Why CG Explosions Suck (but they don't have to)

THIS EPISODE ► Ever since he was a young child, Niko has loved Explosions. REAL Explosions. But as practical pyrotechnics fall out of favor in Hollywood, CG Booms are becoming prevalent and he's become disenchanted. Hopefully Jordan Allen can convince him that all hope is not lost, and there is a way for CG explosions to achieve cinematic greatness.

A big thanks to Urban Bradesko and Matt Puchala for their help with this video! The explosion in the video that was originally credited to Urban Bradesko was actually created by Matt Puchala. They are working together and we mixed them up. Our apologizes to both of them!

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[theslowmoguys]

I’m at the point now with corridor titles and thumbnails where I know I’ve got to be in this one before even clicking 😂

[leonjohansen]

Honestly I'm just super tired of gasoline explosions. Most of the time it doesn't make sense. Iron man dropping HE on the enemy? Gasoline. Plane dropping a bomb? Gasoline. Hand grenade thrown into a house? Gasoline.

[DanJMW]

An occasional fireball is fun, but I am always more impressed by concussive shockwaves with minimal pyro. They just feel more visceral, not to mention more realistic (since most things in real life don't contain hundreds of gallons of gasoline).

[GANONdork]

I wish more movies would replicate the look and behavior of explosions like the one shown in the Beirut explosion footage. The speed and scale at which everything occurs is absolutely terrifying, and leaves way more of an impact on me than the giant gasoline fireballs.

[thetalantonx]

I'm glad you included that Tom Scott bit. The best videos on actual explosions come from people who do them for real, like Tom and The Slow Mo Guys.

[Patterrz]

my friends are gonna be so impressed when I pause the movie to tell them why the explosion wasn't very impressive

[Hotchpotchsoup]

That shot from the Mandalorian with TIE-Bombers passing over the explosions, you say they're smaller bombs, but if you look at the ground around them you might notice that they're very far up and that those probably are nukes.

And the Death Star test firing in Rogue One is one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen in a movie, the Death Star eclipse turning day into night just as they blast a little bit of apocalypse onto Jedha is mesmerisingly gorgeous.

[hegmonster]

2:02 Yeah, but that 'Knowing' scene was nuts in the theater.
The audience has no idea what's going to happen, you just see Nic Cage getting anxious and then the surround sound kicks in and it feels like you're under the plane.
For what the explosion lacked, the sound design made it real!

[kareninatashata]

What a banger episode it was super interesting and entertaining! We need more VFX breakdowns like this for other common hollywood effects like muzzle flashes, water interactions, blood spurts, etc.

[oancemr]

There are 2 explosions I've ever seen in movies that made me go "holy shit, that was a real bomb" and had an actual shock factor: Sicario Day of the soldado supermarket bombing and zero dark thirty bus bombing. With those 2 exceptioms, 99.999% of movie explosions just feel like gasoline being spread in the air and set on fire (which they essentially are). Those are the only 2 explosions that felt like they carried some punch.

[Ford]

I loved that they caught the overpressure wave from a gasoline explosion on film in Raiders of the Lost Ark (the Flying Wing scene). Using gasoline for the pyro was valid in-context for a change because it was an aviation fuel source in the narrative.

[doerakdoerakolie]

Jordan is honestly such a great addition to Corridor. Love the excitement!

[heckensteiner]

I love seeing VFX artist reacting to practical effects. It takes a lot of study of the real world to get things right in the digital world. The funny thing about the War Machine explosions from Avengers is they actually shot those practically (I was doing Previs across the street and we heard about 10 loud booms in succession). But like what usually happens when things are shot practically these days, they were probably nit-picked and digitally manipulated to hell until they didn't look real anymore, or just replaced with CG entirely.

[FruitLoops_]

I love it when you guys make slightly more technical videos! It's, interesting, educational and fun!

[theActionMovieKid]

Niko, Jordan! This is so educational and inspiring. I love comping explosions (poorly) but learned a lot from this.

[PhoenixianThe]

Personally, when I see what I'd really like to see as CG matures is more variation. Practical effects use fuel explosion a lot because, well, all sorts of reasons, but it would be nice to see CG branch out into more variety than emulating practical effects. The sheer, blinding speed of high explosives or the condensation clouds that form midway through when you have something really big all feel like they could be used to play into different narrative beats.

[KTL]

I would be thrilled to see you guys follow up more on anime explosions, which ones work best, which ones don't work, different kinds of explosions (not all are fire-based!), etc. I really love when you pick apart animation and give credit and adoration to the insane amount of detail that gets lost in a split second frame.

[kbeale]

I'm a production coordinator, and I find this kind of deep dive into the design and artistry of FX work absolutely facinating! I love learning what the artists I work with are doing and how, and getting to see the curtain pulled back like this in such a frank and analitical manner is awesome! Keep it up!

[ryleyt]

The thing that drives me the most nuts about big Hollywood explosions is that the light and sound arrive concurrently. In the James Bond one shown in the last VFXAR, MI6 is hundreds of meters away, but the explosion and the sound are right at the same time. Same with Rings of Power in the most recent episode.

[magusofthebargain]

Great video! I think this topic deserves a followup video titled: Why real explosions look so real, in which you ONLY look at your favourite real explosions and then have a competition to re-create those explosions using a combination of real explosions and CG. When we were working with Clint Eastwood on the explosions for the film Richard Jewell, he insisted on having zero greenscreen and zero CG, so we had A LOT of roto to separate out each actor from in front of the small explosions in the background and we also needed to enhance his explosions using only elements that were actually exploding. We had very skilled Houdini artists standing by in case he changed his mind, but with thousands of Wacom brushstrokes, we were able to accomplish it all by hand in 2D with no 3D sims.