Behind the Scenes: Building ‚Particle Storm‘

How a year of particle R&D became a showreel — Houdini setups, lookdev, and where the cuts came from.

How a year of particle R&D turned into a one-minute showreel. Notes on the Houdini setups, lookdev decisions, and the cuts I had to kill to keep the pace honest.

The setup

Most shots started from a single Vellum grain solver. Each variant pushed parameters until something interesting fell out, and the keepers got rebuilt as proper FX setups.