Nicole Moudaber — Wenyi Zhang

Immersive Visual Content for DJ Performance (Houdini, Unreal Engine)
Role: Houdini Procedural Character Design, Vellum FX, Mocap Editing with KineFX, Real-time Shaders in Unreal Engine.

I worked as a 3D designer at VolvoxLabs and completed a project involving creating immersive 3D visual content for Nicole Moudaber, a world-class techno DJ and producer.

Our team developed a massive library of content and edited an epic piece to be played back during Nicole's DJ night.

Project Breakdown

My role in this project is creating character assets with integrated mocap animation, and preparing them for rendering in both Redshift and Unreal Engine.

My goals were as follows:

Create a procedural character design system in Houdini and make variations based on client’s needs
Create a loop animation and simulations for Medusa’s snake hairs based on each mocap
Build controllers for quick switching mocaps and export simulations as .abc file in Houdini
Create procedural shaders in both Redshift and Unreal Engine

Houdini Setup Overview

My main setup can be separate to six parts. It covers the workflow from modeling, animating, simulation to exportion(abc/fbx).

R&Ds

Variation - The Dancer

As the project remained on schedule, the art director and I decided to add a dancer model to the main goddess avatar that represents Nicole. I used the same setup and added some scales to give it a snake-like element.