For Dynamics 4 I wanted to make an homage to classic cartoon violence, and design some stylized explosion goodness.

Concept Sketches

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Project Breakdown

Cheating a Shockwave

The shockwave was a fun puzzle to solve. How could I animate all those little coins and splinters?

At first, I thought to make a convincing explosion, I would have to simulate air pressure and all sorts of real-world complexities. However, there's actually no need to do all that when you have the magic of Houdini! A random velocity attribute and activating with a growing sphere makes each piece of debris jump away from the center in an explody fashion - it helps to have very obedient wood splinters.