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Jet Engine asset available below if anyone wants!

Here we go again! Sorry to everyone who got a notification email about this post last night- I forgot that deleting the post would create Infinite Confusion. The techniques in this video are pretty darn basic (straightforward physics sim, shape keys, particle system), so I felt bad having a 40 minute video of me just tweaking physics and creating particle systems, but re-creating it more efficiently was proving to be a major time-suck, so... I s'pose as usual just take from it what you will :)

I think I'm going to work on this scene for the next week, and see how things go, kind of as a treat for myself. I want to try using the new "pressure" option in the cloth sim to create an instant-deploy-airbag type situation, and see what it looks like attached to a person with mocap data... curious to see how all the physics interplay.

If anyone wants to see a higher quality version of the initial crash test, youtube wasn't particularly kind to it. Am I using tooooo many particles? Only god can judge.

Jet Engine Model (right click save as):
Jet Engine Blend File
Jet Engine FBX


00:00 - Intro
00:42 - Hyperbowl
1:45 - Talking about Star Wars and Ben Hur a lot
3:21 - Setting up basic physics scene
11:00 - Baking the physics sim
11:57 - Attaching rocket to physics dummy object
12:30 - Creating Shape keys for dents/damage
20:20 - Creating Particle systems for debris
28:15 - Adding Sparks!
36:40 - Adding dirt/microdebris
40:10 - Final Thoughts 

Files

HyperBowl Engine Crash

00:00 - Intro 00:42 - Hyperbowl 1:45 - Talking about Star Wars and Ben Hur a lot 3:21 - Setting up basic physics scene 11:00 - Baking the physics sim 11:57 - Attaching rocket to physics dummy object 12:30 - Creating Shape keys for dents/damage 20:20 - Creating Particle systems for debris 28:15 - Adding Sparks! 36:40 - Adding dirt/microdebris 40:10 - Final Thoughts

Comments

Tutor Amit Official

you could use quick explode physics instead of doing this

Anonymous

Thanks Ian! A bit confusing to be sure, but the shot is badass haha

IanHubert

An thanks! And the video's confusing? Yeahhhh- I could have done the whole thing a lot more clear :/ I filmed my process of making the shot, and I tried like 4 times to re-record it more cleanly, but I kept psyching myself out, so finally just decided to release the original to kind of get it out of my system.

Anonymous

Nonono, I meant the deleting/reposting thing! I only just started watching but the narration is concise and hilarious as always

IanHubert

OH! Hahaha, that's great to hear! Yeah I had second thoughts about posting it last night at like 4am, so I deleted it, then I was laying in bed like, "OH WAIT it did not actually disappear"

Anonymous

This is great! The Podracer crash was my first thought when I saw this on Instagram, I was wondering if it was direct inspiration. Man I'll never tire of the sound design on Sebulba's racer. Or the speeders in the Coruscant chase in EpII. Or the clone gunships. Or those SEISMIC CHARGES (chef’s kiss) in the asteroid chase. Or the Geonosian language. Or the— Anyway… It’s so cool to see how the different physics systems can interact! It’s nowhere near where it could be, but you can get some really cool stuff like this… I feel like I’m always so frustrated after successfully wrangling a physics sim into shape I never want to dive right back in and add another one on top. Can’t even animate emission… ah, I’m so spoiled by Particular. Can't wait for particle nodes. Are you thinking of adding some stock footage, or even a smoke sim? I feel like huge puffs of dust and dirt exploding up around every impact would really sell those hits.

Anonymous

The thought of parenting a low poly mesh to a rigid body object and using that mesh as a particle emitter never occurred to me. I would've used the high poly as the emitter lol

Anonymous

My phone gave me a notification at 4 that it was posted and I was like "oh hell yeah!" and then proceeded to go back to sleep. Then when I woke up I was like "wait where'd it go???" haha It's a great video though man! I've been trying to learn blender for about 2 years now and your Patreon tutorials are literally like the perfect pace!

