Week 15
The FINAL.
Final FX Polish and Procedural Shading Breakthrough
This week marked the final development phase of the Marvel Maximoff Destruction project, where technical systems met visual clarity. With prior feedback in mind, the goal was to refine each FX component for presentation while delivering a significant look development upgrade that would unify all elements under cohesive lighting and material treatment.
RBD Destruction — Layered Impact and FX Separation
The destruction system was finalized by clearly separating the simulation into distinct FX passes, allowing focused control over each visual layer:
Fractured Ground: Adjusted to hold tension longer before the peel effect, preserving the energy buildup.
Large + Secondary Debris: Rebalanced to restore mid-sized chunks, filling gaps and improving scale continuity across the scene.
Dirt Pass: Under-tile particulate motion was added to sell realism during debris ejection.
This approach helped push the narrative of the shot further, allowing each element—ground, debris, dust—to interact believably under the same physical rules.
Dust Systems — Trails and Shockwave
Two separate systems were developed to add dust behavior:
Dust Trails: Ejected from dense emission points tied to debris and particle motion. These trails were refined using a unified source volume, rasterized for Pyro Sparse input. While there’s still room for trailing motion improvement, the form, coverage, and integration marked a step forward.
Shockwave Burst: A quick, radial pulse of dust was introduced to accompany the impact burst. This added the missing layer of explosive energy that ties together the destruction and the surrounding environment.
The switch to a merged rasterized source improved both control and performance by allowing consistent voxel resolution, centralized shaping, and more predictable pyro behavior across different parts of the sim.
Procedural Tile Shading + Lighting Integration
One of the biggest wins this week was the integration of procedural look development for the tiled ground—enhancing both physical plausibility and aesthetic cohesion.
Procedural Tile Texturing
Each tile was procedurally UV unwrapped and assigned a unique
tileIDusing the Connectivity SOP.A MaterialX shader read this ID and generated randomized brightness shifts per tile using a seeded
randfunction. These brightness offsets were remapped and piped into theHSV Adjustnode to modulate the value (V) channel—maintaining consistent hue and saturation across all tiles.The result: clean variation across the ground plane with no hand-painted textures or manual surfacing—fast, readable, and totally scalable.
Lighting Setup + Interactive FX Lights
Used IES profiles for natural wall lighting behavior and atmosphere.
Added interactive point lights that fade in/out over short frame windows during key impact and destruction moments—helping to guide viewer focus and enhance realism.
Matched lighting direction and intensity with the reference shot to ground the FX visually within the environment.
Together, the procedural surfacing and refined lighting created a much more compelling foundation for the destruction to sit on top of.
Refinements Guided by Feedback
Throughout the week, further improvements were made in response to notes from earlier critique:
The fracture sim was adjusted to hang longer before release, creating a stronger buildup.
Debris scale was rebalanced, especially mid-sized chunks, which were previously missing.
Particle coverage was increased for dust trails and small breakup details.
Volume settings were tuned to control dissipation, density, and turbulence in the smoke systems.
The scene’s lighting was re-evaluated to better reveal destruction forms and material breakups without washing out fine detail.
Final Shot
Final Shot with Reference
Final Shot - Contact sheet
A Focused Destruction Study
While this sequence is only one moment pulled from a larger scene, it has been treated as a focused study on FX-driven destruction. Every part of the project — from procedural fracturing and debris seeding to pyro trails and surface shading — has been approached with intention and layered for both control and visual clarity.
Final Thoughts…
As I wrap up the final stage of my project and reflect on the work behind the Marvel Maximoff Destruction sequence, I’m filled with a deep sense of gratitude—not just for the result, but for the entire journey that brought me here.
This project pushed me in every direction—creatively, technically, and mentally. There were moments of clarity and inspiration and just as many of frustration, trial and error, and starting over. But through it all, I grew. Every challenge I faced helped expand my skill set and shape the way I think as a Houdini technical artist. From procedural fracturing systems and dynamic debris setups to reactive simulations and collider-driven destruction, this became more than just a capstone project—it became the space where I found my voice as a VFX artist.
I won’t pretend it was all smooth. There were setbacks—broken simulations, viewport crashes, nodes that didn’t behave the way I expected, and sometimes even entire weeks where nothing looked right. But those were the moments that taught me the most: how to iterate, how to stay resilient, and how to dig deeper into Houdini’s creative potential when things got tough.
None of this would have been possible without the guidance and support of Professor Nelson Lim, who challenged and encouraged me throughout this process. From the very beginning, he saw potential in my curiosity and my desire to explore the technical side of visual effects—and for that, I’ll always be grateful. His industry knowledge, thoughtful feedback, and patience through every version, iteration, and flipbook render were invaluable. Thank you, Nelson, for being a mentor who never let me take shortcuts and who always pushed me to go further than I thought possible.
While this may mark the end of this particular chapter, it’s just the beginning of what I hope will be a long and evolving career in visual effects. Working on this project confirmed my desire to be part of teams that create visually striking and technically ambitious work—where artistry and problem-solving come together in the best way.
If you’ve been following along from the start or are just discovering this now, thank you for taking the time to view my work. I hope it offers a glimpse not only into what I’ve made but also into how I think—and how deeply I care about this craft.
As a newly graduated VFX artist, I’m actively seeking opportunities where I can continue to grow and contribute. If my work resonates with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out through my contact information found in the About page—whether for collaboration, feedback, or just to connect.