Blog | vfxarabia

Sep 2, 2018
2 min

Houdini Combine / Flatten VDBs

I came across two situation that urged me to find a way to combine or let's say flatten vdbs so instead of having multiple densities you will end up with only one, and those situations are: - If you are using the Houdini Cloud Lighting Baker tool I created earlier, so if you have a couple of clouds that you merged and wanna bake the light on to them, only the first one will store the color data. - Another important use of this technique is when you are exporting VDBs to be us

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Jul 28, 2018
1 min

The Cosmic Collection

The collection articulates the beauty and romance of the Moon, Planets and Galaxies first explored and celebrated in the late fifties, creating a beautiful celestial collection. The designs connect a rich and authentic history to current culture and innovation. Discover the collection at asprey.com Director: Ali Walker VFX: Alaa Alnahlawi Client: Asprey UK #Houdini #particles #bigbang #space #cosmos #3dsmax #maya #diamond #brand #ad

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Jul 2, 2018
1 min

Dubai Ramadan Idents 2018

Directed by: Usama Alsharqi VFX: Alaa Alnahlawi Producer: Reem Emad Production House: Yara Media - Dubai Executive Producer: Aws Alsharqi Dubai media incorporated Some breakdowns can be seen here: -https://www.behance.net/gallery/67376405/Dubai-Ramadan-Idents-2018 -https://www.behance.net/gallery/67319045/Dubai-Ramadan-Idents #Dubai #Houdini #sidefx #vfx #fluids #simulation #TV #3d #3dsmax #rendering

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Jun 14, 2018
1 min

Sadeem 2

سديم 2: قليلة هي تلك الفرص التي تتيح لك استخدام خبراتك الفنية لخدمة هدف أكبر من فقط الفن لأجل الفن والمتعة, ولله الحمد حظيت هذا العام بفرصة المشاركة بانتاج برنامج سديم الجزء الثاني وهو برنامج وثائقي تلفزيوني إماراتي يعتبر معلمًا بارزًا من معالم الأفلام الوثائقية العلميّة في المنطقة. طوّر هذا البرنامج بهدف وضع حجر الأساس لعلوم الفضاء في المنطقة. يقدّم البرنامج سعيد القرقاوي، الذي يشغل منصب باحث إستراتيجي في مركز محمد بن راشد للفضاء. A scientific documentary aired on Dubai TV,

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Jan 31, 2018
1 min

Vray Proxy Time Shifter (3ds max scripted tool)

I developed this tool while working on Dubai TV ID 2018, it saves alot of time while manipulating time offset for imported Alembic data using vray proxy loader. It has two modes: 1- Offsetting the animation based on its distance from a helper. 2- Manually input the start time. Both options has a random spinner to add some nice variation to the mix. More info and download link can be found here... Kindest Regards Alaa Al Nahlawi #tool #plugin #maxscript #3dsmax #alembic

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Dec 25, 2017
5 min

Houdini To 3Ds Max Workflow (Alembic / VDB)

As most of us newly Houdini converts every now and then we tend to move back to our original software to do rendering whether it was 3ds max C4D etc.... and the most common formats that form this bridge is VDB and Alembic. I mainly use vray for rendering inside of 3ds max so today I'm going to talk specifically about two very useful tools inside of vray that allows you to work with those exported formats, which are "Vray proxy loader" for Alembics and "Vray volume grid" for V

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$Dr Strange Building RnD (fractals, 3D kaleidoscopes, clone duplication)$

Jun 12, 2017
1 min

Houdini Pyro Explosion

This final look went through alot of refinement around 10 versions with alot of tweaks over a span of a week on my way mastering Houdini pyro. It was simmed in Houdini and rendered in 3ds max using vray volume grid. Technical info: -Core explosion: (450,450,450) 91 million voxels -Smoke shockwave: (600,100,600) 36 million voxels -64GB of vdb -Render time (FHD): 30 min per frame on dual 2683v3 -Sim time: 1h with Opencl activated (GTX 1080) Kindest Regards Alaa Al Nahlaw

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Particle flow random noise speed (Tutorial)

Scale Match Instances (Particle flow tutorial)

