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Exploding Wooden Church

Personal project of summer 2023. A summer as hot as this church.
This work was made in Houdini 19.5 and render with Karma.

I'm glad to share with you a lot of breakdown down there.

Discover a short breakdown of this project

One of the last playblast I did before rendering. I finally choose to not render the foreground barrier and the rain.

The fire on the church is generate by a slow propagation attribute (that escalated quickly with the explosion of course).

Dust is very subtle in compositing, so I did no close perfectly the source gap of fastest debris. I put my effort on the overall movement of it mixing the explosion and the wind.

Destruction of the church with wood structure and generated micro debris. I was very interested by the falling of the bell tower on the presbytery.

Houdini is always a rocker when it's time to render some flames in your viewport. Love it. This kineFX priest is the almighty Paul Ambrosiussen mesh from SideFX Labs. No hard feelings Paul, I love your work !

And finally the explosion itself. Quite challenging to get the flame quickly spread out of the main door and slowing it afterwards.

The wheat field is a mix of vellum (for those which are close to the camera) and oriented instancies for the farest.

For realistic purpose, I created a wind velocity field which drive everything that can by drived by. The wheat, debris, smoke and flame. Exception made for the explosion of course :)

Render Pass : Debris Smoke

Render Pass : Explosion Fire

Render Pass : Explosion Smoke

Render Pass : Geometry

Render Pass : Ground Smoke

Render Pass : Church Fire

Render Pass : Church Smoke

Render Pass : Priest on fire

Render Pass : Pyro Trails