26 replies to this topic

[thoma.v]

Hi odforce community!
I have heard about the awesome capabilities of Houdini for procedural geometry generation, particularly  the creation of terrains. That´s a deep interest of mine and so i bought some courses at cmivfx to learn this great piece of sofware. I was impressed by the way how Houdini works and what could be done with a couple of nodes and expressions. When i did the tutorials about fractals i began to ask myself if i could go  one step further and generate something like this.
That´s the point where i miserably failed!!!
My question for the experienced users is now this:
Would it be possible to generate such detailed terrains and landscapes?

I would be deeply thankful for all opinions and suggestions!

[Netvudu]

When you said you failed miserably, could you be more specific about where did you fail exactly? Maybe we can help with that...

Feature-wise I don´t see why you couldn´t create terrains as detailed as you might want...

Edited by Netvudu, 17 February 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[hopbin9]

Netvudu, on 17 February 2012 - 11:34 AM, said:

When you said you failed miserably, could you be more specific

He connects the Mountain SOP to another node and then....

Smoke and fire emits from the top of the computer case. Followed by a large explosion and pieces of motherboard parts fly across the room, while leaving a stunned look on his face which is covered with black soot as he wonders what just happen.

[Macha]

Yes, you can do this in Houdini. If you want to create convincing procedural landscapes you need a good understanding of a) landscapes, b ) noise functions, and c) shader writing.

There is nothing that will prevent you from such results in principle but there is no ready made solution in H out there, as far as I know. In my opinion though it would be an excellent thing to get into because it touches so many important fx areas.

Edited by Macha, 17 February 2012 - 01:40 PM.

[thoma.v]

hopbin9, on 17 February 2012 - 12:23 PM, said:

He connects the Mountain SOP to another node and then....

Smoke and fire emits from the top of the computer case. Followed by a large explosion and pieces of motherboard parts fly across the room, while leaving a stunned look on his face which is covered with black soot as he wonders what just happen.

It´s not that dramatic and "miserably failed" was slightly overdone.  
To be honest, i am fairly satisfied with the result i have so far but these erosion-like patterns are kinda mystery for me. I have no clue how they could be generated in Houdini.

Cheers,
Thoma

[thoma.v]

Over the weekend I have done further tests and I ended up by a general setup like this:

1. General shape and form: couple of noise functions inside a Vop-Sop for overall shape. Displacements for higher details
2. Height: it´s easy, I use $BBY in an Attribcreate-Sop and send it to Mantra for material-adjustments.
3. Curvature: Measure-Sop.
4. Slope: almost done! I still have some problems but I will get it.
5. Erosion and flow-patterns: I thought I could use a Pop-Network followed by a Trail-Sop but it seems that I can´t get the the right look with this setup and it´s not fully procedural as well. Ideally I would like to have some lines or points with attributes that I could use to drive material parameters in the shader.

That´s what i have so far. What do you guys think? Should I keep going on that route or is that all utter bollocks.
Crits and comments are welcome (particurarly for point 4 and 5).

Cheers!

[moondeer]

another approach is to use real maps.

with a greyscale map to displace (depth map / elevation map / height map / relief map... etc)

then use the color version of said map as the diffuse...

all mapped on the a flat plane.

or you can use the greyscale map to actually deform the plane a bit as done in the cmivfx lesson you ref.

or you can use a combo. use the greyscale map to deform the geometry, a little, then also use it in the displacement channel
to get the fine details at render.


check this out.


http://www.photoshop...e-in-photoshop/

Edited by moondeer, 19 February 2012 - 05:48 PM.

[petz]

thoma.v, on 19 February 2012 - 08:10 AM, said:

Over the weekend I have done further tests and I ended up by a general setup like this:

1. General shape and form: couple of noise functions inside a Vop-Sop for overall shape. Displacements for higher details
2. Height: it´s easy, I use $BBY in an Attribcreate-Sop and send it to Mantra for material-adjustments.
3. Curvature: Measure-Sop.
4. Slope: almost done! I still have some problems but I will get it.
5. Erosion and flow-patterns: I thought I could use a Pop-Network followed by a Trail-Sop but it seems that I can´t get the the right look with this setup and it´s not fully procedural as well. Ideally I would like to have some lines or points with attributes that I could use to drive material parameters in the shader.

That´s what i have so far. What do you guys think? Should I keep going on that route or is that all utter bollocks.
Crits and comments are welcome (particurarly for point 4 and 5).

Cheers!

attached is one way.

petz

[petz]

petz, on 20 February 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

attached is one way.

petz

Attached Files

•  mountain1.hipnc   656.91K   268 downloads

[thoma.v]

Hey Mondeer!
Thanks for the link Dude but I try to avoid external dependencies. I would really like to setup the system as much procedural as possible ....

Cheers!

[thoma.v]

Hey Petz, nice one! Brings me a major step closer to my ultimate goal.    
BUUUT another question arises. Maybe it a dump one, though, I´ll ask:
On the sticky note in the file you mention the HDK. I did a search and found out that HDK is the Houdini-equivalent of Maya`s SDK. Is that correct? Would it be faster compared to the VEX-operater, and if yes, how much faster would it be?
I have some experience with the Maya API and hopefully I can make use of this knowledge in Houdini. Are there any similarities?

Hints, suggestions and examples are greatly appreciated.  

Cheers.

[vectorblur]

petz, on 20 February 2012 - 12:25 PM, said:

attached is one way.

petz

Wow! Petz Just amazing.

Vector calculated under "Gradient of height" is really cool.

Would you be able to shine some light on how the measure sop calculating scalar value for curvature. Or how would you go about finding in a single slope value for given point on surface ?


-Cheers

p.s. - Sorry  thoma for interrupting the thread but i am also interested in learning more on the subject. You might already know about this book http://www.amazon.co...=dp_ob_title_bk
I just ordered mine couple of days ago.