https://crazycoder.co.za/ Recent content in Van Aarde Krynauw on .vanaarde Hugo en Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/about/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:22:55 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/about/ Hi there! My name is Van Aarde Krynauw, and welcome to my humble corner of the internet. I love making games, vfx, and technical art and even moreso when I get to do them at the same time! The TL;DR version: I live for making games. I’m currently building that dream using Unreal Engine and Houdini (mostly), on evening at a time. Here’s the slightly longer version… Make it go +1 My first memories of being interested in gamedev was from when I was around 12 years old. https://crazycoder.co.za/film/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:22:55 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/film/ Here are some films that I’ve worked on throughout my film career, using Houdini since 2008. My work ranged from RnD, destruction, developing custom render tech, custom Houdini Tools, shaders, VFX, procedural content creation down the pipeline development. https://crazycoder.co.za/reel/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:22:55 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/reel/ Want to know what went into each shot? The reel breakdown lists the tools and techniques behind every clip. https://crazycoder.co.za/reel-breakdown/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:22:55 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/reel-breakdown/ Breakdown Here follows a very brief breakdown of content shown in my reel. For more content (and some in-depth breakdowns), feel free to take a look at my blog. Film / Houdini Max Max: Fury Road Houdini, C++ Custom Pixar Renderman procedural for volumetric rendering Dust / Particles VFX (Houdini) Aftershock Houdini, C++ Bullet solver / Houdini SOPs integration Houdini SOPs Destruction tools Strangerland Houdini Pyroclastic dust storm cloud Dust and dirt elements (particles & volumetrics) Gods of Egypt Houdini https://crazycoder.co.za/gamedev-breakdown/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:22:55 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/gamedev-breakdown/ Glimpse (Megagrant Recipient) Glimpse is an scifi adventure game with puzzle mechanics inspired by old school point-and-click adventure games combined with the environmental story telling and atmospheric presentation of games such as Playdead’s Inside. TODO: INSERT GLIMPSE VIDEO HERE Here is a non-exhaustive list of various gameplay related systems that I worked on for Glimpse: Character locomotion, interaction and mantling systems Art directable camera system (camera graph) Interactable Objects Player Item Inventory Puzzle and level logic Game design Puzzle design Interactive cinematic scripting Character Carry Item system ( https://crazycoder. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/tzb9oj-its-alive/ Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/tzb9oj-its-alive/ I overhauled the robot zombie’s AI for improved idle and combat behaviour. The new AI is definitely making the undead machines feel more … alive, I guess? https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/kcccw4-robot-zombie-walk-loop/ Thu, 01 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/kcccw4-robot-zombie-walk-loop/ I’ve been trying various walk cycles on this robot zombie character, but most of them didn’t quite gel with the new character design. This one though, is getting that creepy mechanical shuffle just right! https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t0mcu8-robot-pose-timelapse/ Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t0mcu8-robot-pose-timelapse/ I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Houdini 21’s Apex autorig tools! Here’s a timelapse where I played around with it, posing my zombie robot character for Undying West. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/laq76v-the-first-craft/ Mon, 17 Nov 2025 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/laq76v-the-first-craft/ Introducing the crafting system to Undying West! A first look at the crafting table where players will combine resources to create/upgrade items, craft ammo, and prepare for the fight ahead. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/uuon2n-chaos-fracturing/ Mon, 22 Jul 2024 18:22:35 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/uuon2n-chaos-fracturing/ Destruction RnD with Unreal / Chaos! The statue in this video is a fractured geometry collection that gets ripped apart by Chaos fields during bullet impacts. I also set up a Niagara system to spawn dust particles for break events and debris trails. My kind of fun :) https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/8nlu0v-shield-wip/ Fri, 12 Jul 2024 17:13:56 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/8nlu0v-shield-wip/ The shield mesh was modeled in Houdini from separated hex tiles. Each vertex stores its tile’s centroid in custom UV coordinates. This centroid is used to sample noise textures and impact/displacement masks which can then be used to displace the tile as a whole during impacts. Here’s a video of me just having fun running around and shooting at the shield: https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/mpa9o4-throwing-items/ Thu, 06 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/mpa9o4-throwing-items/ Here’s some progress on the early gameplay prototype of Undying West! I added more interactable items, throw-arcs, gunplay, and some appropriately janky animations to boot. