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Category: Animation

How to: Exploding zombies and flame throwers!

Graham Collier and Adrian Vickers give us a little rundown of what went into making the Zombie Army 4 trailer including the use of Houdini’s Finite Element Methods.

Graham Collier: My favourite part of the day: exploding zombies in Houdini 😀

On previous trailers I used Houdini’s Finite Element Methods (FEM) to fracture and create soft body simulations of exploding chunks of flesh.

This time I wanted to test the new Vellum tools in Houdini 17.5 especially the Vellum Tetrahedral Fiber Constraints. After a few tests I found that I could get similar results as FEM but with much faster simulation times. This was really useful as we had multiple zombie meshes to simulate and we needed to create fast iterations.

To control the fracturing of the Vellum soft bodies I had to set up groups containing areas of impact and impact velocities. I used these groups to add Pin to Target constraints to constrain the mesh to the incoming animation. Within the DOP simulation I then used Vellum Constraint Properties to remove the Pin constraints on the impact frames. I also used Geometry Wrangle nodes to adjust Break Thresholds and add in the Custom Velocities. This enabled me to direct several impacts on the zombies and gave me enough control with the fracturing. The simulation was very fast which enabled me to create several iterations before I was happy with the result.

Previously I used Houdini POP networks for blood simulations, but this time we wanted to go further with Fluid Implicit Particles(FLIP). These fluid simulations were emitted from the internal fractured surfaces. I used a Sign Distance Field (SDF) with a small offset to check if the internal surface was enclosed or open. If open I then scattered points onto the surface and set velocities based on the Normal’s and movement. This data was then used as a FLIP source. The fluid simulation itself made use of Viscosity, Collision Velocity Blending and Surface Tension which all really helped control the flow of the blood.

Finally these simulations were all exported as Alembic caches and rendered in 3DS-Max with VRay.

Houdini users can download this cut down Vellum setup showing a single impact simulation using Tetrahedral Fiber Constraints.

Adrian Vickers: First I exported the character using alembic from 3ds Max, also exporting the camera and any collision geometry I might need.

To start I created a point at the end of the flamethrower nozzle with a normal vector in the direction of spray and also an up vector, this enabled me to copy a remeshed polygon circle, with a rest attribute, onto this point. Custom velocity and density attributes were then created with various controls, enabling me to adjust spread, inner and outer flow, randomized scale and overall strength, plus move the emitter geometry further in or out from the nozzle.

This went into a fairly straight forward popnet, using gravity, collision geometry and various pop forces, scaling the turbulent forces by the points age. These pop points were then seperated into 2 streams in sops, flamethrower spray and collided points. I was then able to create fuel, temperature, velocity and pscale attributes based on there normalized age, giving me more control of each effect. These points then got fed directly into a dopnet for the fire and smoke sim.

The pyro sim then used various gas micro solvers to shape the flamethrower effect, several gas particle to field, gas disturbance based on velocity, gas shred and gas vortex confinement among them.

This was then exported from Houdini as vdb’s and rendered in 3ds Max with Vray using a volume grid, but my initial tests were rendered in Mantra.

Say hello to Joe!

We love to give you an insight into who we are at REALTIME and we are our people, so say hello to our new Lighting Artist Joe!

 

Tell me a little bit about yourself?

My name is Joe Worthington, I’m 31 and from Manchester. I studied Computer Visualisation and Animation at Bournemouth University which landed me an exciting post-graduate job at my local Tesco! I then moved to London and got my foot in the door of the VFX industry as render support. Through this I was fortunate enough to be moved into lighting where I worked on several exciting (and some less exciting) blockbusters. After seven and a bit years working in the south I felt the pull of home and moved back up north, eventually leading me to RealtimeUK!

 

What’s your role at REALTIME?

My primary role here will be CG lighting and look-dev but I’ll also be handling compositing duties.

 

What first sparked your interest in 3D Art?

I’d love to say I had a revelatory experience during a classic film at a young age and this has been my dream ever since, but it was nothing that poetic. I come from a fine art background but I also enjoyed coding, this in conjunction with a love of film led me down the path to 3D art. While it may have been a decision decided with logic I couldn’t be happier with the choice I made. I love working in this industry and am passionate about the work I create.

 

So, what does an average day consist of for you?

A lighters first job in the morning is to check the farm and see how their overnight renders fared, investigate errored frames, resubmit where needed and generally assess render times. I’ll then quickly comp up anything which is ready so it can be reviewed in dailies. Tasks throughout the day will generally be a balancing act of shot lighting, asset lookdev and compositing. Late afternoon is the time to make sure renders are prepared to run overnight, ensuring I’m pulling together all the latest and greatest assets passed on by other artists.

Oh and lots of cups of tea, especially in the morning, I need a strong brew to wake me up.

 

What’s the best thing about working here?

