Forced perspective vellum sim

This was a very cool project I made for one of my clients using Vellum and forced perspective. Both frames were to be displayed alongside each other on a display screen rotated at 30 degrees. We wanted to have a stream of squishy metallic balls flow from one frame to the other and to have the sim loop.

Creating the forced perspective was relatively simple. All I had to do was recreate the environment where the display would be placed, position the camera in front of each frame, and adjust both the camera and frame to fit the perspective. The rectangular frame you see is not a straight rectangle; instead, it is distorted to create the illusion of perspective.

To create this effect, I made a curve and programmed it to animate like a sine wave. I then added a Vellum emitter outside the frame, alongside a curve force, which would force the balls emitted to follow the animated curve.

The Vellum balls were configured to act like cloth balls but with much stiffer bend and stretch constraints to allow for minimal deformation. Additionally, I added an orbital force to make the balls orbit the curve, creating this swirling squishy effect.

The forced perspective display (mockup)

Initial Simulation test