots, even continuous shot when the camera follows Monkey King and flows into the palace.
The tricky part is to keep the effect readable and good-looking from distance from close as well.
Although I love me some simulation, the trail system not contains any simulation, I wanted to keep it real time so we could iterate many variations. So I was able to control many factors like quantity, length, speed, width, colour.
I did it eventually with in a foreach loop, which gave me the opportunity to randomize all the factors needed.
The animation contains two keyframes - carve tool, start and end keyframes + rand offset.
I could use this setup for the shots where we saw the effect from the distance.
For the close shots I created a simplified setup (we didn’t need that many trails) so I could animate the effect so it looks good when appearing behind Monkey under the water.
For the swirling bubbles I created many different simulation system, and merged them together. Of course the animated pscale was essential due to camera distance.
The other bigger challenge was to create Wangmu´s signature lightning power.
First I got a bit timid but then I found so much joy working on it.
The setup I made was also procedural, real time feedback is very useful. But also I left the opportunity to modify the effects by hand so each shot is spectacular.
The setup is good old connect points based on attribute. Since it is a very fast effect, I wanted to add as many directed random animations to it as possible can be. Attributes changes each frame, every 5th and 7th frame… you get it. Also contains a final touch I am really proud of and give it so much character, is a pop simulation, so it creates some “leftovers” as I called it, when the lightning left its fracture just for a frame so its not that mechanic but a bit continuous and organic.
All in all I really loved the project, hope u saw the movie and loved it as much as I do.
Cheers,
Balazs