Harry Potter Style Dark Mark - Control Clouds in Blender

Harry Potter was a phenomenon and so were the visual effects. One really stood out to me as a crazy and larger than life effect, the dark mark clouds one. The other green one was cool too but this one really got me, so I tried to do something similar in Blender. These are the results.
Patreon: / kevbcg
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[@adrianthompson2839]

not bad, i made the real one and thats not a million miles away from how i did it, it was in maya at the time, i also added uv's, randomised them a bit in big chunks, then u rand a low frequency noise map over that and used that to push the emission into the skull, so it looked like clouds forming the head, then it was just balancing the noise emission and dissipation, the background clouds are just one big cloud copied and stanped in different rotations and scale. anyway nice work

[@KevBinge]

I’m floored! That’s so awesome. That shot stood out to me for years now as one of the coolest in the series. Thanks so much for commenting and especially sharing your technique. Great work Adrian! It’s nice to be able to say that to the original artist.

[@adrianthompson2839]

@@KevBinge no problem man, keep up the good work :)

[@KevBinge]

Thanks Adrian, you too!

[@CrixYT]

So wholesome :)

[@SkitzLewiss]

You did a great job man!! Such an unforgettable scene

I appreciate your pro/nonsense pill-packed content a lot. And the cherry on top is your action, hollywood-style, heroic, enthusiastic voice-over which makes even selecting options in a property panel extremely exciting ;)

[@KevBinge]

Thank you!! I was hoping that stuff came through.

[@AhmedNassef]

I'd been working my own butterfly-shaped cloud for some time now when I found your video.. Lol just in time..this has been really helpful.. Thanks!

[@KevBinge]

Very cool!!!

[@BonnieTheBunny20]

I feel like this is for some sort of nightmare before Christmas thing

[@Kholaslittlespot1]

Wow. Way more simple than I expected. Thanks! I've been trying this with a Deer Skull from Blenderkit but it lacks definition and doesn't look crisp and skull-like. So far I've followed all your settings. Any thoughts?

[@KevBinge]

I’d try making the skull around 1 meter (Blender unit) and making the resolution around 238 to 256 if you can. Also, make sure you are using Cycles, and that the principles volume shader has a higher density. See if that helps?

[@ABMultimediaDesigner]

I actually did something like this for my unofficial Bond titles for NTTD where a Skull pops out of the cloud and goes into the nose cavity. I think I did okay but could have been slightly better

[@KevBinge]

That’s awesome, and it’s always the case. We are never really done with our work or satisfied with it haha!!

[@Just3DThings]

Awesome as always kev, I really thought it would be done in houdini when I saw it on Twitter, can't belive you pulled this out in blender 😆

[@KevBinge]

Thanks buddy! I wanted to see if I could do it with Blender 😀. I was surprised at how easy it was to set up.

[@cgichecklist6005]

Hi Kev nice work like always👍. Can u teach us how to make destruction in Houdini and bring it to blender ?? ☺️☺️

[@KevBinge]

I’m working on it. I prefer bringing that stuff into Clarisse as it handles the massive data output better though, to be honest.

[@movietime7838]

Damn, cool stuff. I love all vfx of harry potter😍. Especially the impact liquid from one scene that voldemort vs harry fighting in graveyard

[@KevBinge]

Yeah, that effect is awesome. That’s next :)

[@jacquelinelmiller]

How cool! Really amazing work - thanks for sharing!!

[@KevBinge]

You’re welcome Jackie, thanks!

[@houssamalucad753]

This is very enjoyable to watch, and I learned a thing or two. I only tried fluid simulation with blender, I need to try smoke too!

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! Smoke is fun!

[@houssamalucad753]

@@KevBinge indeed, keep it up!

[@akshatandeffect4268]

can u make death eater moving smoke tutorial

[@KevBinge]

I could but probably not in Blender.

[@scottlee38]

Really cool! Another sign that Blender is Evolving!

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! Blender is capable for sure and getting better daily.

[@pile333]

Nice. Now try that with flames also. 😄

[@swampwaffle74]

There is a better and less computational way. So if you add a volume and then use the mesh to volume modifier on that volume. You have a volume that moves in real time with the mesh. Then you can add a volume displace then boom bada bop and we got a cool skull.

[@KevBinge]

Thanks. I did actually try that but VDBs don’t advect in Blender in a way I’d like yet.

[@Erindale]

Surprisingly good result! I'm always shocked when people manage to wrangle Blender into VFX stuff

[@KevBinge]

Thanks Erin! It’s always great when really smart people wrangle awesome comments 😁. This one was fun!

[@Kholaslittlespot1]

Wrangle those nodes, baby

[@hexogramd8430]

Lol you laugh like Peter Griffin

[@KevBinge]

I’ll take that 😀😀. Thanks!

[@ManoharOfficial]

wow, just amazing. could you control caustics like that?

