Particle Bird

[art3mis]

Would like to recreate something similar to this amazing particle bird effect by Simon Fiedler. Can anyone point me to relevant tutorials?

 

 

 

[woodenduck]

Not sure which particle tutorials will point you in the exact direction for this effect, but if I were to do it I would look at advecting particles through the velocity field of a smoke sim. 

I've attached a quick, basic setup which should get you going. Lots of improvements can be made to the behaviour of the smoke itself as well as adding further complexity inside the popsim. 

Step 1: Take some animated geo and create a smoke sim from it (I used the billowy smoke shelf tool).

step 2: Create a pop sim from points scattered on the animation.

Step 3: Reference the velocity of the smoke sim inside the popsim to drive the particle motion. 

I've used this basic technique countless times. It's a great little trick to have in your tool box. 

Cheers, 

WD

Ps - Feel free to use my award winning animation ;D 

velocityAdvectParticles.hip

[Farmfield]

^ this. And twice on sundays. 

But that bird, Joe, that bird...don't do that again, I beg you.

[Atom]

Thanks WoodenDuck, this is a fun one to play around with. I went ahead and kit boxed some detailed wings I found on Blendswap onto that bird. It does help out the sim a bit to have detailed geometry.

[Farmfield]

And you could use a twist (bend) to get some wing twisting, I bet that would create some nice turbulence as well.

I just love setting up that kind of auto rigging in Houdini, like having an animated wing drive a deformer, it's so easy to set up, And here's some great reference to... 

 

Edited June 25, 2016 by Farmfield

[woodenduck]

Haha! You're lucky I didn't use a teapot and tubes ;D. But yeah, absolutely agree. Some proper animation and geometry will make a huge difference. Ain't nobody got time for that on an example file!

[Farmfield]

LOL, I just did that wing animation - it's about taking your time to waste time.