Senior FX TD Artem Smirnov, also known as VFX_gulag, has showcased the awe-inspiring results of his recent research experiment with glass fracture dynamics in Houdini, demonstrating an incredibly realistic 3D simulation of a bullet zipping through a series of glass panels at 96000 frames per second.
Inspired by one of The Slow Mo Guys' videos, the sim was set up using a custom-made Finite Element Method (FEM) solver, with the goal being to stay as close as possible to the reference while at the same time balancing performance and simulation time with physical accuracy. According to Artem, this project marks the start of a new series focused on FEM-powered cracks in Houdini, with more videos, including a "long and very boring" tech breakdown of the FEM solver used for the glass fracturing simulation, coming out soon.
Here's the original video the artist used as the main reference (timecode 4:30):
