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CHOPs/Music book is out!


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Hi Everybody,

Ok, so I've finally released the CHOPs ebook. It's available on my website for $29.95 (payable by credit card) at

http://www.andrew-lowell-productions.com/a.../resources.html

And will be a promotion article on SESI's website soon.

It's been a while coming with many delays (sorry, I'm a 1-man-band here); but I'd like to think that the quality is there and CHOPs should be just as familiar as SOPs or POPs after a read; as well as a few music concepts that I really hope will get more exposure from this. It's also been reviewed by Side Effects / Peter Robbinson; so many thank you's to Peter for making it an excellent and organized resource to learn from.

If there are any questions or issues just email me at andrew@andrew-lowell-productions.com

I will also take requests to mail cd's for those who are on dial up connection. I should also mention that the files are completely compatible with Houdini 8 for those who aren't using 9 yet.

Edited by andrewlowell
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Very cool! You might want to start with chapter 8 then. For that chapter I basically tried to fit everything I learned with sound processing techniques from my first year of audio engineering school; and did the same techniques in Houdini. Believe it or not it's much more fundamental in Houdini compared to pro-tools etc (although not as fast of course)

Thanks Andrew :) Very cool, your efforts is highly appreciated. Being an audio-engineer myself I enjoy anything chop/audio-related. This is a must have in my book-arsenal.
Edited by andrewlowell
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I'll buy the book today! Can't wait to get some more insight on midi generated fx or animations. Especially the spacial audio sounds amazing. My first goal: recreating autechre's gantz graf video procedurally ;)

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I'll buy the book today! Can't wait to get some more insight on midi generated fx or animations. Especially the spacial audio sounds amazing. My first goal: recreating autechre's gantz graf video procedurally ;)

Thanks!, nice, and Whoa, talk about a tutorial B) . Gantz Graf is amazing; anyone know if they used any Houdini for it?

I should note that the MIDI chapters (chapters 3-7) .. Don't use very many DA's simply to keep that part of the book a little more basic. However, for my own systems I've combined and further "proceduralized" all these systems into very plug-and-play type micro-DA's. So once you get a handle on the techniques I'd recommend making your own DA's out of them that are tailored to your project's needs.

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Thanks!, nice, and Whoa, talk about a tutorial B) . Gantz Graf is amazing; anyone know if they used any Houdini for it?

I should note that the MIDI chapters (chapters 3-7) .. Don't use very many DA's simply to keep that part of the book a little more basic. However, for my own systems I've combined and further "proceduralized" all these systems into very plug-and-play type micro-DA's. So once you get a handle on the techniques I'd recommend making your own DA's out of them that are tailored to your project's needs.

Just bought the book...

I've heard it's all hand keyframed! No, I'm pretty sure about that. So it's worth the efford getting close to that reslt procedural. Maybe a good idea for a challenge?

I've played with midi in houdini some time ago. Hooking up my Behringer to control cameramovement and grow patterns, a lot of fun, especially when you load in some audio to influence your midi triggers. I hope that with what I already know + your book i'll be able to create some plug and play assets. At least, that's what i'm aiming for. So what's the general level of the book? From beginner to advanced? What chapters can be really useful for a more advanced approach to chop utilization?

Edited by Fomal
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Wow that's neat! I would never have thought hand-animated though. If so remarkable job :unsure:

In terms of the level of the text, I would say intermediate to advanced. However, the book does not assume any knowledge of Houdini CHOPs, or of sound/MIDI. So, a Houdini student familiar with SOPs, POPs, and a few other things, but never taught a thing about CHOPs could become an advanced CHOPs user with this book; that's my hope anyway.

Peter Robbinson was instrumental in making the knowledge a little more user friendly also :)

But, yes I think the first two chapters are more of a CHOPs introduction. The book is broken up into five units, and the first or second chapter in each unit is still very basic-intermediate, the later units becoming very advanced very quickly. I would say that if the reader makes it though this book they should have expert CHOPs knowledge; even if the intention isn't to learn about Music/Sound, but just about CHOPs and Proceduralism. The last unit, which explores sound synthesis and generation within Houdini CHOPs, makes a lot of use of Digital Assets. It was necessary to show a good workflow with those things; but I don't think someone could just pick up and start reading the last unit; unless they are already very familiar with CHOPs.