So far the best thing at RealtimeUK has been the people, they’re an exceptionally talented bunch. I’m always looking to improve and learn so I’m excited to work as part of a team which will push me to be a better artist.

 

Are there any upcoming things in the industry that you think people need to keep an eye out for?

AI learning is a growing area for the industry, while its only had specific applications thus far like facial capture, I hear it’s also being looked into as a means of denoising ray-traced renders. It will be very interesting to see where else in the pipeline it can be incorporated. In terms of lighting and rendering, game engines are producing images of increasingly impressive fidelity and with NVIDIA making a push for ray traced graphics on the GPU I’m curious to see how, if at all, this will affect the industry.

 

Tell me a fun fact about yourself?

I once survived having a pub fall on me. Made the news.

Why you need a high-quality trailer for your games

So what’s the point in having a high-quality trailer for games?

With E3 having just passed. And even though certain companies skipped the party this time, there’s still a buzz in the air about what happened at the event. E3 has become Christmas for gamers, and developers and publishers know it. That’s why it’s become the place to announce your newest slate of games. But in a sea of competitors, how will your game stand out?

When it comes to capturing your audience’s attention and increasing user acquisition, an effective and high-quality game trailer is critical. It forms the foundation of a prolonged marketing campaign in a game’s life cycle. 

In our modern digital world, first impressions are everything. Despite building and delivering an excellent game, your efforts will fall short if your trailer fails to do your game justice. It’s paramount you give your trailer the attention it deserves and make sure it ticks all the boxes. 

 

Capturing attention

In a highly competitive marketplace, user attention is in high demand. Your competitors are doing everything to draw maximum attention with their trailers and marketing efforts. Falling short in quality and due diligence here can be costly. 

Creating a trailer that engages and immediately captures your audience’s attention is critical. Failure to do so will see any user engagement drop fast. How you capture their attention is up to you. Sometimes the intrigue of what the mysterious project is is enough. Other times, the scenario itself might be enough to capture their curiosity. Whatever you do, just don’t start it with a parade of logos splashed onto a black background. Or if you need to do that, at least make them fit with the style of the game. 

 

Entertain

It might be an obvious point, but you want to make an entertaining trailer that encourages engagement. Note we said entertaining – not exciting. A trailer has to have to its own mini-narrative to carry the audience through to the end. You need to fit acts one, two, and three in the space of 90 seconds.

If they come away bored or confused, you haven’t done your job. This is your game – what do you think is entertaining? If you know the answer to that, then surely you know what to put in your trailer.

 

Understanding

A high-quality trailer leaves its audience with an understanding of what your game is about and what they’ll get out of it. The focus here isn’t necessarily on gameplay mechanics. You can choose a point of focus to show off what your game has to offer. It could be game goals, character journey, atmosphere, or storyline.

The key to a high-quality trailer is to avoid cramming too much information into it. In 90 seconds, stuffing your trailer with information on price, device information, story, gameplay, atmosphere, and all your other features is a sure way to turn off your audience. Focus on hooking them around your core concepts. They’ll actively search for more information after successful engagement. 

But it’s the professionals who have years of experience crafting trailers that evoke powerful emotions within the target audience. They have the knowledge to plan out dramatic structure and content from beginning to end, always staying respectful of your end product. With the ongoing battle for attention in such a competitive space, seeking industry expertise could give your game the attention it deserves, along with an edge over the competition. 

 

REALTIME is one such company, creating trailers for the likes of Subnautica, War Robots, and Zombie Gunship. Our staff are visionaries who can create a stand-out trailer worthy of hitting the E3 stage. If you would like to discuss your upcoming project, please contact me at [email protected]. 

E3 2019 – The Elephant Not in the room

E3 2019 has drawn to a close. It remains to be the King of Games Industry events, but is its Crown slipping?  Any regular attendees to the show would be forgiven for thinking that, when viewed from the outside, all was as usual at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  All entrances to the show were adorned with the usual marketing imagery from the year’s biggest games and every vestige of available space was crammed with branded inflatables and marquees to entertain the masses. Inside though, the story was very different.

With Sony, Activision, EA, and many others electing to stay away from the show floor, the show seemed to be a shadow of its former self. Even XBOX stayed away from the show floor, again preferring to take up a presence at the Nokia theatre next to the Staples Center.  It was just a short walk away, but metaphorically, it could have been several miles, further fracturing the event itself. But in the end it didn’t – E3 as a brand is a far bigger than the show itself, and continued to flourish online where millions tuned into the hugely lavish press conferences that have become a staple of the show itself.

