[Update] Perfect Parking Spot – Shot 4: working through destruction and basic traffic simulation

Wrapping up work on this shot for the moment, as I switch back over to making more progress on Sweaty Summertime Shrinking. Since finishing up scene-building in the previous update I've been working on destruction stuff including the footprint crater Rog stomps into the ground, along with making a start on the buildings he destroys.

The footprint crater is mostly complete, with only some crumbling debris to be added to the cracks once I've finished up with other destruction related-stuff:

The multi-storey car park's destruction is also finished:

The only thing I'm looking to add is some extra debris particles. I'd already done some before but they ended up being kind of lacklustre, so I'll be redoing them later.

That leaves just these two main buildings remaining and then a bunch of misc. street props and vehicles to animate/simulate:

I was hoping to get some more destruction-related work done before this update, but in the end I spent most of this week getting those vehicle models ready instead.

Vehicles + Traffic Geo-nodes

Vehicles are a pretty key component of any city scene, so I've been spending a lot of time collecting and modifying a growing collection of them. Separating them out into pieces for destruction (when possible) as well as optimising them as best I can, so that I don't run out of memory populating these scenes:

Along with all that, I've also cooked up a geo-node + shader combo which can randomly assign the paint colour of vehicles from a limited colour palette (with a bit of hue and saturation randomisation):

And then something I made this week; a geometry node setup to handle some basic traffic simulation stuff:

It currently only handles straight paths, but I can keyframe in acceleration/deceleration for each vehicle and have the motion (of both body and wheels) handled all procedurally, as well as being able to easily swap in and out vehicle meshes.

That saves me a tonne of time compared to hand-animating or using the RBC addon for every vehicle, and means I can save all that for just the ones that need it (i.e. the ones getting knocked around and flattened by Rog's stomping).

What's left to do for this shot

In terms of what's left to do in this shot there's:

• Finishing the destruction simulations for the two remaining main buildings.

• Adding in the rest of the traffic and then simulating/hand-animating vehicles that are affected by Rog's stomp.

• Simulating/hand-animating all the various props in the scene like street furniture and trees.

• Adding in and animating some micros in the shot.

• Simulating smoke to accompany all the various bits of destruction and then compositing it in for the final render (since I'll be rendering the smoke in Cycles).

Quite a lot still to do for just this one shot, and I'll be getting back to it after getting some more work done on Sweaty Summertime Shrinking.

What's coming up next

So, it's back to working on Sweaty Summertime Shrinking for a bit. I'm aiming to finish up the last four shots of the Hugo climax section, which will leave five remaining shots in the ending section to do after the next project switch:

I'm also thinking of making a start on corrections/modifications to shots I've noted down (the orange ones in the above image), now that I'm nearing the end of this main animation pass, but I'll see how things go with those four shots first.

In either case, once I've finished up with that I'll post an update and then it'll be back to working some more on Perfect Parking Spot.