in broad daylight being torn apart in slow motion by a fire spewing cannon. The fire and smoke not only occupied a large section of the screen, but the fire had to interact with the intricately detailed armor of the Thug, which had almost 800 different interlocking metal shapes. The project required some heavy hitting fx power, and Houdini was chosen to handle the job. I have had a long relationship with SideFX software and have been very happy with their product Houdini in the past. With this in mind, I approached SideFX to use their new Houdini 12 beta version, which has great tools for addressing our volumetric needs in development. Our IT team was able to quickly integrate into the software into the Image Engine film pipeline. In the end, we used Houdini's new volumetric technology quite extensively in the production of the Battleship Thug destruction." Daniel Elophe: "The most challenging aspect was that the fire needed to interact with the breaking thug, and move around/through pieces. There was a good solid month of back and forth, brainstorming and trying lots of variations of fire within the context of the explosion with Jacob running fire simulations from various body parts of the Thug. For me as an artist, this was the most rewarding part of the process, working extensively with Jacob and being given a lot of creativity and flexibility from Chris and our producer, Vera Zivny to explore what would work well." How did you create the