Magic Pink Explosion

When Houdini 19 was released, I was captivated by the trailers demonstrating the updated pyro solver. Motivated by the beautiful explosions in these demos, my first experiment after the update was this Pyro simulation.

The overall theme with this project was setting up a physically plausible simulation that was still appealing according to the principles of animation. The new controls on the solver allowed me to dial in the shape and behavior of the explosion to look believable while exaggerating certain parameters to create more impact.

Finally, a few secondary lightning simulations really help sell the magic look. One is shot out along the ground with the shockwave, another is inside the explosion being advected by the smoke’s velocity, and if you look really closely, there’s a bit of lightning at the tip of every smoke trail.