RIDERS – April 18th, 2024

Currently, there are about seven separate simulations in this shot. 

The trail coming from behind the Blind Rider Vehicle is a Pyro sim. The sim starts by creating a particle system on the base of each tire.  The particle sim is then converted to a pyro sim with some parameters to customize the density and control the look of the sim.

There is also a particle sim for the dirt and debris flying out from under the wheels. After the sim, I used an attribute wrangle and the modulous operator to separate the particles into different groups to be used for instancing. 

Additionally, there are also the same sims that create particles through intersection analysis. That way, I can spawn the particles only where the vehicle is colliding with the ground and give the illusion that the weight and force of the car are scraping up dirt from the ground.

The explosion was a bit tricky. Trying to make the explosion look both cool and realistic conflicted with the vehicle moving really fast, about 200mph. I did some fun time shifting to achieve the look I have right now.  

There is, of course, the Blind Rider RBD. I have to do some research to find out if there is a way to make a dopnet inherit velocity from a transform to feed into the RBD sim. I would want to do this so I could have the vehicle move along a transform and have more control over the sim. I currently have the sim setup so that it inherits a velocity similar to that of the last frame of animation, so it all looks natural. Having to fine-tune those parameters to make it look fluid and cool was a bit tricky. In the end, the extra work might have ended up looking more fake, and I am honestly happy with the way the RBD looks right now and in the next shot.

I still need to complete the exhaust pyro sim. That should be done by the next update.

In the next update, I hope to have a render of the entire sim so I can fine-tune the look and then put this shot to rest. 

I went back and added some details to the Nitro shot now that I have an actual Nitro prop to base the textures on. I also made some slight changes to the environment and compositing after getting feedback from my peers. The cone angle of the light rays scattering from above is wider, and the lights are brighter and more noticeable. The whole environment is more blue, and the whole shot is graded more blue. I was also able to get the motion blur working in a more satisfying way. One of the other FX artists on this project, Zach, pointed me towards a really cool bubble HDA that I might utilize to try to push this even further. I have been told by some that the shot is good enough and that I can put it to rest. I would rather the shot be great and blow people away, so I am going to keep working on it.

Now that Blind Rider’s trail is pretty much complete, I can start to implement it into all the shots he is in and where his trail is visible, which is not too many. It will be interesting to see how this effect holds up once it’s composited onto the side-view mirror.