Stylized Tornado Breakdown
Creating a stylized tornado presented some challenges, mainly due to performance issues and the number of emitters within the Niagara system.
To address this, I decided to focus primarily on mesh creation and used noise textures instead of custom textures, which helped streamline the process.
Here is a teaser video in case you'd like to learn more about it ->https://youtu.be/sHLyzNdpDi4
If you're interested in learning more about creating meshes for this tornado VFX, here are a few Houdini tutorials that can guide you through the essential steps and techniques.
Tornado Main Mesh - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDF9QcW5mDM&t=1s
Tornado Swirls - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbyCt4utxCc
Tornado Ground Disc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncc7ao2oVtk&t=1s
Towards the end of the tutorial, I also delved into the optimization process. We revisited Houdini to optimize the meshes, ensuring they were efficient and effective for real-time rendering.
Our main focus was on blending transparent and masked materials seamlessly to achieve the perfect blend and reduce overdraw, which is crucial for maintaining performance.
Several techniques were employed to achieve a soft, visually appealing look.
One key method was using Fresnel effects to control opacity, which added a subtle, realistic touch to the tornado's appearance.
Additionally, we used the same Fresnel technique to highlight masked swirls, enhancing the overall visual quality and making the tornado appear more dynamic and lifelike.
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