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/8hd9ey-rnd-weaponvfx/ Fri, 17 May 2024 06:20:37 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/8hd9ey-rnd-weaponvfx/ Here’s some RnD I did, exploring realistic weapon VFX (muzzle flash, smokey elements, bullet tracer) and a concrete / stone impact effect. The smoke elements were simulated using Houdini. The muzzle flash was composed of multiple elements being put together using Niagara. https://crazycoder.co.za/work/glimpse/ Wed, 08 May 2024 15:41:14 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/work/glimpse/ https://crazycoder.co.za/work/untethered/ Tue, 07 May 2024 10:03:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/work/untethered/ https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/vk3b6t-hou-woodfracture-test/ Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:51:23 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/vk3b6t-hou-woodfracture-test/ In this test I was exploring how to fracture wood with splinters using the Houdini Bullet Solver and not have the collision geometry explode during simulation. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/ep41r-bats-on-a-spline/ Sun, 17 Mar 2024 22:06:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/ep41r-bats-on-a-spline/ The Bats-On-A-Spline involved a few things: Rigging and animating a bat in Houdini, and exporting it as a VAT mesh using SideFX Labs tools, Setting up the VAT mesh and material in Unreal so that it can be animated through Dynamic Material Parameters from Niagara Systems, Take a machete to the Boids Niagara Content Example to customize flocking and Distance Field avoidance behaviour, And finally add additional Spline following forces using a user-specified spline. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t4dsr-shootable-roaches-part-i/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 07:50:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t4dsr-shootable-roaches-part-i/ Shootable Roaches in Niagara In this Niagara System I implemented basic roach behaviour using a state machine to lerp between behaviour parameters (idle / walk / run), player avoidance and, of course, I couldn’t resist the urge to make the bugs shootable with some over-the-top VAT splats! Roach VAT prep I used a free cockroach model made by SkyBeyondStorm from HERE! First I had to transform the roach model to the origin, and position it such that its legs touched the ground and body faced in the correct direction (Houdini x-axis), ready for instancing on my Niagara particles. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/g1839n-sidefx-houdiniengine-dev/ Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:52:18 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/g1839n-sidefx-houdiniengine-dev/ I had the amazing privilege to work with SideFX as a developer on the Houdini Engine plugin for Unreal between 2021-2023, across UE4 and UE5 spanning Houdini versions from H18.0 to H20.5. The following sections list some of the features that I worked on as part of the SideFX Houdini Engine dev team. HoudiniTools & Presets system in UE5 The HoudiniTools for the Houdini Engine v2 Plugin for Unreal is a reimagined version of the original Houdini Shelf tools. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/lfyfl3-rnd-fire/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:42:25 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/lfyfl3-rnd-fire/ I’ve been playing around with the Axiom Solver in Houdini and tried out some fire, and I’m liking it! These flames have a Diablo-esque feel to them … I’m going to have flipbook them and get them into Unreal! https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/exh82q-uefn-glowy-rockpool/ Wed, 07 Feb 2024 17:30:12 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/exh82q-uefn-glowy-rockpool/ This magical looking glowy rockpool, made in UEFN, is a material on a flat plane that uses some depth-buffer tricks and a bit of noise in the Material to make it fade and glow from the depths of the pool. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/m6pl0s-hou-kaiju-animtest/ Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:29:18 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/m6pl0s-hou-kaiju-animtest/ I rigged and animated this Kaiju in Houdini using KineFX for use in UEFN. And here’s a test of the standup sequence for two Kaijus in-game, ready to FIGHT! I also authored the custom materials for the glowy spines on the atomic godzillas, and animated the startup sequence through Level Sequences. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/z871pw-glimpse-microwave-explosion/ Mon, 15 Jan 2024 09:42:08 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/z871pw-glimpse-microwave-explosion/ In this scene the player character triggers a seamless cutscene (no camera cuts) by placing a specific object in the microwave, which makes a noise, lures the guard into the room, followed by a microwave explosion that kills the guard. This sequence, that I implemented, involved a good deal of coordination between gameplay logic, scripted events, state machines, and VFX. The moment that the player character places the item in the microwave, an Animation Montage takes over the player character so that she quickly hides behind the counter. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/sie46i-glowy-orb/ Sun, 17 Dec 2023 16:34:39 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/sie46i-glowy-orb/ This mesmirizingly glowy orb effect was created using a custom made Unreal Materials containing a custom reflection layer, a dual scrolling texture added to a fresnel edge falloff that creates some nice looking edge highlights every so often. I should have added more stuff but I lost track of time just staring into the orb … https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/op1s8-glimpse-cloth-sim/ Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:56:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/op1s8-glimpse-cloth-sim/ Let’s make dramatic-looking tapestries! We wanted to create large dramatic-looking tapestries that a player could walk through while moving between these two rooms. Sounds simple enough! Let’s do it! Limitations The first thing to know about cloth simulation in Unreal Engine is that cloth is authored as part of a SkeletalMesh asset. The second is that cloth can only collide with physics bodies / collision shapes contained within that SkeletalMesh asset (it cannot collide with anything outside of its own SkeletalMesh asset). https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/vo68g-untethered-stylized-vfx/ Sun, 12 Nov 2023 13:01:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/vo68g-untethered-stylized-vfx/ Untethered - Epic Megajam 2022 Winner Untethered!, an endearing little hack-and-slash game, was our entry for the Epic Megajam 2022. Here I’ll be sharing some breakdowns for the VFX that I made for the gamejam. Untethered gameplay Toxic Fumes Toxic Fumes effect The Toxic Fumes effect consist of three elements. Two “Fumes” elements (one dark and one additive & emissive) and some “Toxic Sparkles” sprinkled on top. I applied a noise to the base Fumes texture to make it more sharp and crunchy. