Rampage Rally: How I Made Coffee Heist for Pwnisher’s 3D Community Challenge

Details

What's it like creating a 6 second film?”—welcome to Rampage Rally – 3D Community Challenge, this was the latest 3D Community Challenge from Clint Jones (aka Pwnisher). Artists get a provided template, 30 days, and a clear judging rubric (idea/story, lighting & render quality, composition, animation). You submit one shot. It joins a massive community montage—and, if you crush it, the curated Top 100 (Spoilers: I won't make it, but lots to learn from this project).

Why I Joined (Again)

Years ago I entered two back-to-back Pwnisher challenges. I didn’t place, but my skills leveled up fast. After wrapping a short film recently, I had a gap, so… dived back into the arena. I still didn’t expect Top 100, but my goals were simple tell a tiny story, learn a lot, and finish on time (which came down to the last 20 minutes before deadline).

The Concept: A Borrower on a Spoon

My story riffed on Arrietty / The Borrowers: a tiny character rider steals coffee beans from a jar, the human spots her, tips the jar, beans avalanche, and she surfs them snowboard- style off a the jar. As the human tries to grab her, she fires a toothpick into his eye, he flinches, and she rides his arm to safety. Meanwhile, another tiny character is trapped under a glass, she is on her way to free him in the last beats.

Tools & Pipeline

• Blender for scene layout, lookdev, and final assembly
• Houdini (Bullet RBD) for bean avalanche simulation
• Alembic for geometry interchange
• Marvelous Designer for cloth on the micro-scale rider
• Rokoko (mocap) + Face Cap (iPhone) for placeholder character motion
• Fire/FX exploration with JangaFX FireGen (early tests)

The Coffee Bean Avalanche (Blender → Houdini → Blender)

1. Prep in Blender: placed beans from BlenderKit, duplicated for count, and exported beans, jar, and spoon separately as Alembic.
2. Sim in Houdini: RBD Packed beans in a Bullet solver with tuned bounce/friction and carefully authored colliders.
3. Back in Blender, reassigned materials and only imported the heavy beans at the end to avoid UI freezing.

Micro-Scale Cloth That Wouldn’t Behave

Tiny characters mean clothing chaos. I scaled everything up to world size, slowed the animation to 25% with a Scene Time Warp, simulated, then restored normal speed and re-scaled in Blender. The motion finally locked.

The Toothpick Gag

To launch the toothpick: parent to hand via Child Of and animate Influence to 0 to release. On impact with the human eye, activate a second Child Of targeting the eye and animate Influence to 1. It’s obvious when you’re calm and fed. Under a ticking render clock? Less so.

Rope in a Rush

With an hour left, I used a simple Bezier Curve with Hook modifiers—one end to the arrow, the other to the launcher—then added bevel depth. Acceptably convincing at speed.

Time Spent & What I’d Improve

About 60 hours total, with 20 hours on problem-solving. If I had more time: punchier facial animation for the human, a background gag, and more nuanced bean-to-spoon interaction. I submitted with ~20 minutes to spare.

Watch the Full Build Series

• Part 1 – Concept, Story Beats & Plan
https://youtu.be/iGXPTQcIdAs
• Part 2 – Houdini Coffee Bean Avalanche
https://youtu.be/IBu1VDXcois
• Part 3 – Final Push, Cloth Fixes, Toothpick & Rope
comings soon on youtube

Quick Tips for Rampage Rally

• Story first. Six seconds still needs a clear arc.
• Design for speed. Save heavy imports for last.
• Separate colliders and be explicit about concave vs. convex.
• Micro-cloth = macro-scale. Upscale, time warp, then revert.
• Constraints are your friend. Animated influences do the trick.
• Finish > perfect. Learning and shipping beat chasing Top 100.

What Is Rampage Rally?

Rampage Rally is the 11th Create With Clint / Pwnisher 3D Community Challenge. Artists get a 6-second template and 30 days to build a unique shot. Judging focuses on idea/story, lighting & render quality, composition, and animation. All entries appear in a giant community montage; a hand-curated Top 100 showcases standouts. Get the rules, FAQ, and starter files on the official page.

Useful Links

• Official challenge hub: Rampage Rally – 3D Community Challenge
• Pwnisher’s channel: Pwnisher on YouTube
• My entry video: Coffee Heist on YouTube

FAQ

• Is Rampage Rally only for pros? No—all skill levels join; it’s built to help you level up with a community template and deadline.
• How long is the shot? Six seconds from the provided template.
• What do judges look for? Idea/story, lighting & render quality, composition, animation.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t chase perfection—I chased a finished six-second story. “Coffee Heist” made me better at RBD sims, cloth at micro scale, and fast storytelling. If you’re thinking about entering a Pwnisher challenge, do it. Worst case: you learn a ton. Best case: we see your shot in the Top 100. Start your engines here: Rampage Rally – 3D Community Challenge.