Houdini FX / photoreal CG explosions

Chapeau has been collaborating with Denis Gautier on heavy effect since 1998. Gautier created an automated pyro tools that allowed artists to achieve “take one” of all effects for each spot in less than a week.

Mobile Strike - Protect

Simulated and lit the tank fire, tank dust, tank tracks, and explosions. There are 114 separate effects.

Mobile Strike - Mano A Mano

Simulated and lit the tank fire, tank dust, tank tracks, and explosions. I stopped counting when the number of effects exceeded 140.

Mobile Strike - Arnold Schwarzenegger in Heavy Artillery

Simulated and lit all the tank fire, tank dust, tank tracks, bullet tracers, explosions in the wide shots (closeup explosions done by others), and the final big explosion. The tracers were created with an asset that automatically found all the guns and generated tracers in a single pass.

Additional References