Wave Washing
On a dark and stormy night, a huge monster leaps onto an oil rig from the depths of the sea. Little do the crew members know that a much larger threat is lurking beneath their feet– waiting for its prey to fall back in.
My undergraduate degree project was a solo realistic 3D animated short titled Wave Washing. The short focuses on highlighting a variety of visual effects in a watery environment.
Over the span of two semesters (September 2025 -- April 2026), Wave Washing was developed through all stages of the production pipeline, from storyboarding and pre-visualization to a finalized film.
I dedicated four months to laying the groundwork for Wave Washing, splitting my time between creating Houdini setups, scripting, and storyboarding.
Though certain shots needed to be adjusted or replaced in the final film, making an animatic provided a strong starting point for me before I started production.
Pre-Production
Animatic
Clay Render
Visual Effects
Rain HDA
Wave Washing takes place in the middle of a storm. Therefore, wind and rain were the first effects I tackled. I created an HDA that generates rain from a particle system, sourcing splashes, dripping and a dynamically animated puddle. By rotating a source grid, one can change the direction of the rain particles, creating 'wind'.
I tested this setup on my creature (animated with a custom physics-based rig in Cascadeur).
Wave Crash
I used a simple FLIP Fluid wave crashing simulation to create the monster's leap onto the oil rig, sourcing whitewater for the final effect. I ported assets from Unreal Engine into Houdini to simulate on.