Final Outcome
Idea Generation
I choose simulation artist as my career and I want to make some experimental animation to show the requirements of this job. I have an idea about a small world in a glass, and this idea can show a series of special effect transformations luckily.
I use Midjourney to generate a series of pictures to show my idea and I use them as references to think about what techniques and simulations I might use.
I have two ideas and they are about using various simulations to compose a short animation, like fluids, melting, lightning, or explosion. I want to focus on the simulation so that using the glass idea can minimize the work on modeling. The animation will be made in Houdini as it is one of the software that simulation artists always use to create amazing animation.
Simulation Experiments
Rain Simulation
I use the particle emitter to create the rain effect and make some collisions in the geometry.
I keyframe the top network and pop network to control the activation of rain particles and liquid separately. Because the rain should touch the surface at first, and then the liquids will start to ripple.
Ripple Simulation
I use the grid as the water surface and make some ripple effects. The ripple object and ripple solver help to create the effect. I also change some parameters to create detailed effects, like the wave speed and subdivided depth.
Explosion Simulation
This explosion comes from a semi-sphere shape. The velocity and materials such as fuel create the explosion effects. An explosion can be affected by temperature, combustion, ignition, etc. The color of the explosion can also be changed. The noise and disturbance can create a more natural exploded shape.
I combine the explosion with the cup. Because the explosion was set on the ground plane, I use the transform node to raise the explosion higher.
Lightning Simulation
Instead of the electricity nodes, I use the points to create this lightning in a simpler way. I use some coding and change the parameters to make a poly wire at first. The noise can create a similar lightning effect and make those wires move. The ramp blend can also affect the vibration amplitude of the lightning.
Cloud Simulation
I use transformed spheres to make the base shape of the cloud and cloud node to make the cloud effects, which is easy to refine the shape of the cloud. The volume slice and volume visualization can change the density of the cloud because each part’s density in the cloud is different. The scatter shape can create a more natural cloud shape and the cloud noise can make the cloud looks more inflated.
Wine Glass Meting Simulation Process
The object that means to be melted should be set as a “melt object” in viscous fluids. The particle separation can create a more detailed particle shape similar to the original geometry. If there’s any object that will have collision effects, it needs to be set as a static body. I try to use this method to make the wine glass melt, I think I need to refine the animation by maybe making one part melts first, and then the other part will melt, which means not the whole shape melts at the same time.
I use the flip node and pyro source to melt the wine glass. I create the group and use it as a “heater”. I change the color to inferno and it will show the rainbow color, which is easier for me to look at the temperature changes from red to purple. The melting effect is affected by different things, like the fuel and temperature of the flame point. Furthermore, the viscosity of the material is influenced by density. etc.
I cache the melting simulation into the mesh and I can assign materials to it later. I want to refine the melting to make it less fluid because it is glass material, like increase the density or viscosity.
Wine Glass Cloud Simulation Process
I animate the scale of the top sphere to make this simple cloud animation. Because the sphere connects with the cloud node, so the scale can affect the looking of the cloud easily.
Wine Glass Raining Simulation Process
I combine the cloud with the wine glass. In this scenario, I want to make some ripple effect of the liquid inside the glass, I test with some bubbling effects and will keep refine this animation.
I use the ripple object and ripple solver to make this effect. The problem is how to make the ripple object targets the liquid, instead of the default geometry. I create two nulls and rename them to connect with the ripple object. Logically, the ripple effect should focus on the surface, so I use the clip node to control the distribution of the color dots and then refine the simulation.
Wine Glass Lightning Simulation Process
In this animation, I want to make lightning and then there’s an explosion inside the glass, which is like the lightning creates the high temperature and triggers the explosion. Now, I combine the cloud, lightning, and glass objects together.
I refine the shapes of the cloud and the wine glass. In order to make the lightning look more natural, I create one more to add some changes. Those two lightnings don’t look exactly the same and I change the parameters to add details.
I create a transform node and keyframe the scale to make the thunder looks like flashing.