Thomas Helzle

I never really liked the clumsy node workflow of Designer and rarely need something like Painter but still found the tools somehow interesting, even though the Houdini plugin was crap. Hoping they would improve over time I kept the permanent licenses current when they had a sale, even though I hardly ever used them. After this announcement, I uninstalled them both. Somehow I saw too much of this kind of bullshit over the years, from Shake to XSI to Thea Render to Camel Audio to Extreme 3D to Cool Edit to Freehand ... My list goes on and on and there rarely was a positive outcome ever. Most of the time you could just write of the tool and the investment in money and time. Let's hope somebody comes up with a REALLY good procedural texture tool :-) Cheers, Tom

I thought this could interest other Houdini artists too: For a long time I was checking out all kinds of realtime 3D tools and never found one that wasn't somehow clunky or weird or ugly... Last week I discovered Cables.gl and spend quite some time with it over the weekend - and I'm deeply impressed. Not only is is a very well laid out application, it also runs in your browser! https://cables.gl There are also a lot of good tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7IRYQBFbt1KX4YmhBuIbhA/videos It needs some brain-reorganisation since it has a bit of a different logic and flow from Houdini, following the logic of OpenGL, but at least TAB opens the node list :-) Cheers, Tom

This one was a test I did based on the idea of replacing the surface of an object with finely distributed particles. I especially love the subtle patterns that creates. Best viewed in full resolution... And finally for now I played with Vellum some more and tried it on a human figure. Afterwards I realised the bend stiffness was still to high, so the folds are too large for the kind of cloth I went for, but it's still interesting... "In Velum Veritas" :-) Cheers, Tom

Then I played a bit with simple Sinus waves - sometimes it's so much fun to relax with something basic... Redshift & Post in Luminar 2018 (too bad Luminar 3 is totally broken at this point). And another one, where I also played with the new image FX in Redshift... :-) Cheers, Tom

Have to catch up with some more images I did in the meantime :-) Above image is a test what would happen if I applied Vellum to the Twisted Pleat image on the previous page... Not totally up there but quite interesting nevertheless... :-) I then further played with this idea: I emphasised the outlines by rendering a copy as strands (all Redshift as usual). Cheers, Tom

"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