Plate 03 Discipline / VFX 02 Projects Water · Physics · Magic

VFX

Water, bubbles, and card-physics magic — effects you can feel, tuned to read as gameplay.

FIG. 03.1a — LUCKY DUCKIESWATER · SPLASH · 01

FIG. 03.1b — LUCKY DUCKIESWATER · SPLASH · 02

FIG. 03.1c — LUCKY DUCKIESWATER · SPLASH · 03

Water & Bath FX Houdini VAT Unreal 5.5 PC · Mobile

Lucky Duckies Water Splash

Crown Splash — Houdini to Unreal

A rubber ducky water splash, created in Houdini and implemented in Unreal via Vertex Animation Textures.

Modelled a crown splash in Houdini, converted it to VDB, then used Houdini's particle fluid surface to generate the splash geometry.
Used the oceansource node to create a water tank capturing surface ripples, then clipped the tank and reduced polygons for real-time performance.
Exported the result as a VAT and hooked it up in Unreal to trigger when the player lands on the water surface.

FIG. 03.2a — WATER WHEELMAYA · HOUDINI · UNREAL · 01

FIG. 03.2b — WATER WHEELMAYA · HOUDINI · UNREAL · 02

FIG. 03.2c — WATER WHEELMAYA · HOUDINI · UNREAL · 03

FIG. 03.2d — WATER WHEELMAYA · HOUDINI · UNREAL · 04

Waterfall Sim Maya Houdini VAT Unreal 5.5

Maya to Houdini to Unreal

A waterfall turning a waterwheel — built across Maya, Houdini, and Unreal using velocity-driven FLIP fluids and Vertex Animation Textures.

Animated a rotating waterwheel in Maya and imported it into Houdini as a collision object; set up a velocity attribute on the sim to transfer the wheel's motion into the water.
Created a waterfall FLIP simulation in Houdini using a water source, drove directional flow through a custom velocity field, and resolved collisions against the spinning wheel geometry.
Converted the simulation to VDB then polygons, exported via VAT, and built the water shading materials in Unreal Engine 5.5.

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