One of the biggest moment’s of this year’s show was the XBOX press conference, the highlight of which was the new trailer for ‘Cyberpunk 2077’. The hugely impressive CG trailer was a major marketing beat for a game which was first announced in May 2012, which  goes to show the impact that pre-rendered trailers continue to play in the  ever-lengthening marketing cycle for a game in the build up towards finally being released.  With the game finally set to be released in April, 2020, just shy of Eight years from its first announce, the trailer was a fantastic achievement in story-telling that successfully served to build the brand and whet the appetite of gamers world-wide – You couldn’t possibly be left unimpressed. But, even if you were, CD Projekt waited for the closing moments to pull out their biggest guns – the introduction of Keanu reeves as ‘Johnny Silverhand’ in the closing moments of the trailer itself.

The inclusion of a Hollywood A lister was perhaps a nod towards some of the glitz and glamour that this year’s show might have been missing when compared to previous years as it continues its shift towards becoming a more consumer focused event. With much of the gameplay demos being only available to play behind closed doors, the floor space as ever continued to be taken by the huge booths and snaking queues of gamers eagerly waiting to play the latest demos. However, there were not as many as in previous years with the West Hall in particular seeming particularly sparse. Nonetheless, the show as ever remained heavily reliant on trailers to help market the games set for release.   Many of this year’s biggest trailers took a pre-rendered route with games like Deathloop, Gears of War 5, The Elder Scrolls online, Sniper Ghost Warrior, Baldur’s Gate III and many more opting to for the very highest levels in visual fidelity and storytelling to seduce gamers.  REALTIME’s own contribution this year included trailers for ‘Evil Genius 2’ and ‘Zombie Army 4: Dead War’ – further proof of the continuing role of CG in the marketing of video Games. We were delighted to see some marketing imagery we had created for Bigben’s ‘Overpass’ game which made an appearance on their stand.

Whilst the halls themselves might have been much more sparse both in terms of attendees and exhibitors, E3 as an online event continues to flourish. The millions that streamed in to view the spectacular press conferences continue to be a testament to the success of the show, even if the show itself is becoming more fragmented year after year.  Hopefully next year the likes of Sony, Microsoft and others will return to the main halls – Only once the elephants return to the room can the circus that is E3 feel complete. 

The road ahead is strong for diversity in digital media

In the past few decades, digital media has made tremendous progress in the pursuit of diversity. Protagonists, directors, and developers are just some of the roles that are being increasingly occupied by under-represented minorities in video games, film, and TV.

Industry-wide encouragement for more representation is enjoying success in several ways. Let’s dive into the figures and see what people are doing to increase engagement with a more diverse audience.

 

Video game participation

Studies are challenging the inaccurate ‘gamer’ stereotype that assumes they are straight, white, and male. Look at the fact that:

Stereotypes are clearly not an accurate representation of gamer demographics. Many developers have seen this as an opportunity to engage with a larger audience.

 

Successful models of diverse engagement

Diversity in video games is growing and some adopters are enjoying roaring success. Apex Legends, a free-to-play Battle Royale game, has taken the gaming world by storm. With relatively little marketing efforts, they hit 50 million players in the first month. They also instilled diversity into the core fabric of the game’s characters. Out of the eight characters so far, two of them are black women, one non-binary, one mixed race, one Hispanic, and the other non-hetero.

Other developers are creating narratives that represent the experiences of different backgrounds. In Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, the game revolves around interacting with the world as a biracial woman. Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us explored Ellie’s sexuality. It’s a theme that will be expanded upon as she steps into the light as the protagonist in The Last of Us Part II.

Elsewhere, in-game character customisation gives players even more options. They don’t have to be bound to any race, gender, or even sexuality. BioWare might be the trendsetter in this regard, and relative newcomer Stardew Valley lets you marry NPCs no matter what the gender.

 

Film and TV diversity

Minority-led movies and TV series are taking off across many platforms. Black Panther enjoyed a record-shattering box office success. It was the biggest February opening weekend ever, the biggest non-sequel debut ever, and the top-grossing film by a black director. It breaks the Hollywood illusion that actors and directors of colour generate less revenue than their white counterparts.

Before the major motion picture Crazy Rich Asians, Hollywood hadn’t released a film with a majority Asian cast for 25 years. This romantic comedy topped the box office, once again proving the power of diversity and the importance of engaging with a variety of audiences.

In terms of TV series, Netflix has done well to reflect diverse perspectives and progressive points of view. Important social and political conversations are opened when popular shows tackle stigma on mental illness (Lady Dynamite) and highlight problems with the prison industrial complex (Orange Is The New Black), the immigrant experience in the U.S. (Master Of None), and systemic racism (Dear White People).

For gaming, film, and TV industries, it’s clear that minority represented or minority-led productions can thrive. The movement to actively seek out engagement from wider audiences has begun and is largely enjoying success. There’s still a long a way to go, but representation and diversity in digital media has a bright future ahead.

RealtimeUK understands the importance of diverse engagement and can bring that to life in your cinematic trailers. Get in touch with me today on [email protected] to discuss your next steps.