I’ve already started trying out some things for this challenge and this is what I came up with for now. It’s a very very early work in progress and there are lots of things I want to add/replace. I made this in Unreal Engine. I would like to get some feedback early on, so that I can make it as awesome as possible.
This is looking good, would be nice to see more ‘destruction’ itself, wether that be the shards that rise from the ground breaking through, or even like you’ve mentioned cracking the ground straight down the middle (prebaked simulation from maya or Houdini )
It’s a good start! It feels a bit too smooth at the moment, I’d suggest making the rocks popping out in a punchy manner, getting more intense towards the end. Perhaps pushing out a single rock at a time, taking turns between left and right to make it seem a bit more chaotic and asymmetric? Camera shake like Ninjin mentioned would look great!
Didn’t make it in time before Christmas as promised, because I highly underrated having to visit three families in three days! This is the new version:
C&C welcome!
Edit: I realise I have trouble recording without having lag. I’m using OBS. Does anyone have any tips for this?
Some folks on Twitter suggested I sync the fire with the rocks, so there’s no delay. This is the result. I also added a shockwave on the impact point, a camera shake, debris and sparks. The breaking ground was done in Houdini by the way.
Glad to see how it worked out! This feels a lot better to me, without the delay there’s less movement competing for the viewers attention, which makes the effect easier to understand. The camera shake adds a lot of forcefulness too!
Sweet! Really liking where this is going . But I wanted to comment on some points.
To add a bit more contrast into the overall effect. Maybe it would be nice to add in a directional flash on impact. And make the same flashing go forward with the spikes as they emerge from the ground. The directional flashes in the case could be fire that affected by the force of the spikes emerging from the ground.
The sparks appear a bit too late imo, and they could also maybe a bit finer (decrease the size, up the amount).
The weight of the debris feels a bit off to me imo, and some of the pieces seem to pop into place. Maybe it could be easier to split the caches for the groundcracks and debris, so you can have a bit more control over the speed of the debris.
The swirling fire around the spikes feel a bit off in scale. And I feel they the movement would feel better if the flames creeped upwards along the spikes themselves.
Another maybe :p. But i feel the spikes could a have a bit more colour variation in the glowy bits (yellow highlights in the hottest bits and red dark tones in the least hot bits etc). It also feels like they dim a bit too uniformly.
Some finer debris and kickup dust in between the cracks could also really work with this one i think
Hope that helps a bit! Looking forward to the end result
Thank you for these elaborate tips! These are great to move forward with. I had a bit of a busy few weeks, but I can start working on the effect this weekend again! The plan is to also create a new fire material by making a fire flipbook texture in Houdini.
I’ve been working on a new simulation for the ground fracturing. I also did a LOT of tweaking on the particle effect. I’ll post a video in my next post, so you’ll be able to see the effect in better quality.
Even though he did not participate in the contest, @Luos_83 did an amazing job doing an overhaul of my entry, which might be of interest to you. These videos go in depth into every part of the effect with an incredible result. I’ve already learned a lot from them and I will take everything I’ve learned with me into my next project.
