looks like the important part is the "find adjacent faces" I'd do that by drawing a line between points that share position before the parts and moved and then create a line between those points. Then use polyFrame to get the direction in both directions.

I want to pile up a few inches of straw and then have a character bust through it. But right now they're too stiff and buzz. Straw as in lots of little lines piling up. What's going to kill me with the sim? Lots of substeps? Should I crank up friction? Any caveats with auto-sleep?

Oh ho ho! Fantastic! Much obliged. Starred!

I've been doin' Houdini for a while. But I'm not sure where to even start with something like this: A bunch of nested copyToPoints ? Sorry, I usually give people a hard time for not trying things first before asking for help.

might try to tackle this next, lots of micro detail and layers!

based off the biomorphs algorithm from The Blind Watchmaker Not quite as snappy as this implementation, but useful, I think for when you have a huge parameter space to explore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG1tWmMzOYE I've only just now got it working, haven't had time to experiment with larger objects and more parameter keyframes. My inspiration was from using the Labs Tree tools. Soo many parameters. If anyone's interested in trying it out lemme know and I'll slide an OTL your way. I'd love some feedback. Wait a second... What does it do? How does it work? Given a size of population (default 4) and a keeper object to base the copies on. The mutation engine, plugged into a node with single key frames in the parameters you want to vary, will produce copies and variations of those nodes. Those variations of parameters are chosen by a chance percentage (0-1) and then varied plus or minus by magnitude percentage with a floor variation to keep values from settling at or too near 0. Buffer is the percentage of space between geometry. I think it'd be useful (which is why I made it) for exploring large parameter space, like, hundreds of parameters. Like, the value and position of several ramp points across even more nodes.

Bah, I'll just do it myself.

hou.hipFile() is what you want : https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/hou/hipFile.html more specifically the merge() method

If more words will help, I think you're looking for a "motion graphics designer" and an "animator" Additionally you should probably post in https://forums.odforce.net/forum/44-studios/ aka /general/jobs/studios best of luck!

I've got no free time to pursue my dream OTL (plugin?). So, I want to hire someone to help me make it. And pay them actual money for their valuable time. How the heck would I go about doing that? I'm not a studio. Should I still post in the Jobs section? ---------------------- If you're curious it'd be an implementation of the Biomorphs from Blind Watchmaker twiddling the parameters of arbitrary user nodes.

In the network view one can manually import, reposition, and change the opacity of an background image, and even link it to a particular geo node. That's boss. But how can I edit that image procedurally? Can I change its position, reference image, and force a refresh with code? https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/network/organize.html#images I'm wondering because this might be a great solution, a small step in a big weird tool I'm working on.

I'm not entirely sure what you're describing. Can you upload a hip file and an image?

Looks cool. What problem does it solve?

Simple particle rules + time = life ?!