This is the kind of project that pulls the whole team together, from vast, open environments to an epic earthquake destruction.
Our pipeline proved to be a perfect fit for this huge project.
You can see the correlation between the first storyboard and the finished cinematic, even though some shots were changed and improved, the story telling arc was clear from the start.
We decided on using the fast, easily adaptable thinking particles plugin in order to achieve a procedural foundation for the destruction effects.
Once we had the initial system in place, we had a blast iterating and pushing the dynamics in the direction we wanted.
Testing out different looks for the energy effect with the Krakatoa plugin:
Combining both simulated smoke and various ambient effects in compositing to achieve the needed look:
Keeping a procedural modeling workflow inside 3dsmax enabled us to make quick changes to the environment.
The whole project is rendered with a GPU render engine. It proved to be a key factor in pushing out shots with insane levels of geometry in such a tight time-frame.
After finishing the model of our main trooper character, substance painter proved once again to be the best option for fast procedural texturing.
Huge thank you for our friends at Eipix Entertainment, it was a blast to work on this project.