I put a link to the preface

http://www.andrew-lowell-productions.com/a...mmas_teaser.pdf

on the shopping cart page. It explains the motives, format, and difficultly level of the book to some degree.

Just bought the book...

I've heard it's all hand keyframed! No, I'm pretty sure about that. So it's worth the efford getting close to that reslt procedural. Maybe a good idea for a challenge?

I've played with midi in houdini some time ago. Hooking up my Behringer to control cameramovement and grow patterns, a lot of fun, especially when you load in some audio to influence your midi triggers. I hope that with what I already know + your book i'll be able to create some plug and play assets. At least, that's what i'm aiming for. So what's the general level of the book? From beginner to advanced? What chapters can be really useful for a more advanced approach to chop utilization?

Edited by andrewlowell
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No thanks for the interest everyone! At this rate it will outsell Batman :)

Also, if anyone has ordered and not recieved an email, let me know. Sometimes the download email shows up in people's spam folders etc.

congrats andrew!

just ordered it... :)

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got my e-mail within a few hours...and all is good...

I've only just skimmed through the first 80 pages and there is some really great stuff in there!

the images/screen grabs are about as good as you can get - enough detail to zoom in on if needed...really well done (one thing that has always bugged me about the CHOPs UI is the super high contrast...makes some of the pics in the book hard to look at)

looking forward to going through the whole thing - and I'm sure I'm be using it as a reference for a long time to come!

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Great!

haha, I use it as a reference for my own stuff occasionally :) Just because I wrote the book doens't mean I have it memorized <_<

By the way .. if it's being used as a CHOPs reference, it is best on evil windows with the official adobe reader. This is because there are mouse-over help notes for every CHOP (in bold) in the text. Last time I checked on linux it didn't do the mouse-over's unfortunately. But should be great for students on windows/apprentice machines at home learning CHOPs.

got my e-mail within a few hours...and all is good...

I've only just skimmed through the first 80 pages and there is some really great stuff in there!

the images/screen grabs are about as good as you can get - enough detail to zoom in on if needed...really well done (one thing that has always bugged me about the CHOPs UI is the super high contrast...makes some of the pics in the book hard to look at)

looking forward to going through the whole thing - and I'm sure I'm be using it as a reference for a long time to come!

Edited by andrewlowell
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Very cool! You might want to start with chapter 8 then. For that chapter I basically tried to fit everything I learned with sound processing techniques from my first year of audio engineering school; and did the same techniques in Houdini.

Sound good. Looking forwards to reading it.

Believe it or not it's much more fundamental in Houdini compared to pro-tools etc (although not as fast of course)

Yeah. But how nice it would be if SESI made Houdini 10 with a spanking fresh non-linear animation clip editor with low latency multitracking for any media inserted. Pretty sweet stuff :)

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well, to be fair .. it's not like it gets a lot of use (until now hopefully). Many of the Houdini guru's I talk to at the studio don't even know Houdini CAN do sound :) Pre-Houdini 8, and the Magic of Houdini book, it didn't seem like there was much Houdini learning resources of any kind. Now I'm even trying to find time to go through them all :) ... it's a great time to learn about Houdini

AWESOME!!!

I wonder why SESI didn't have anything like this available? I mean, most of the audio and sound functionality has been there for a while, no?

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Thanks!, nice, and Whoa, talk about a tutorial B) . Gantz Graf is amazing; anyone know if they used any Houdini for it?

I should note that the MIDI chapters (chapters 3-7) .. Don't use very many DA's simply to keep that part of the book a little more basic. However, for my own systems I've combined and further "proceduralized" all these systems into very plug-and-play type micro-DA's. So once you get a handle on the techniques I'd recommend making your own DA's out of them that are tailored to your project's needs.

late reply - but just catching up on this forum. i know for sure it was hand animated in lightwave. we're currently working with the same director (and i've known him for 10+ years). v nice chap - and thinking about learning houdini...

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