“Little Spark”
Walt Disney Animation Studios training project
This project was the first time I did a 2D animation test to map out my timing and goal before even opening Houdini, and it was extremely fun! Working out the timing first allowed me to dive into the technical and artistic execution of the effects without noodling over the timing and having to restart every time something was shifted. I even brought some of my 2D drawings into Houdini as sources for some of my effects to achieve a fun result with extra personality! I ended up with a more visually pleasing shot, having first built the foundation focusing only on the visual result, and not on physical accuracy.
Responsible for: All aspects.
Software: Houdini, Hyperion, Harmony, and Nuke.
The drawing board: When I pitched this project to my mentors, I showed a half 3D, half 2D timing test, and immediately my mentor Bruce suggested I roughly work out the whole thing in 2D before even opening Houdini. I had never 2D animated effects before, but gave it a try and was absolutely blown away by how much fun, and how much it helped my timing, design, and overall ideation speed instantly! Thinking only about what the camera sees, and having to immediately worry about physical accuracy let my brain focus on designing my shot before getting into anything too technical. I’ve since added this step to almost every shot I’ve worked on and it has not only sped up my process and improved the quality of my work, but also helped my supervisors understand quickly the direction I was taking a shot and make sure it aligned with what the director’s vision was before doing hours of work!
Little spark: My main goal was to give each spark very different personalities using only things like timing and design. For the little spark, I wanted to lean into his playful, carefree personality, so I used rounder shapes for his source and path, and gave him a jaunty little puff puff chug along the fuse by toggling the source on and off and varying the velocity for his sparks and pyro layer. As the big spark burns out, he does a little jump like an exclamation point, before diving forward excitedly to become a firework.
For his entrance, I sourced both pyro and pop simulations from my actual drawings, and this combined with custom swirly velocity fields and some temperature dialing created a wispy, playful simulation that added to his whimsy!
Big Spark: To contrast our jaunty little spark, I wanted this one to feel chaotic and forceful, leading to his early burnout. I used a similar setup to the little spark, but adjusted the velocity intensity and turbulence in order to create a more constant, chaotic burst of energy. To add to the aggressive energy, I added a trail of burnt fuse spraying out behind him as he consumes the fibers. This was a fun little RBD sim, which then ran through a solver and some vex code to have the newly sourced particulate start off hot red and cool off over it’s life.
Smoke: When the big spark burns out, I had drawn a stylized, question mark shaped smoke to help communicate his confusion when he lost the “race”. I thought a bit about how to do this in Houdini, and decided to try creating a velocity field from my actual 2D animation, and using that as a pump field in my pyro solver to pull the smoke into that direction. I started sourcing temperature and velocity before density to create the shape first so that the density field could be pulled right into place. To my pleasant surprise, this worked very well, and I’m very excited to explore what else I can do with this method!
Firework: To get the final emotional payoff, I knew the little spark had to become a firework. I wanted to stick to the same colors and general shape language to communicate this was the little spark still and not an explosion he triggered. I used vellum with a custom cut and stiffness map to pop the firework open when it explodes!