I guess this has become a development blog for Sera Defense. It's an indie game that is in development with Gator Dog Games. Very small indie studio. Link to splash page: https://www.seradefense-game.com/
Until the website launches, this would be the main source of info from my part.
The future Technical Development has several features planned. Besides developing world tools for the artists, I create a lot of VFX! These features range from VFX to Water to Game Aesthetics (Footprints) and interactive Grass.
What's next for the development blog, explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. Ground explosions, air explosions, side of cliff explosions, side of building explosions, and tower explosions.
How does one achieve these explosions? Through lots of research, maths (maths is really fun for me!), and Houdini. Well I could use other software, I just like using Houdini at the moment. So much fun!
Ok, back to VFX and explosions. There are several key components for the ground, side and air explosions.
1. Base Explosion - The main component of the explosion. How big is the explosion? Is it a big explosion or a small explosion? Do I need two different types of explosions? Yes, I do. I need at least three explosions. One for the ground, another for the sky and another that is on the side of cliff or building.
2. Smoke - There will be smoke that rises from the explosion. This is separate than the Smoke sim.
3. Debris - This can be rocks, wood, parts of the ground that is propelled from the explosion.
4. Blast wave - Explosions have Blast Waves that expand outward from the core.
5. Negative Pressure system - After the Blast Wave there is negative pressure which sucks everything back towards the center.
Using these components separately, I can then build different explosions in Unreal.
Next posting will be one of the final explosions with a write up of how we accomplished the explosion.