Rafal123 Posted May 6, 2006 Share Posted May 6, 2006 Can somebody tell me in which shows/projects Houdini was used for AI/behavioural/crowd type animations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 6, 2006 Share Posted May 6, 2006 The Wild we built a crowd system...not what you would call AI but it was pretty slick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 6, 2006 Author Share Posted May 6, 2006 hey arctor thanks for info, can U gimme some more info about it? what techniques did U used? I bet it wasn't just 'flow particles on surface+instanced characters' , right? I didn't seen the movie yet but were those characters react on each other? something like 'uuu U r too close to me, go diffrent way' p.s did U use DOPs for that kind of stuff? I mean dynamic characters where they can collide with themselves... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 6, 2006 Share Posted May 6, 2006 I wasn't in that department so I really don't know many details.... no DOPs though... special assets to populate a scene then lots of CHOPs.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 6, 2006 Author Share Posted May 6, 2006 thanks for answer arctor, maybe somebody else got some informations about that kind of stuff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted May 6, 2006 Share Posted May 6, 2006 On the mice in Cats & Dog: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...=20&revdate=off http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...=20&revdate=off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 7, 2006 Author Share Posted May 7, 2006 On the mice in Cats & Dog:http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...=20&revdate=off http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...=20&revdate=off 27315[/snapback] thanks for that edward Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 9, 2006 Author Share Posted May 9, 2006 weren't crowds in Madagascar made in Houdini??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 I don't think so. Who has said that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 nope: http://blog.millimeter.com/siggraph/2005/0...threes-a-crowd/ "Laurent Kermel of PDI/DreamWorks also stressed artistic control. He went through PDI/DreamWorks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 The elf crowds in the Polar Express were done in Houdini. Pretty much the same technique Caleb used for the mice. Each particle had a field of view (essentially) which they used to avoid the other particles in their path. Combined with a goal point that they were heading towards made for fairly believable sims. Lots of CHOPS to do the motion blending between the various walk/run/skip/tumble animations too. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 9, 2006 Author Share Posted May 9, 2006 hey arctor thanks for link, this is great Marc: so the majority of crowds in movies use the same technique, right? One need some animation cycles and animated transitions from one cycle to another, then some scripting or chop stuff to connect that, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted May 9, 2006 Share Posted May 9, 2006 Yeah, you definitely need a way to blend between animation cycles based on what the particle is doing. Other than that though it's mostly a sim thing and a question of getting the particles to move in a way that looks like a crowd. As for the majority of movies doing the same thing... beats me. I do know that the polar express one and the one Caleb described had a few similarities in what they were doing. I'm sure they differed completely in how they achieved that goal. And if you feel like reading a technical piece : http://www.red3d.com/cwr/steer/gdc99/ M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 12, 2006 Author Share Posted May 12, 2006 Yeah, you definitely need a way to blend between animation cycles based on what the particle is doing. Other than that though it's mostly a sim thing and a question of getting the particles to move in a way that looks like a crowd. 27412[/snapback] all crowds based on particles or maybe there r some different techniques? does Massive also use particles??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted May 15, 2006 Share Posted May 15, 2006 all crowds based on particles or maybe there r some different techniques? does Massive also use particles??? 27518[/snapback] I'm not sure what massive uses, never used it. But if you're trying to make a crowd simulation in a general 3D package, then odds are you'll be using particles. You don't need to, of course. The HDK is a wonderful place to write all sort of interesting things if you're brave enough. It all depends on your skill and the amount of time you have available to do this. Particles come with alot of things for free that are needed for a crowd sim, so they're the obvious choice. Cheers M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overload Posted May 15, 2006 Share Posted May 15, 2006 Sorry to barge in, I had pretty much the same questions. Great info!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aracid Posted May 16, 2006 Share Posted May 16, 2006 all crowds based on particles or maybe there r some different techniques? does Massive also use particles??? 27518[/snapback] hey there in terms of what massive uses, at one stage, ur agents are placed using particles. however after that, one uses stand in objects to visualise what the agent is doing, and points to contain details about where each agent is. i think that one thing that comes close to massive in houdini (in how it renders), is houdini's procedural instance with h-script, just in the way it handles the dso call and how u can incorporate variables into ur otl at run time, but thats standards in DSO's. the beauty of massive are the brains that particles have, how those particles move and think and load the appropriate files is impressive, its their fuzzy logic. each piece(ie head, hand, toe) of the agent can be used to check if something is in front of it, or around it, then using data that ur agent reads info from the env and other particles and combining all these different sources with an infinite number of custom variables, they're link ed up to what u render and what motion is called. dunno if that clears anything up. brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted May 17, 2006 Author Share Posted May 17, 2006 thanks for info aracid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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