Rational use of textures in creating high-quality effects
In this post I want to show the benefits of my approach to smoke shading. I also want to tell you how to improve the animation of fire and explosions. And most importantly, there will be recommendations on how to maintain an impressive level of performance.
These ideas were formulated in 2021. Implemented twice in two different companies where I led this process.
Above are all the necessary maps packed into channels of one texture.
The illustration above clearly shows that the fire animation cycle can be fit into a texture four times smaller. You don't have to make tiny textures for fire, instead you can increase the number of frames or variability and stay in the same budget.
These ideas were formulated in 2021. Implemented twice in two different companies where I led this process.
Simple Smoke
Initially, I set myself the task of not using more than one sampler. But to spend a sampler simply on alpha means not using its full potential. Please pay attention to the animation below:
On the left - one channel is used for Alpha and that's it;
In the center - one channel for Alpha and two more for the Normal map;
On the right - Alpha, two for Normal and the last one for AO.
It is obvious that the right side has the most detailed smoke, which will perfectly fit into any environment. And the best thing is that the budget for one sampler is not exceeded.
Here the question may rightly arise that two channels for a normal map are not enough. There is no compromise with quality here, I restore it using DeriveNormalZ.
Above are all the necessary maps packed into channels of one texture.
Simple Fire
In my practice of working with fire, I have always used black body, which means I don't need anything except Alpha. At first glance, it might seem that per-channel optimization is irrelevant here. However, we shouldn't forget about time, as we are working with sequences.The illustration above clearly shows that the fire animation cycle can be fit into a texture four times smaller. You don't have to make tiny textures for fire, instead you can increase the number of frames or variability and stay in the same budget.
Explosions
A large explosion mushroom is an integral part of any VFX artists work. But to be honest, I rarely see technical perfection in the work on this category of effects. I propose several principles that can significantly improve the level of production of such effects.
The explosion mushroom is both smoke and fire. We have dealt with this separately above. But together it works a little differently. Combustion at the beginning of the explosion makes the use of the Normal map and AO pointless. After combustion stops, the smoke loses density. And again, Normal and AO look like something extra. Understanding that combustion almost never exceeds 1/3 of sequence. I think it's a great solution to use R for Emissive and GBA for Cross Channel Alpha.
I think it is now becoming clear that there can be many combinations. Depending on the particular effects. Maybe large textures are not so necessary to do your job well?
I hope this material will be useful, thank you for your attention.
The explosion mushroom is both smoke and fire. We have dealt with this separately above. But together it works a little differently. Combustion at the beginning of the explosion makes the use of the Normal map and AO pointless. After combustion stops, the smoke loses density. And again, Normal and AO look like something extra. Understanding that combustion almost never exceeds 1/3 of sequence. I think it's a great solution to use R for Emissive and GBA for Cross Channel Alpha.
I think it is now becoming clear that there can be many combinations. Depending on the particular effects. Maybe large textures are not so necessary to do your job well?
I hope this material will be useful, thank you for your attention.