artyknots studio

## ty explosion video “lazy” tutorial Here's a quick breakdown of how this explosion submission came together. Step 1: Extract Ty and prep him for re-lighting. Step 2: Sound. Step 3: Unreel. Rotoscoped Ty in After Effects, and ran it through ControlNet webui for some basic re-lighting. Sketched sound in FL Studio with splice samples and refined it until it felt right. For cinematic work, I usually make the audio first while imagining how the video would look and then make visuals that match. This might not be the way to go for larger projects. The Cube began its life in Blender as the default cube, then it was subdivided and [One Click Damaged](https://vfxguide.gumroad.com/l/OCDaddon) (cool blender addon). It’s actually made of three parts: two larger segments and a smaller third cube nested inside like a tiny little baby cube. Anyways, imported it to Unreal, and animated using the sequencer. ez. The environment was quickly slapped together using Unreal landscaping tools. Just slap some green stuff on there and call it a day. For the sky I dropped in [Ultra Dynamic Sky](https://www.fab.com/listings/84fda27a-c79f-49c9-8458-82401fb37cfb) (unreal plugin). The landscape material evolved from an asset, which I thought was boring so I added detail with tiling noise and an 8K Megascans wet mud material, because it's always wet and shiny in CGI land. I planned for more assets, but [less](https://p.arty.ing) is more. The road is just some basic asset, with rocks added as little sprinkles on top. Could be more detailed but hey it works. Jets are free [EuroFighter](https://fab.com/s/92a5edec4f74) assets with added details, a [Sketchfab pilot](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fighter-pilot-character-9c53b42d13994cefa8916729021b3104), and [Mixamo](https://www.mixamo.com/) animations, keyframe animated flying and crashes. The cars are from [Epic](https://www.fab.com/listings/2909157b-ddfa-4cef-a925-69dc2467021f). Animated by simulating a collision with a sphere and tweaked the timing. The explosion: volumetric sim in Blender. I used the Cube as the collider and dialed in the sim until it just felt good enough. In Unreal, I combined effects from several VFX packs for the fire, smoke, secondary shockwaves, just dropping them in one by one. In the middle of everything, the main shockwave is just a growing hemisphere with an additive material. Simple, but it works! Finally, put everything together in Resolve and applied my funny fake blurry lens distortion and noise filters. And that about wraps it up. Here is the finished result:

## cinematic universe The explosion submission project sparked an idea. What if I made a whole cinematic universe around this concept, and connected it with the already existing lessfest cinematics? A shared universe where everything is connected, and all roads lead to lessfest. A world where the Cube was a part of something bigger, and it's all leading to a grand event. Maybe won't call it "alien shit" though. ## what’s next? If you have any questions, feel free to reach out on discord (@artyknots) or otherwise. also, I'm looking for collaborators on the full cinematic universe project, so let me know if you're interested!