Reel Technical Breakdown
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Niagara 3D Fluid on River Styx Arms’ ★
I am responsible for the plume of smoke that rises around the screen right arms as they come out of the water. For this we used Unreal 5’s new 3D Fluid capabilities inside of Niagara and cached them to file for use inside sequencer. The Niagara system reads the skeletal mesh location data and spawns particles from it with density, radius, and velocity attributes that are then fed into the master 3D Fluid emitter and processed for the look that you see here. Then, additional adjustments were made to the volumetric shader to blend in with the glowing effect of the wispy clouds in the scene and the glowing nature of the river.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Bubblegum pop FX’
I am responsible for the FX work on the bubblegum pop of the focal character in this shot. For this, I created a short vellum sim in Houdini and selected 2-3 frames that worked well with what we needed for this shot. I then did some sculpting work and dialing for the shaping of the geo on those frames and added in motion vector data for use in Engine.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Dirt Trails on Fingers’
For Billie Eilish’s collaboration with Fortnite, I contributed to this shot by creating the finger trails that follow Billie’s nails as she claws through the dirt. This was done using SOPs in Houdini to calculate the contact position of the nails precisely, and to instance and animate small particulates being kicked up. Then, those assets were brought over to UE5 and integrated into the shot.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Background Petals’
I am responsible for the look of the petals floating through the background of this shot. For this, we used a simple Niagara System that spawned particles with a mesh renderer feeding in the petal geo. The biggest challenges here were dialing in the noise to feel authentic and getting the proper feeling of perspective going back into space from screen right to left.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Heart-Shaped Skid Marks’ ★
This is one of my favorite pieces I’ve done during my time at Halon. Like the previous tire skid system, this is driven by a Niagara System with a ribbon renderer casting the skids down as decals onto the road. The biggest challenge was finding a way to create the heart shape on the road in a way that was iterative. For this, we created a camera rig rail in Unreal that drove the location of the Niagara Systems and gave us the ability to use Bezier curves to shape and re-shape the heart based on client feedback. I also was able to spend more time on the look of the tire skids, bringing in more texture and noise to the fill of the skids, as well as creating a parameter for fading the skids’ opacity in and out based on location and time.
The shot of the two characters in the car is here for continuity, I did not work on this shot.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Pickaxe FX’
Minor tweaks to the in-game pickaxe FX to get them cinematic ready. Adding parameters for control within sequencer.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Wind & Leaves FX’
I contributed the blowing wind and leaves FX for these shots. This included setting up a Niagara system with real-time optimized meshes for the leaves, and integration with a sprite system for the ambient smoke.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Scan and Laser FX, Antenna Glow’
Addition of one-off Niagara FX systems for flare FX on both the antenna and laser emitter. I also spent a lot of time in the Material Editor refining this volumetric material for the initial blue scanner effect and integrated parameters for a color switch and ambient mote particulates.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Splash, Water Trails, and Skids on Tires’
I contributed the initial splash effect as the hero bicycle lands into frame, the water kick-up FX as the bikes rush along (both on the front and backs of the tires), and the subtle tire skids behind the tires. This work consists of all Niagara based FX with either a sprite renderer for the splash FX, or a ribbon renderer for the trails implemented as a decal. There were also many parameters set up for control over density, lifetime, color, and inherited velocity.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Wind & Leaves FX’
See previous “Wind & Leaves FX” section.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Bullet Tracers’
For these shots, I took Fortnite’s existing bullet tracer and muzzle flash assets and added parameters to help dial each tracer and flash to the needs of the shot and its timing and framing.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Laser FX’
To create these spy movie-like lasers, I created a material that provided volumetric definition to these instanced cylindrical objects. Then, I created two different Niagara emitters, one for the volumetric haze surrounding the lasers and the other for the sparse break up of the lasers at the end of their lifespan.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘Ambient Grass Field Motes’
My work on these shots consisted of creating pockets of ambient particle systems with low fidelity motes to create an ambient feeling of bugs or gnats or pollen floating around in this grassy field. This included dialing in wind and turbulence FX to give the motes the feeling of life they necessitated.
Fortnite Cinematics :: ‘De-Rez FX’
For the trailer for Metallica’s collaboration with Fortnite, I adapted the in-game De-Rez blueprint and staged it for use in the cinematic.
Pico VR :: ‘Crowd Sim’
This crowd sim was made in Houdini by instancing a pool of different characters randomly into a scene, offsetting their animation and angle of facing, and then hand painting in a density attribute so I could control the shaping of the crowd. Then I went in and added randomly instanced glowing wristbands and glowsticks. I also created the ground plane and its texture, and the floating glowing beachballs. Last, I lit those aspects to match another artist’s work for the giant focal character and rendered in Redshift.
Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards :: ‘Environmental FX’
My team and I build a series of floating environmental elements in Unreal that had different animated textures and blueprint controls that brought the scene to life in AR and gave the directors at Nick a lot of flexibility to move objects around and adjust the look in real-time.
Channel 9 Australia Olympics ‘25 Coverage :: ‘Swimming Pool’
Using Houdini, I created a looping simulation that gives the effect of the pool sloshing around when it turns on, and then sitting stagnant. I brought that simulated geo into engine as a soft-body Vertex Animated Texture (VAT) and applied a water material. Then, I incorporated a Blueprint in Unreal that gives the user the ability to key on the simulation and leave the still water animation looping as long as necessary. This was important because, with broadcast, you never know how long the director will hold on an element, so it couldn’t key off or break the loop while on air.
TGL Golf League on ESPN+ :: ‘Score Graphic’
A coworker as SSA and I worked together on all aspects of this graphic. We did a heavy amount of processing of team logo geo and background panel geo to optimize it for real-time. We also made nearly every aspect of this scoreboard customizable via blueprint, so that directors on-site have the optionality to change the look, move around objects, and change dynamic text boxes and colors. I also did the intro/outro animation for this graphic.
NFL A.F.C. Championship :: ‘Bills v. Chiefs Helmet Graphic’
This graphic for CBS’ broadcast of the 2025 AFC Championship was made using Houdini and UE5. I am mainly responsible for the particle FX. These were created inside Houdini using a POP solver, and were exported to Engine as a VAT. Included in the Vertex Color data are parameters that allow for additional customization in engine, such as swapping team colors. This same set up was also utilized for CBS’ Big10 broadcasts throughout the 2024 season, showing the versatility that it is capable of.
Personal Work :: ‘FLIP Sim’
This is a FLIP Simulation I made in Houdini, using a small disc with a sine wave applied to it through VEX to drive the collision and movement of the FLIP fluid. I then used various VBD tricks to mesh the fluid particles, gave it a metallic material, made a material for the backdrop, lit the scene, and rendered in Redshift.
Personal Work :: ‘Vellum Sim’
I did all of modeling, texturing, rigging, animation, etc, and I even did all the audio work in Pro Tools for this piece. I worked mostly in Maya and Substance Painter for the asset creation and animating. As it pertains to FX, I did Houdini vellum sims for the character’s clothing and then another vellum sim on the entire character as he is pulled away by the train for an expressive effect.
Personal Work :: ‘Real-Time Water Bubble’
Made using Unreal 5’s material editor and Niagara.
More info here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/XJNdL3
Personal Work :: ‘Real-Time Niagara 3D Fluid Torch’
Using UE5’s new and experimental Niagara 3D Fluids, I created this torch effect that follows around a character’s movements as they move dynamically in a scene. The work predominantly consisted of balancing particle sourcing from the torch with the dynamics of the gas emitter and using those tools to create a seamlessly flowing fire as the character moves at different speeds and angles.
Personal Work :: ‘RBD Destruction Sim’ ★
This is one of the more complicated Houdini > Unreal Engine 5 projects I’ve taken on. It was made by first creating an RBD simulation of the ground breaking in a wave around the character slamming his sword down. In addition to that, I implemented vertex color data that specified the size and volume of each piece to be used in Engine. Then, I brough the simulated geo into Engine as an animated skeletal mesh, used that vertex data to drive the look of Niagara emitters that spawned in particles to follow each piece based on its size, and created a Niagara system to follow the sword as it was swung. Finally, I gave everything a material, lit the scene, and rendered out of UE5.
Personal Work :: ‘Niagara projectile FX’
This work consisted of both heavy blueprinting work and Niagara FX work.
The blueprinting work involved modifying UE5’s default first person map and its assets to achieve a couple of different goals. First, I needed the character to hit on a crosshair, rather than firing from the gun in the general direction away from the camera. To do this, I set up a line trace system that fires a projectile from the muzzle of the gun to the spot on the wall where the player is looking, or to the end of the trace if no contact is detected, i.e. shooting up into the sky. Then, I set up the projectile blueprint to feed data into my later-developed Niagara systems to give them info on the normal in which the projectile hit, specifically so I could have embers and particulates shoot out at the appropriate angle. In this process, I have it so a decal is spawned in with that data to account for wall damage. Finally, I made the default weapon automatic, so you can hold down fire and fire a stream of bullets instead of one per click.
For the Niagara FX, I made a series of sprite sheets in EmberGen for the fiery center explosion and the ensuing smoke and implemented them to trigger on the projectile’s hit event. I also added the before mentioned spark/ember particulates that shoot off from the contacted actor when it is hit. Lastly, I hand drew a stylistic center explosion sprite sheet to give the impact more expression and character.