A personal plate-integration project made in Blender, Houdini and After Effects. I had an idea for this short story of a character being ambushed and counterattacking, allowing for use of several types of effect. I found this alley clip and thought it would allow for some interesting interactions of the FX elements and lighting with the environment.
I motion tracked the clip and set up a basic scene in Blender first. Then I combined several Mixamo animations on the alien soldier character and brought it in with temporary geometry for the effects to get the rough timing. Moving into Houdini, I built the effects using various layers of particle, pyro and RDB simulations for greater visual interest. Rendering and initial compositing were done in back Blender (Cycles), then the final assembly and finished clip with sound effects and music were made in After Effects.
Viewport screenshot of the character's arrival
Animated GIF of the character's arrival
Animated GIF of the ambush attack
Overview of the combined Houdini node graph for the various effects
Viewport screenshot of the counterattack
Animated GIF of the counterattack
Credits:
VFX and compositing by Antony F֫. Bickenson
Original clip from Videvo.
Character from Mixamo.
Sound effects from SONISS.