quinniusmaximus

OK... I think I've exhausted my button pushes and research. If anyone can give any pointers about getting my collisions/debris to actually appear to rest on the surface and/or interact with the moving model I would be very thankful. Currently, the `debris` appears to come to a final rest above the surface. I've included the scene and ref'd geo. quinniusMaximus_recog.zip

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback. All of this info is very educational and are the tiny bits and pieces that add up to experience to be able to help others. The pscale problem, I'm not sure if I would have figured out. The `use object transform` I'm pretty sure I checked that on and off at some point and I played with the sleep delay a bit. The VDB I think was created from one of the shelf tools, so I'm not sure what I did there. How did you determine the pscale was too big (aside from the geo not touching the terrain). Are there any values that tipped you off? Again- Thank you.

Not to pimp another persons work but GFX Hotkeys is a nice little app if you have one of thos iOS devices. Has the hotkeys for houdini and many others

A bit of a naive question... MADE would that be the MA in Digital Effects?

OK... I'm cutting up a a piece of geometry to allow me to animate it before passing it off to DOPs. The problem I'm running into is that my cut geometry is coming out in shards (the first image) as opposed to solid chunks (the second image) as I would hope. My concern is that since it is not in chunks, I will run into further problems as I send these pieces off to DOPs. If my concerns are unwarranted that would be great. If anyone has thoughts on closing up the sides of the cuts that would be wonderful as well. Thanks. window_shatter.zip

OK.. found a simple way to solve this.... Basically, just be smart and simple about how you want your geometry cut. Originally, my input geometry, the windshield was on an angle (as most windshields or windscreens are). I had gone into a front view to draw my cutting lines. Now when these cutting lines were extruded and cookie'd with the windshield, the were cutting at an angle. Acute angle on one side, oblique on the other. My simple solution was to just transform the windshield to be perpendicular to the cutting lines. Then after all my cutting is done, reverse the transform. Not sure if I'm missing something, but based on appearances, I'm getting what I would expect. cheers, -quinn

Original bit was a plane, but like a real window, I thought it would look better if it had a little depth to it. Were you suggesting maybe to shatter it and then extrude it? (which after reading again.. seems so). I'm going to look into the shatter first, extrude later path. Thanks for your reply. Cheers.

I have a question regarding a fluid sim. Once I mesh and go to render it, I'm getting a bit of a separation between my ground plane/terrain and the fluid. I'll include a link to a zip file that contains the .hip file as well as a jpg illustration my issue. Thanks for any help. Cheers. url: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1360040/for_sidefx.zip

I found ray tracing bias in the mantra node- is that the same as ray bias? As for shadow bias, I had raytrace shadows on. I switched it to shadow maps and knocked the shadow bias value down and that has certainly helped. Still looks a little "floaty".

Good question. I'm guessing these parameters are under the mantra node. I'll dig around there as well as double check the actual geometry

Just a quick thought.... Do it with particles but advect it with a fluid sim.

if/when I make it out there... I'm down for Thursdays. Hell, I'll be in LA in June for a wedding and would be happy to grab drinks then as well. Cheers, -quinn

I could be wrong... but is it possible that this might be a good case to use a forEach operator? this way you run the extrude on each element within a group. Just a thought

I'm glad someone asked about this... I was just thinking about it also. I'm thinking about writing some kind of front end that when Houdini starts, it could/would list a set of projects from which you would choose to open, and have a button to create a new project. After working on some systems,I've really become accustomed to this and find it useful for organizing small projects or shots. I'd be interested to hear anyones thoughts on such a thing. Pros/Cons, etc.

First off, Congratulations! How did you hear about the internship? I saw nothing posted. Or was it a while ago and I missed it. Checked your demo - good stuff. Looks like you've been out of school for a little bit, which is refreshing that SESI will take in people who aren't necessarily still in the academic track. Cheers. Can't wait to hear how the internship progresses.

i"m not %100 sure... I would check the sesi site... but I think that may have been a bug in *.409 I just did a quick comb through of the jounal.. but can't find it

if I get time... i'd love to look at some python parsing to houdini usable data.. could be cool

I don't think that piece had anything to do with a light probe. I think it was a bit more simple than you imagine. To me the breakdown spelled it out. Panoramic photos taken and stitched. Camera move done in post (AE, nuke, shake, etc). Animation done with proxy geo, then nulls attached to the geo, then curves weighted to the nulls. Render and composite. Maybe I'm misunderstanding a point of the question.

Another simple point to remember.. just because the contest is 2 months doesn't mean you can't submit within the first month (or week if you're that fast). 2 Months to me sounds quite reasonable. As currently, my "free" time is nearly none and my knowledge is still scant.

Anyone have or know of some good examples of "hire" quality demo reels? Especially for an FX artist or junior/mid level fx TD @quinniusmaximus

A friend was working on a shot like this: shot04 It was created in maya with nParticles and partilcle goals The idea is for a logo to form out of a bunch of spheres or particles coming together I think I can figure out the goal part in Houdini. And as another option... to start off with the logo and apply a force to it, write it out and read it in reversed and render However, I have not been able to get the RBD side of things to come together. I don't want the spheres to penetrate or pass through each other. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Well said Allegro... The day job (smoke/mograph artist) which I can't complain about keeps me quite busy. At home is the only opportunity that I have at the moment. Really looking forward to the day when I can speak conversational houdini. Ideally would love to have something to show come siggraph time. cheers.

Those are all pretty heavy hitters..... and you're no slouch yourself... I bought the 3dbuzz dvd's you did- good stuff I'm obviously going to only try and put my best foot forward, but I was curious what level of work in a reel gets makes you a candidate to hire on?

Could you use the vopsop as a way to create groups from which to birth your particles? or conversely to group and delete those particles that are not displced?

I haven't looked into it yet... but would a convert SOP help/work? Then put your UVsop on.