Above the Clouds
Responsible for all FX, environment, lighting, rendering, compositing.
Dragon: Troung CG Artist. Animation: Céline Molière.
Programs used: Houdini, Nuke.
Rendered with Redshift.
I started this project with creating a landscape using Heightfield volumes in Houdini. After finding a few simple rock textures from the internet, I combined them on one mesh using procedurally created maps in order to achieve a seamless blend.
The cloud formation is a combination of SOPs and DOPs workflow. I deformed the shape of a basic sphere and added additional adjustments using the Cloud and Cloud Noise nodes. Once I was happy with the result, I transferred VDB to dopnet where I achieved a more dynamic and physically correct shape and had clouds moving throughout the whole shot.
Scattering all the clouds I needed, while figuring out the most efficient way to optimize my scene to be able to continue working fast, was a challenging part of the project. I created density maps to scatter clouds in select areas only. Finally, I Isolated the cloud that the dragon is flying through and ran another simulation on it.
Closer look at the isolated main hero cloud dynamics.