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/eeq5ma-glimpse-fog-material/ Fri, 10 Nov 2023 11:47:58 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/eeq5ma-glimpse-fog-material/ This interior fog was quite a fun / interesting effect! First step was to render the capsule geometry backface is rendered to a custom depth and stencil buffer as opaque geometry. The transparent glass material can now combine the custom depth and actual depth buffers to compute a depth falloff that respects the depth and shape of the capsule. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/izyk5q-glimpse-carry-items/ Sat, 24 Jun 2023 18:22:27 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/izyk5q-glimpse-carry-items/ The Carry-Item system provides in-game character systems with the ability to carry various combinations of items in a variety of different poses. This was not only required for NPC behaviour where NPCs needed to be able to carry flashlights and manage pistols (holster/unholster) at the same time, but also for the player character that can pickup / carry / equip a variety of items from her backpack. Here is was a test scene that I made to easily test various combinations of pistol/flashlight carry poses combined with various animation cycles. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/f7jn0m-smoke-rig/ Sat, 24 Jun 2023 16:37:39 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/f7jn0m-smoke-rig/ This Relightable Smoke Rig is a blueprint that controls the behaviour of a Niagara simulation as well as parameters on the smoke material to dynamically light and color the smoke. The Smoke Rig provides a lot of control directly from the Blueprint for simulation parameters such as bouyancy, wind, number of particles, age, etc., giving the artist freedom to craft the desired look and behaviour. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/5ywne-bloodsmear-spline/ Mon, 19 Jun 2023 20:10:07 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/5ywne-bloodsmear-spline/ Using HoudiniEngine, I sweep a plane along a curve, generate normalized UVs and then apply a Blood Smear material in Unreal Engine. Now we have some art directable blood smears! https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/l9pkv-glimpse-wispy-smoke/ Sat, 03 Jun 2023 10:04:07 +0000 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/l9pkv-glimpse-wispy-smoke/ Wispy Smoke I wanted to add some simple cigarette smoke the scenes to give the environments a bit of extra life and came across a technique that work really well for our use-case; we only needed a static effect (no real-time character interactions required). Unfortunately I was unable to find the original post that inspired this effect but if I come across it again, I’ll definitely drop the link here to give credit where credit is due. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/btrwaw-epic-megagrant-glimpse/ Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:48:58 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/btrwaw-epic-megagrant-glimpse/ After a dimensional transporter renders The Girl and her siblings obsolete, they must flee from The Company that created them in this gripping alternate 1980s timeline thriller. We, Monocyte Games, received an Epic MegaGrant for the adventure game, Glimpse, we were developing in Unreal Engine. Working in a 3-person team on a story-driven adventure game, I had the opportunity to sink my teeth into a wide variety of task during the game’s development that included game design, vfx, interaction systems, inventory system, camera system, cinematic scripting, story & puzzle design, rigging & anim tech, and much more! https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t2vpip-glimpse-drill-rig/ Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:22:13 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/t2vpip-glimpse-drill-rig/ I set up a control rig that can drive various parts of the Drill (Skeletal Mesh) such as the arm (along with pistons), a control for the drill bit and a control to move the whole machine while rotating the wheels. The Control Rig can then be hooked up in an Animation Blueprint, controlled by game logic when the player is operating the drill and play additional Animation Montages on top the control rig-driven skeletal mesh. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/kdc875-rnd-isaura-pebble-spray/ Wed, 18 Jan 2023 20:59:03 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/kdc875-rnd-isaura-pebble-spray/ These Debris spraying Niagara systems were designed to be used with Level Sequencer, where the artist can drop them in the scene and activate/deactivate as needed. The sprite collision had a tendency to drop through collision geometry and requires a frame rate of 120 or higher in Level Sequencer to collide properly. https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/2vfe06-epic-megajam-untethered/ Mon, 14 Nov 2022 17:52:18 +0200 https://crazycoder.co.za/blog/2vfe06-epic-megajam-untethered/ Monocyte Games participated in the 2022 Epic Megajam and our game, Untethered, won the Procedural Magicians category for our use of Houdini for procedural level building! Check out our post containing the Level Building breakdown video. My part in this jam was implementing VFX, UI and game mechanics. Tether Granny’s spirit and take it back to her body! Destroy the poltergeist! Untethered Gameplay Video