Feb 18, 2017
1 min

VA Mesh Conform (MCG) is out

Well mesh conform is not something new to 3dsmax but what if it was much more faster and responsive compared to the legacy one with straightforward parameters and options to tweak, for more check the full tool description on scriptspot. And also for more MCG tool check their page here. Download 1.0 ScriptSpot page #mcg #3dsmax #modifier #tool #conform

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Dec 30, 2016
1 min

Krakatoa light control (Scripted tool)

A small tool I developed while working on StarTrek Beyond to help me control the lights on the go. It allowed me to control lights globally or just the selected ones and I only exposed the following parameters: Light on/off Shadow on/off Intensity Decay Range Shadow Density Decay Type Shadow resolution This script supports only standard lights Omnilight freeSpot targetSpot Directionallight TargetDirectionallight How it works: Adjusting the spinners up and down wi

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Dec 30, 2016
5 min

StarTrek Nebula (Making of)

Update: You can get a 4K version of this amazing fly through on shutterstock here.... It’s holiday season and finally I got the time to write this small indepth of the star dust cloud we created for one of the shots in the Star Trek Beyond title sequence. I got a lot of emails asking about how we managed to achieved that look, so here I am sharing the experience we obtained and the credits here goes to the whole team members Zack Judson (founder of Bionic Primitive), Dmitriy

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Dec 20, 2016
3 min

The Night Before making of

Once again, in collaboration with Bionic Primitive this amazing yet challenging 360 Samsung VR experience was created. - http://vrscout.com/news/samsung-santa-sleigh-ride-vr/ - https://samsungvr.com/view/RBScwMpLDma I was responsible for developing two effects the Aurora Borealis in the north pole scene and the fireworks in the New York scene. It’s my first time creating a 360 content, thanks to vray for making that an easy task although it went through a couple of tri

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Aug 10, 2016
1 min

Star Trek Beyond

Hey everyone, If you’re going to see Star Trek Beyond, stay for the closing credits, and don’t blink! I was glad to be part of Bionic Primitive creative team creating this amazing shot in the end title sequence. It was an emergency project; we had 12 days to come up with a “cool space thing” from concept to final render. With creative freedom but very little time, we managed to push a billion particles out rendered in stereo. I’m so proud of the result. Alaa Alnahlawi السلام

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May 18, 2016
1 min

Thinking Particle Stacking

As you can see from the video this techniques doesn't involve any complex formulas, just a battle between two forces (Repel,attract) while changing the size depending on the underneath color. I did a small trick here to make the simulation faster where I forced the color check to occur only every five frames instead of everyone. And forces only happen in a certain range so each particle will only interact with a couple of its neighbors in range. www.vfxarabia.co www.faceboo

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May 6, 2016
1 min

TP Sand Man

A step forward from my previous video, I tried to apply the sand effect to a deforming object which was a bit of a challenge. But I was able to achieve sth here I tracked the surface velocity and applied it to the 20,000 volume particles while physics and joints are active, joints started to break gradually based on velocity and collision. Those particles at a later stage drove 1,000,000 which will give the sand look, and I also grabbed the texture coords from the unwraped Zo

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May 4, 2016
1 min

TP Sand Solver

Based On Eloi Andaluz Thinking particles sand setup, I cached 1m TP particles then used a PRT loader and multiplied the count a couple of times. The Texture coordinates were exported from TP using a TextureCoord channel. Caching and rendering were done in about two hours or so. To put it in steps: - Cache the low res TP (around 20,000 particles) that will guide the high res particles. - Cache the High res TP (that will bring the particles count to 1,000,000 or higher). - Ex

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VFXArabia | The VFX creation of Alaa Alnahlawi (علاء النحلاوي)

Houdini Combine / Flatten VDBs

The Cosmic Collection

Dubai Ramadan Idents 2018

Sadeem 2

Dubai TV Identity 2018

Vray Proxy Time Shifter (3ds max scripted tool)

Houdini To 3Ds Max Workflow (Alembic / VDB)

Dr Strange Building RnD (fractals, 3D kaleidoscopes, clone duplication)

Houdini Pyro Explosion

Particle flow random noise speed (Tutorial)

Scale Match Instances (Particle flow tutorial)

VA Mesh Conform (MCG) is out

Krakatoa light control (Scripted tool)

StarTrek Nebula (Making of)

The Night Before making of

Star Trek Beyond

Thinking Particle Stacking

TP Sand Logo

TP Sand Man

TP Sand Solver