NCEL Fast Play

NCEL FAST PLAY 1920x1080 / 24fps / ProRes 422 HQ / 16 Bit

Working with the team over at Carbon VFX Chicago, I was tasked with simulating tons of cash exploding, falling onto the ground, and flying off of different pieces of geometry as well as a couple smoke elements.

Initial testing was done using Cinema 4D's Cloth Engine for the cash, and Turbulence FD for the smoke. With both having limitations, I opted for using Houdini to have the control I was looking for. The cash was created using Houdini's Vellum Solver. I created a stream for each bill denomination that had a random initial velocity that was cloned onto the points of animated geometry via a for-each loop. The great thing about Houdini was I was able to move / remove individual bills post simulation, which was useful when bills would cover hero elements for example. For the smoke assets, I used Houdini's Pyro Solver with custom art directable veclocites.

Research and Development

Credits

Client: North Carolina Education Lottery
Studio: Carbon VFX
Creative Director: Rob Foster
Producer: Lauryn Grimando
Designer: Matt Beharry
Simulations: William Salas
Animators: Sam Gierasimczuk, Scott Pellman
Compositor: Navid Bagherzadeh