Thinking Particles, Rayfire, and FumeFX. Coming from a feature film production background, the

focus is on quality and efficiency.

It is a holistic view of the process – from planning, through fragmentation, rigid bodies, particles, fire/smoke,

down to management and assembly.

Hristo Velev is an effects artist at Pixomondo, delivering FX for projects like ’2012′ and ‘Sucker Punch’.

which the FX artist needs to either do or supervise, to get the necessary assets.

Class 2: Previz and layout – The power and importance of composing effects scenes in the previs

and layout stage is one of the big lessons in FX. We’ll get into how rough sketches, simple animation and

particle effects are used to plan a shot, laying its foundations and setting it on the right course.

Class 3: Fragmentation – We’ll go over the techniques used to fragment and prepare

the assets for dynamics. The treatment of different types of materials like wood, concrete

, glass, etc. Fitting the level of detail into the plan of the shot.

Class 4: Rigid body dynamics and procedural fragmentation – Goes into setting up a solid

and extensible structure for ridid body dynamics (RBD) in Thinking Particles. Then we take

a look at procedural activation and fragmentation, how and when to use them.

Class 5: Structures – Going further into what can be done with rigid bodies, we’ll look at different

ways to create and destroy interconnected structures of rigid bodies.

Class 6: Additional animation – Adding art-directed secondary animation to enrich the RBD

simulations, and adding effects that are otherwise less practical to achieve.

Class 7: Secondaries – Adding layers of secondary dynamics like chunks, debris, splinters

, shrapnel and funny accidentals.

Class 8: Interactions – Making the existing RBD simulation interact with the environment,

producing some more elements like sparks, dust, mounds of earth and secondary destruction.

Class 9: Fluids – Fire and smoke are essential in almost every shot. We’ll look at working

both ways – from the solids to the fluids, and from the fluid to the solids, setting up and

controlling FumeFX simulations.

Class 10: Management – Looks at the key points of managing the FX process, start to finish.

A way to set up a good base for any FX element in the start, and assembling all the pieces of the

puzzle together for rendering.