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! You probably can although I hadn’t tried specifically.

[@dzenekrinadhir9438]

what a nice tutorials , i am very amazed watching you videos , keep going

[@KevBinge]

Thank you!!

[@LostSound]

Hey Kev quick question, I kind of get what it does but what does the “# frame” bit mean at 4:18? To slightly animate 0.001 in size per frame?

[@KevBinge]

Yes, it makes the noise move over time in a VERY small increment.

[@LostSound]

@@KevBinge thanks Kev!

[@PeefVFX]

ngl if u show only 10% of the process there's no point uploading

[@KevBinge]

A small legion of comments here would disagree, but idgaf… YT is free, I’m done with the handouts.

[@josueR_3d]

Good work, when you have your faces selected you can just press P on the keyboard to separate it into a separate part. It'll show a dialogue box to separate by Selection, Material or loose parts.

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! That’s a great shortcut!!

[@peatral]

Also beforehand you can just press L to select everything that is connected (so if the jaw is seperate from the rest you can just hover over the jaw, press L to select the jaw and than P, Loose Parts to separate it).

[@esenunukogbon]

Hello, thank you so much for your tutorial, it’s been extremely helpful. I have an issue that I hope you can help with After adding the clouds and adding noise to the domain, the smoke disappeared and I can’t figure out how to clear the cache. And tips on reducing render time will be appreciated. I’d really appreciate a response Thank you.

[@mylocreative]

Hello, I recently subcribed to your patreon and downloaded the blend file. I've noticed that my ckouds look a little weird in comparison to the ones you show, the clouds have parts where they are choppy and blocky, any help?

[@KevBinge]

Sure! Hit me up on Patreon and I’d be very happy to help! If it’s a big thing, I’ll redo the file when I get back to my computer in Blender 4.0.

[@anbu7645]

not bad kid, not bad at all

[@domin6168]

I will say it looks interesting. I see that Blender has the potential to create simulations such as, for example: in Houdini, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Blender will succeed ;D

[@KevBinge]

It definitely has potential.

[@3dman563]

@@KevBinge have you tried ue4

[@IssuesVFX]

exactly why embergen is a big hit, could have got this effect within a hour with embergen. blender needs to make everything gpu accelerated

[@KevBinge]

Yes and no. This is not film or broadcast quality, far from it, but Embergen still has a way to go toward final-frame. It’s awesome though for what it can do at the moment.

[@Land-Shark]

Adolescent GMO Samurai Cloud Turtles has a nice franchise-worthy ring to it. And it's TOTALLY doesn't violate any TM's or IP rights! :) ((their names are: Newton; Einstein; Hawking; and Tyson, and they all love to eat Hot Pockets the most, so there's that sweet sponsor $ for discrete product placements , and a cameo opportunity for Jim Gaffigan who plays their wise, long-suffering mouse cloud mentor named, Master Chip Wood)) That is a very cool skull effect, too! I think I'm going to try and adapt it to use as the final scene in an animation I'm working on that involves a rocket that's launched into the sun-gone-wrong to extinguish it. I've got the rocket flame/smoke and motion test done, and just have to detail out the Launch Control Tower with greeblies and textures, and add proper textures to the rocket. The sun is shaped like the coof virus and it will explode. :)

[@KevBinge]

I love the way you think lol! Definitely post your animation when it’s finished. I’d love to see it! Thanks!

[@rededwards3479]

Great video...Now SHOW a FIGHTER JEt Flying into the SKULLS mouth...I used Vue Infinite to create the effect. Thanks

[@KevBinge]

Vue is great. We’d used that for years.

[@drinnerd8532]

CTRL +?! Does that allow you to do like, some kind of variable selection method or something?! Never heard of that!

[@KevBinge]

Yes, it expands a selection of connected components like polys, edges, or points when you are in edit mode. - subtracts from that selection.

[@gabrieleperoni7646]

Hi! First of all excellent job, I've waited for so long for this tutorial. How much did it take for you to render this project? Did you use blender for rendering?

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! This took about 20 seconds a frame in Cycles. I usually don’t push much more than that for KZbin tutorials, but the higher you set the sampling, the better it looks, but takes forever in Cycles as it’s not fast with volumes.

[@kalfakanti]

i never dare until i get powerful PC

[@KevBinge]

Yeah, it helps for sure!

[@vishisht8688]

So does using Point Clouds in Blender 3.1 does anything to help to do this?!

[@KevBinge]

It may. If not yet, it will in he future.

[@smepable]

Ver,y nice. The Skull could have added a noise Distortion to blend in with the surrounding Clouds a bit more.

[@KevBinge]

Yeah, I’d have had it all move with each other in an actual sim for real in Houdini.