IanHubert

Dude yeah!! Ben Burtt, man! Really drives home that if sounds are going to be iconic, they have to be a little bizarre. I feel like so often filmmakers just want sound design to be a "check the box, finish the film" type process, but hot damn. Star Wars put a ton of sci-fi imagery into the collective sci-fi lexicon, but it did the same for audio. Yeah why CAN'T we animate the number of particles?? That's wild to me. Particle nodes'll be great :D I think stock footage would probably be a great idea- although there's a part of me trying to figure out if I can do the entire scene in 3d, so I can just render out a bunch of different angles without having to do a bunch of comp work. Smoke sims are always so tricky, though :/ I think the cloth sims tend to play well with others! At least, if you pin a vertex group to something else, the rest of it comes along with, haha- I'm curious how it'll work when combined with the inflate settings, for sure!

IanHubert

Honestly, I don't even really know if there's any benefit to doing the low poly method. I've done experiments where it's FELT like it started chugging when I use the high poly object, but it could be my imagination. At any rate it's definitely useful for controlling where specifically the particles come from :D.

Anonymous

Yeah, the pod racers were one of the few redeeming qualities of the abysmal Star Wars 'prequels', in a ludicrous sort of way. Riding the bare jet engine kinda reminds me of that shot in Dr Strangeglove where the General is riding the atomic bomb like a bronco. What you've done with the crash looks excellent, and the physics looks extremely convincing! This is also a great masterclass in using physical simulations in Blender. Perhaps the only thing I would suggest is adding flames. Jet engines work by superheating and pressurizing the air with super flammable jet fuel, so they tend to blaze spectacularly in a crash. But maybe you want to keep the pod racer crash vibe, which you've definitely nailed, and would prefer to avoid the giant arse-ache of flame simulation in which case...let's move on!

Anonymous

this is so awesome Ian!

Anonymous

i love the long videos of you just doing shit, its really chill to watch and its nice to be immersed in a workflow that works

Anonymous

Awesome shot!! Would be super interested to see how this looks with the new EEVEE motion blur!

Anonymous

Thank you so much, Ian! It's really neat to watch the process of making something complex like this. I learned a lot.

Anonymous

Really cool shot 😎 I still have one question though. Have you rendered the final animation in eevee or cycles? By rendering it in cycles it must have taken a really long time to render but with eevee there is no motion blur on single objects ...

Anonymous

Wow that’s great!

Anonymous

I haven't watched it yet and I already love it! Btw, can you make a tutorial on how to create Infinite Confusion? That would be really handy 🤣

Jan van den Hemel

Smart to use shape keys! I would have used the Fracture Modifier Build for this, but shape keys seems to be a faster and more fun method.

IanHubert

AH! I gotta try that! Usually with non path-traced motion blur the thing I worry about is smearing- where you lose the overexposed bits since it's getting blurred out (like with the old vector motion blur)- very curious to see how the new eevee motion blur works!!! :D

IanHubert

Ah, all cycles yeah! And not toooo long- all the renders with the engine were like half an hour to an hour each? The test renders (at 25 seconds in the video) were like 4-7 seconds per frame? And the larger render was 15 seconds per frame, I think? I have a GTX2070, which is a beast, but even if I didn't, they're still not crazy render times. Actually- I have a post I've been sitting on about how to kind of optimize cycles renders- I think a lot of folks use a lot more samples than maybe they have to. I should post it in the next day or so! ALL THAT SAID- Blender 2.9 has eevee motion blur on individual objects!!! I'm very excited :D Haven't tried it out yet, though.

IanHubert

Yeah!! I was looking into that! That video of the plane crashing is one of the wildest things I've ever seen done in blender. I just kind of wanted to try it in "standard" blender, first (also creating shape keys is weirdly pleasant. I think I love shape keys so much just because my entire relationship with them is going, "how in the world am I going to do this thing-OHHH yeah shape keys") Have you played with the fracture build at all??

Anonymous

Loved your talk about Star Wars and chariot racing. But have you herd of the Australian motorcycle chariot racing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1avID4bJ3pw)? I think this also inspired Lucas for pod racing, but also this sport was inspired by Ben Hur :P Also, I actually just saw a video that goes over a hack to control particles through drivers. Check out CBaileyFilm, he is a under rated Blender channel, he just released a video for particles that may help you --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUmGNI-kIzg

Anonymous

What are you using to add lenses flares in your videos?

Anonymous

Awesome as usual! Check out Alvin Merle tutorials on destruction, very informative as well https://youtu.be/1Ff7-4ob62U

Anonymous

Great vid ian, some awesome tips as usual

Anonymous

Brilliant and funny as heck as usual

Anonymous

Wow! This is insane!

