One of the key components of epic movie magic happens in the thousands upon thousands of particles emitting in destruction scenes. It might be a collapsing building, a car impact, broken trees and leaves, or an impact on the ground. The eyes of the audience will gather the excitement, sense of motion, and tertiary detail from the large arrays of particles being emitted from an impact.

This course (full details here), taught by Jeronimo Maggi, covers how to sculpt and perfect this extremely common aspect of most FX shot work: the creation of secondary particles and the technical and creative processes behind it. Appropriate size distributions, shaping, motion, and orientations will be covered. On completion of the course, you will have great setups to bring to the next production to get shots looking better and finalled faster.

This course and over 250 other courses are available with an fxphd monthly membership.

Jeronimo Maggi started his career as a 3D generalist and has been working with Houdini as an FX Artist for the last 5 years. He worked for several years in the education field teaching Houdini and currently works in Animal Logic Vancouver as a CFX Technical Director. Aside from Houdini, he is also programs in Python and enjoys creating tools to speed up workflows.