Bud Light Seltzer ‘Last Year’s Lemons’

Houdini  ·  VFX / Particle Simulation  ·  Super Bowl Commercial

Software

Houdini  · Arnold

Lemon Rain & Particle Simulation

• Designed and built the lemon rain FX system in Houdini, simulating thousands of lemons falling from the sky across multiple shots throughout the commercial
• Developed particle systems controlling the emission, distribution, velocity, and randomization of lemons to create a believable large-scale rain effect
• Simulated lemons colliding with and hitting real-world objects, cars, buses, windows, and the ground, with physically accurate collision response
• Built VDB-based workflows to handle the volume and deformation of lemon impacts at scale

Collision & Deformation

• Developed collision systems between the lemon particles and environment geometry, cars, buses, windows, and ground surfaces
• Controlled surface deformation caused by lemon impacts, simulating the physical response of objects being hit by falling citrus at high velocity
• Developed juice splash FX on lemon impact, simulating the burst and spray of citrus juice as lemons hit surfaces
• Maintained art-directable controls over impact intensity, deformation scale, and timing across different shots

Technical Approach

• Combined particle systems and VDB volumes in Houdini to handle the scale and complexity of the lemon rain across multiple environments
• Built procedural controls for emission rate, lemon scale variation, rotation, and collision response to support fast shot iteration
• Collaborated with compositing team to ensure lemon FX integrated seamlessly with live-action footage across all shots
• Delivered under Super Bowl production deadlines, one of the most demanding timelines in commercial advertising