- VFX Artist
Entry 1: January 10th, 2026
Initial research and planning for the Freeze Spreading FX started in October 2025. I knew I wanted to use Pyro to create a more natural spreading effect and set up the basic pyro workflow with Houdini's test geometry.
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After winter break, I revisited these tests and started experimenting with the freezing aspect. To reduce render times, I am creating a second, frozen version of all materials and will only be using actual frost geometry in close up shots. The frost growth FX and frozen material transfer will both be using the same pyro spread but simmed seperately.
Pyro spread set-up
Pyro spread set-up (cont.) + spread visualization (left)
Initially, I wanted to do the frozen material transfer using animated texture maps, but quickly ran into difficulties with using image sequences as a texture map in MaterialX. Therefore, I pivoted at decided to try using booleans to cut my geometry into two seperate meshes (frozen and unfrozen) so I could assign a seperate material to each part. This method proved to be much more successful
Frozen mesh
Non-frozen mesh
Frozen + nonfrozen mesh combined (with WIP frost growth