Thomas Helzle

"Distant Thunder" Yesterday I wrote my first Python-node ever. With the help of this page: https://github.com/mgeier/python-audio/blob/master/audio-files/audio-files-with-wave.ipynb I managed to load a 24 bit stereo wav file (of distant thunder, which I recorded this summer at our cottage in the woods) and create geometry from it. Makes for a great desktop background, so I uploaded it as 24 bit png... :-) Created in Houdini Core 16.5, rendered in Redshift and post treatment in Luminar 2018. Cheers, Tom

Hey, I would like to do some work with audio file analysis and find chops very alien, limited and annoying, so wonder what would be involved if I'd want to do this without them. The elements of what I have in mind would be: Open a stereo wave file as raw data somehow. Analyse it using a FFT. The latter maybe in openCL for speed. Create geometry from the results. I'm looking for a direction on how to best tackle this in Houdini with the least unneeded overhead possible, so using existing libraries/examples would be preferred, adapting them to what I need... Thanks for any pointers! Cheers, Tom

Set one grid to rows and one to columns, then merge the two. Cheers, Tom

"Folded Paper Flow" Before heading for London (see above post) I went to a local art shop and found a book about the paper-art of Richard Sweeney. I was totally fascinated by the flow and forms he creates just from folded paper. Today I finally got to do some initial experiments with similar approaches in Houdini: Created in Houdini 17, rendered in Redshift (Brute Force GI this time) and post in Luminar 2018. Cheers, Tom

"Weaving" Created in SideFX Houdini 16.5, rendered with Redshift and post done in Luminar 2018. Cheers, Tom

"Math Flower" Created in SideFX Houdini Core 16.5 Rendered in Redshift Post in Luminar 2018

I started this thread on September 22, 2016, which was basically when I finally got into Houdini after doing 3D for more than 20 years with other software. Yesterday I returned from London, where I gave my first ever Houdini Workshop at "The Bartlett School of Architecture" to a group of 8 students from all over the world. They had started using Houdini only a couple of weeks before and none of them had done any real programming ever. Over the course of last week, I introduced them to many aspects of Houdini and VEX, the central design topic was the Shortest Path algorithm and truncated Octahedrons. My main goal was, to give them an introduction to programming and generative design and take away their fear of code as something "hard and alien". (I actually used ordering beer in a pub for explaining the command structure of VEX, if, else, for and for each loops etc. ;-) ). This worked out very well, they all catched on fast and created their own beautiful results based on my examples. Richard, my host at the UCL was very supportive and the whole thing was a lot of fun and very rewarding. I can see Houdini being used in design more and more, since software like Rhinos Grasshopper doesn't really cut it for complex work. So after SideFX being originally mostly used in movie SFX, then Motion Graphics, then recently going into Games, now this could become another mainstay for their business since Computational Design is growing more and more important and nobody does generative and complexity better. Thanks to the whole Houdini community, without you I couldn't have catched up as fast! Cheers, Tom

Hey marcoF, the advection is done in a solver and so yes, I resample at each step IIRC. Starting with a very finely subdivided line would not work, since you still would have your resolution distributed wrongly. Cheers, Tom

I'll just repeat my H15.5, H16, H16.5, H17 number one wish then: Finally get the built in VEX editor up to snuff. Make it a real code editor. Pretty Please :-) The most important improvement for me would be showing the parameters of a function right there in the editor, but many other things from editors like Code, Komodo Edit etc. would also make Houdini much better to code in. Thanks and Cheers, Tom

Awesome release. With GPU support I may be finally able to look more into simulation :-) And maybe I can finally retire XSI completely - I still used it sometimes for polymodelling. Afterwards I was somehow sad to already have watched the first sneak peak video - the Presentation would have been much more "wow" if I hadn't seen 90% of the videos already... Was it the same for the audience or are Montreal people always that silent and unmoved? Other than polite claps when presenters came or left, I only remember one scene applause - no shouts of happiness, no whistles, no stomping feet...? ;-) Must be hard to present something in front of such a mute crowd... But the presenters did once again very well. I like how one can feel the passion and the deep commitment to what they do. Thanks to everybody at SideFX! I'm so happy I finally came to this family after 25+ years of CG :-) Cheers, Tom

Thanks Howard! :-) Cheers, Tom

"And so we shine, silently" Created in sidefx Houdini 16.5 Rendered in Redshift Post in Luminar 2018 & Exposure X4 Cheers, Tom

"Circular Paths" Embraced by the universe we try to get our roots, our feelers, our nerve endings into it's substance to feel more connected with it, with each other, with ourselves, with life and love... Created in Houdini Rendered in Redshift Post in Luminar Cheers, Tom

"The Tree" Another R&D image from the above VR project: The idea for the VR-experience was triggered by a TV-show on how trees communicate with each other in a forest through their roots, through the air and with the help of fungi in the soil, how they actually "feed" their young and sometimes their elderly brethren, how they warn each other of bugs and other adversaries (for instance acacia trees warn each other of giraffes and then produce stuff giraffes don't like in their leaves...) and how they are actually able to do things like produce substances that attract animals that feed on the bugs that irritate them. They even seem to "scream" when they are thirsty... (I strongly recommend this (german) book: https://www.amazon.de/Das-geheime-Leben-Bäume-kommunizieren/dp/3453280679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1529064057&sr=8-1&keywords=wie+bäume+kommunizieren ) It's really unbelievable how little we know about these beings. So we were looking to create a forest in an abstract style (pseudo-real game-engine stuff somehow doesn't really cut it IMO) that was reminiscent of something like a three dimensional painting through which you could walk. In the centre of the room, there was a real tree trunk that you were able to touch. This trunk was also scanned in and formed the basis of the central tree in the VR forest. Originally the idea was, that you would touch the tree (hands were tracked with a Leap Motion controller) and this would "load up" the touched area and the tree would start to become transparent and alive and you would be able to look inside and see the veins that transport all that information and distribute the minerals, sugar and water the plant needs. From there the energy and information would flow out to the other trees in the forest, "activate" them too and show how the "Wood Wide Web" connected everything. Also, your hands touching the tree would get loaded up as well and you would be able to send that energy through the air (like the pheromones the trees use) and "activate" the trees it touched. For this, I created trees and roots etc. in a style like the above picture where all the "strokes" were lines. This worked really great as an NPR style since the strokes were there in space and not just painted on top of some 3D geometry. Since Unity does not really import lines, Sascha from Invisible Room created a Json exporter for Houdini and a Json Importer for unity to get the lines and their attributes across. In Unity, he then created the polyline geometry on the fly by extrusion, using the Houdini generated attributes for colour, thickness etc. To keep the point count down, I developed an optimiser in Houdini that would reduce the geometry as much as possible, remove very short lines etc. In Unity, one important thing was, to find a way to antialias the lines which initially flickered like crazy - Sascha did a great job there and the image became really calm and stable. I also created plants, hands, rocks etc. in a fitting style. The team at Invisible Room took over from there and did the Unity part. The final result was shown with a Vive Pro with attached Leap Motion Controller fed by a backpack-computer. I was rather adverse to VR before this project, but I now think that it actually is possible to create very calm, beautiful and intimate experiences with it that have the power to really touch people on a personal level. Interesting times :-) Cheers, Tom

Yeah, just put some very small random offset into the system before the solver so that the plane isn't perfectly flat anymore. IIRC that was enough to make the system leave the plane. Cheers, Tom