[@arjungowda6452]

THANK YOU

[@KevBinge]

You’re welcome 😀

[@violentpixelation5486]

What the heck!? Lately I've been thinking about doing smoke in Blender and then your video was recommended to me. Thank you for reading my mind and sorry for all the other stuff you may have seen in there. Yes... as you know CG artists brains are whacky territory. Greetings from "Lebenin360" (the drone footage guy). This here is my second channel. ;)

[@KevBinge]

Awesome!! Dude, that’s the BEST name for a channel too!! I hope all is well!!

[@violentpixelation5486]

@@KevBinge Yes 😃. All is well. Since I'm watching Blendernest, I see you're doing well too. 🤙💯

[@Digital_Creation_Y.C.]

Amazing tutorial! thank you for sharing

[@KevBinge]

Thanks for watching!

[@proghostzgamecreed6555]

Is it me or the final render does look like General Grievous?

[@KevBinge]

Wow, yeah, it does lol!!

[@aravinth-xk6tn]

Thank you so much

[@melobit6137]

it seem i don't have length node for some reason

[@KevBinge]

It’s inside the vector math node.

[@PONDON10]

Can an ipad do that ?

[@KevBinge]

I’d definitely try it. 😁

[@AndromedaBeta]

Wow. Castlevania SOTN feelings on it.👏👍❤

[@KevBinge]

Yeah, I can see that. I liked that series, and loved the games dating back to NES.

[@veggiechip]

WOOW

[@ragibrahman9594]

do you have to pay a monthly subscription for Houdini or an annual subscription to use it? Also, really love your videos. just subscribed.

[@KevBinge]

Thanks! There is a tier where if you are under $100K/annually you can subscribe for $269 a year. There’s also a free Apprentice version that you can learn in forever AND render with. It adds a small watermark but it’s not obtrusive.

[@ragibrahman9594]

@@KevBinge thanks i will try learning Houdini. but it will take me a lot of time to learn how the nodes work in Houdini.

[@WilkoVFX]

Really great video!

[@bryce99999]

understanding the rant at 3:12 made me feel smart

[@KevBinge]

Haha! Making the rant made me feel smart, for like a minute, until my next problem made me feel dumb again lol.

[@phantomstudios1498]

Does this work with eevee?

[@KevBinge]

“Sort of” but it looks WAY better in Cycles.

[@phantomstudios1498]

@@KevBinge is there one specifically in eevee

[@KevBinge]

@@phantomstudios1498 The issue is that the shader and the light doesn't work as well in the clouds in EEVEE. EEVEE is a hack in a way, and it looks great for some things like nebulas, but it lacks the depth at the moment. I knew the devs are improving EEVEE so it may gain parity. That said, this could be tweaked to look good in EEVEE as well. This video was made for Cycles.

[@phantomstudios1498]

@@KevBinge I understand. Can I get your opinion on something though? Can I still make an animation LOOK really good in eevee? Without having to spend months on how it is visually?

[@leonelsantos6517]

Naice man.

[@CortesFantásticosOficial]

Can you recreate the Celestials from Marvel's Eternals?

[@KevBinge]

I need to watch it first lol. 😀

[@CortesFantásticosOficial]

@@KevBinge the scenes with them are really scary because of scale.

[@KevBinge]

I’ll watch it, thanks.

[@CortesFantásticosOficial]

@@KevBinge You're Welcome! 🇧🇷

[@leonelsantos6517]

Naice man.

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!

[@CG_Animates]

That's epic

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!!

[@apersunthathasaridiculousl1890]

i actually needed this

[@KevBinge]

Awesome!!

[@raphraph9884]

And now add the snake 😂

[@KevBinge]

Aww yeah!

[@aneneedits]

great bro u always lit

[@KevBinge]

Thank you! This one was fun.

[@iceseic]

Use ctrl + b for render preview

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!!

[@ravitejakolacina1600]

bro how to adjust the pivot at jaw point. I am try to keyframe the rotation like at 0:37 but it moves weird

[@KevBinge]

There is a menu item in the top right area of the screen that has an option called “origin.” If you select that you can move the pivot. I have a video on it but can’t find it at the moment.

[@ravitejakolacina1600]

@@KevBinge can I get the link for the skull pls?

[@ravitejakolacina1600]

@@KevBinge I couldn't find a skull anywhere like yours

[@ravitejakolacina1600]

@@KevBinge i found the skull but when I seperate the jaw from the skull and parent the jaw to the skull and try two rotate it but it won't rotate

[@ravitejakolacina1600]

The entire problem with my jaw is the pivot point

[@totochandelier]

great !!

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!

[@VisualistAyush07]

Great video 👍

[@KevBinge]

Thank you!

[@uzbtv2927]

wooow, Awsome bro

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!!

[@maamangalaxerox3645]

Op bro nice

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!

[@andreysobolievas7174]

КРУТО!!!!!!!!!

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!!

[@jeffersonsam5316]

Sicklkkkkkkkk

[@KevBinge]

Thanks!!

[@jeffersonsam5316]

You’re welcome