Flora

Flora is a short film that tells the story of nature’s resilience and regeneration. The film is a celebration of the beauty and power of the natural world, and aims to inspire hope and positivity through an abstract yet captivating message. The film begins in a desolate and colorless desert. The once-thriving ecosystem has been reduced to a barren wasteland, devoid of life and vitality. As the film progresses, we see the first signs of life emerging from the parched earth in a literal explosion of life and color. Flowers unfurl and tiny sprouts erupt from the dry soil, reaching up towards the sun. As more and more plants take root, the desert begins to transform before our eyes. The once-barren landscape is now teeming with life. The camera pulls out to reveal a breathtaking vista of rolling hills and verdant valleys where desert wastelands once stood. Through its stunning visuals and evocative soundtrack, Flora reminds us of the incredible power of nature to overcome adversity and thrive in even the harshest environments.

I was inspired to create a short film that would push the boundaries of what I could do in 3D. Flowers blooming has always been the ‘holy grail’ of learning Houdini to me and it was something I wanted to master. To achieve this, I decided to include a lot of flowers in my film. I thought it would be interesting to start with the first few shots being devoid of color and feeling barren and empty. Then, as the flowers explosively reclaimed the desert, more and more color would be introduced in each shot until finally the wasteland was completely reclaimed by nature and in full color. My goal was to create everything from scratch inside of Houdini and use only that software from start to finish (other than compositing). I tried to use as many aspects of Houdini as possible, including liquid simulations, smoke sims, particle sims, cloth sims, heightfields, RBD destruction and debris sims as well as lots of procedural modeling and animation. I am extremely pleased with the final result and feel like my skills in Houdini have taken a great leap forward.