Anonymous

Really like the pace of your cutting here, details where we need them and skipping on the bits where you're idly experimenting. I felt like I learned loads here.

Anonymous

Awesome! Thank you for this

Anonymous

I actually enjoy more long videos, I think your pacing is good, makes me able to see how you reach the same roadblocks I did, and how you solved them.

Anonymous

would have been more amazing if you would have used Embergen ....thanks for the detail tut loved it....something new i learned with shape keys ...

Anonymous

Wow 😳

Anonymous

loved this one

Anonymous

can't believe how much i learned in just the first half of this. amazing. patreon for life

Anonymous

So glad I'm a Patron. Thanks for sharing this!!!

Anonymous

You can't animate the particle emission rate in Blender!? Whaaaa?!

IanHubert

Isn't that wild? I end up having to just create a bunch of separate systems- it's kind of a pain. I think there's something new coming at some point? Maybe animation-node based particles or something like that?? I'm not sure.

Anonymous

So if you want 3 little bursts you have to activate 3 separate particle systems? Holy crap, that sounds awful! I heard this current particle system in Blender is ancient, so with all the other cool FX stuff you can do now, I hope they have something awesome cooking.

Anonymous

Ive just learnt a gazillion things nd tricks all in 40 mins, like to track an object i would animate the rotation of the camera manually but theres something called a track to constraint, like wahhhhhh :0

Anonymous

7:37 - how do you turn that down?

Anonymous

this was too cool. the shape keys and especially just parenting the rigid body and particle system to your mesh was a "wow" moment for me lol.

IanHubert

Yeah, I don't think it's been updated in a looooong time, and you can definitely feel it; I really do think they have some crazy stuff coming, but I think I've thought that for a while?

Anonymous

I'm an adult but I still can't figure out what the hell Irradiance Volumes are but I want to use them I'm about to call my mom its so frustrating. Thank you for all the knowledge.

IanHubert

AH! They're great! They're basically what make eevee "work"- hopefully this helps? https://youtu.be/kFNYjO2Gbzg

Anonymous

COOOOL!! what is hotkey for copy position and copy rotation?

Anonymous

I like to think of them as light catchers, or each little orb an hdri sphere for lighting :p

IanHubert

It's just "Ctrl+C", but you have to active the "Copy Attributes" addon in the preferences- it's super useful (sorry I'm only just now seeing this :/ )

Anonymous

This was awesome

Anonymous

Ha! I worked on the Phantom Menace (mostly as an assistant on the bg and not the pod racers themselves). As I recall, there was no raytracing on the pod racers (I *may* be wrong on that one, but I think they were rendered using Renderman and Renderman could not do raytracing back then) . Only the Naboo starfighters and the princess' ship (forget what it was really called) were raytraced - and that was using a beta version of a program called Electric Image running on G3 Mac computers running MacOS 8 something. And we didn't even have a render farm back then. Each artist had two computers and hot-swapable hard drives. You would set up your scene on one machine, save the project. Copy it (and all of its dependencies) to the swapable drive, pull it out and slam it into the second machine, bring up Electric Image, and hit "render". Good times!

Anonymous

Ian, you should watch this car destruction tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ff7-4ob62U I think you'll find there very useful techniques

Anonymous

Blender keeps crashing while re creating this tutorial. I've reported a bug.

Anonymous

This is beautiful. How did you make the model for the jet? These mechanical bits are really nice.

Anonymous

Wow! Thanks Ian! 💗 After watching this tutorial I've jumped right away back in Blender and looked more how physic worked... I've dreamed of doing something like that for years and you just demonstrated in that video, that this is doable in Blender! 😲 Now to figure out how to separate parts of a ship on impact and do this kind of destruction! 😊

Anonymous

Ian, you’re a legend!! I will be trying this asap!

Anonymous

Amazing , this is what I've been waiting for lol going to watch this 100x💎🤯🥳

IanHubert

WAIT I DIDN'T SEE THIS COMMENT! You actually worked on the scene?? That scene was one of the most influential VFX scenes of my life (the BG and the pods both)- that's so cool!! I'd love to talk to you more about that, if you ever had the time!

Anonymous

Well, to be clear, I was a technical assistant at ILM at the time. But I did do some… well… assisting on that sequence. I’d be happy to chat. I’ll send you a pm.

Anonymous

This video is tons better than anything on Netflix...

Anonymous

Awesome~~~~~~!