VEF1 Project 2 (Steel Mill)

For this project I made three different effects, molten metal, fire, and sparks. I used an omni emitter for the molten metal and then used a directional field and gravity field to make the blobby surface particles flow realistically. The fire was made with cylindrical volume emitters and a directional field to to push it up. Then a turbulence field was added to change up the movement of the cloud particles. I made expressions and ramps for opacity, mass, lifespan, and color. The sparks are streak particles with a color ramp and gravity field. Everything was rendered in Mental Ray and composited in Nuke. I found some creative commons licensed sound effects and edited it all together in Final Cut Pro. I hope you enjoy it!

Visual Effects Project 1 (Rube Goldberg machine)

For this project I had to make a Rube Goldberg machine, where a series of different objects work together to do a simple task. I used eleven active rigid bodies in this scene, the hammer, pool ball, gear, dominoes, 6 sided die, see-saw, mallet, cup, 20 sided dice, pachinko machine doors, and roulette wheel. I had several passive bodies to interact with the active rigid bodies, such as the platforms, pachinko machine pegs and ramp. I added gravity and adjusted everything's weight to make sure it all behaved normally. After setting up the simulation and getting it the way I liked, I baked the animation and applied new Lamberts to everything. For most objects I added a simple singular color but a few objects required unique file textures (pool ball, die and roulette wheel which I made in Photoshop). I used a directional light for the majority of the scene and a spotlight on the roulette wheel since it was the finale. After rendering everything out with mental ray, I took my batch render into Nuke and composited it together, along with giving it a quick color correct for a more cinematic look. After it had been rendered out of Nuke, I took it to Final Cut Pro where I added some Creative Commons license sound effects that fit my scene. I tried to use realistic sounds (like dominoes falling over or dice hitting a table) but occasionally I had to improvise. I also added background noise like casino machines and people talking for more ambience. This is a sample of how I setup the sound effects.

The last thing I did was add a title and end credits with my name included and the programs I used. I then saved it out and my project was done!