Refining Destruction, Debris, and Smoke Pass Foundations

This week marked a key turning point in the project—where multiple systems (debris, smoke, and look dev) began to converge and inform the final visual quality of the destruction sequence. As the elements matured, so did the focus on refinement, feedback implementation, and resolving technical blockers that previously held the shot back from reaching full fidelity.

RBD Debris + Particle System Refinement

The debris system received a major pass of cleanup and enhancement, building on the improvements from Week 12. Two parallel debris setups were refined:

1. Fast, Small Debris (Setup 1)

   • Used an emission-based method inspired by CGWiki’s RBD emit workflow (via emit_packed_prims_into_rbd_sim) to scatter lighter debris in broader regions.

   • Debris was spawned from fast-moving pieces with low mass, creating a widespread secondary motion.

2. Concrete Sub-Chunks (Setup 2)

   • Heavier debris pieces were emitted from a static collider, using a point-from-volume method to drive larger concrete chunks from beneath the tiles.

   • This added physical weight and grounding to the explosive moment, giving the event a tactile structure.

The particle system was also updated to use instanced geometry, allowing for better visual complexity and performance.

Smoke Pass Initialization

The first iteration of the smoke pass was introduced using sparse Pyro. Smoke sourcing was tied to debris emission points, simulating dust trails and bursts as debris erupted from the tile layer.

However, several issues emerged:

• Grouping via @id and @name caused instability in smoke sourcing, creating inconsistent trails and gaps in emission.

• Initial tests showed promise in using debris motion for dynamic smoke behavior, but further refinement would be needed.

Despite these setbacks, this was an important foundation for future visual layering and environmental storytelling.

Look Development + Scene Refinement

Initial look development and lighting exploration began this week. Work was done to develop surfacing for fractured tiles, debris chunks, and overall ground material blending.

Unfortunately, the improved look dev file was lost just before rendering, requiring a partial rollback. Even so, the experimentation informed future lighting setups and gave insight into which materials responded best under simulated lighting conditions.

Additional scene setup and scale tweaks were made to improve grounding and make interaction between all FX systems more cohesive.