IDEAS for Major Project of 3rd year in university! HELPPPP

[Valentino]

guys,

am a 3rd year student in BSc 3D Animation! This is the final year and we have to make a Major porject which we get to choose! We have to built a plugin / tool/ asset for a program we like! Am going with houdini since everyone in my university is going with maya for the last 4 years! Problem is because there are soooo many features in houdini i dont know what is missing and dont know what to start researching for it! So can you give me of ideas of what plugins are requested for houdini or digital assets!

i was thinking of building a lightinh system like the one in modo called SLIK!

taken from modo website

The Studio Lighting & Illumination Kit (SLIK) is an extensive collection of presets, scenes, items, materials and video tutorials to help modo users light their creations. With SLIK, you are able to quickly select a studio lighting solution that mimics those found in the real-world of photography. Instantly your modo renderings will look more vivid and believable.

Any help and idea is appreciated!

thanks in advance,

Valentinos

[michael]

bah...lighting tools are so '90s....

if you really want to build something super useful here is one that would be very useful I think

- cluster deformer, like in Maya...

[edward]

I don't know if it's meaningful to give ideas without some sort of scope. How many days/hours are you expected to spend on it?

[Mario Marengo]

bah...lighting tools are so '90s...

bah... rigging/deforming tools are so '80s...

How about an implementation of this recently resuscitated thread?

[pclaes]

Or you could bring some of the more modern movement interpolation into a rig. And if you wanted to make it even more complex you could mix in some ragdoll physics. I'm currently looking into things like this myself .

So far I find it is not easy to do it properly though, also because I haven't done a lot of rigging or dynamics with constraints in houdini... so a pretty good challenge overall.

Here's another example:

[Valentino]

ok i will copy a piece from the brief we have been given!

The BSc Major Project utilises all the skills and resources from the programme to develop a 3D computer animated project that is normally exploring the use of advanced scrpting techniques, together with a well researched incorporation of optical and physical material properties.

The choice of project for a student may be inspired from personal interest, advances in animation software, industrial liaison, staff-student discussion, or a combination of these means, but it is expected that it will be largely derived from an innovative combination of virtual physical effects. Once underway students will embark on an individual project. The project undertaken must be innovative, academically demanding and based on sound theoretical knowledge.

As BSc students the project will usually take the form of a technical investigation and research into an area of digital animation that will use advanced scripting methods to extend the existing 3D modelling, animation and post production capabilities of propriety "off the shelf" software. In this view the nature of the project may take the form of developing an original scripted plug-in for use in the software, whereupon the animated artefact will include a display or demonstration of the product or prototype in use.

Thats a summary of the basic brief

Typical project examples could be:

Development of a new tornado effect. Backround research into the physics of particle and fluid motion, volumetric rendering/optical consideration would be required. Development and trailing of the new procedure, exemplified by an appropriate validation model together with a sympathetic graphical user interface.

Development of a motion capture interface that would acquire digitised motion capture data. Design of an appropriate validation model. Backround research into rigid body dynamics, joint articulation reaction forces and the conjugation of motion sequence.

I can provide more examples of old students work that is been done before. Like i said all of them were done in Maya using Mel, Python or C++. I would like to do my major project on Houdini but i find the program sooo powerfull i dont know what to create for it.

I don't know if it's meaningful to give ideas without some sort of scope. How many days/hours are you expected to spend on it?

We prety much have bout 6-7 months of work on this project so feel free to give me any ideas or tips you have my friend!

thanks in advance,

Valentino

[hopbin9]

I don't think "scripting" means the same as developing a plug-in or tool.

Scripting could include simple things like rules for particles, character rigging or custom constraints.

I think going with something abstract and particles would be a good idea. Like expressing magnetic fields interacting with each other visualized with particles. You'd have to research the subject, script particle constants and only learn about one part of Houdini.

[Valentino]

we had a lecture about our major projects today and the brief was written last year but they just want us to create like a plug in or in houdinis case digital asset!

[goldleaf]

Are you thinking of sharing the source code for this?

I don't know if this would be too much/little, but writing an alembic sop/rop could be useful. I'm sure the community would appreciate it. Another idea would be a Bullet SOP, like what DD, Cybermax, and others have written. This too would be a great open source project.

[Valentino]

can you give me links for the Bullet SOP goldleaf to check it out? Yeah i will share the code for this or asset or watever i create

[goldleaf]

Here are some links:

cybermax's stuff:

SideFX forum - its about 3/4 the way down the page. You can play with the plugin on Windows64, but that's it for now.

Vime Video - here he shows some results/workflow; check out the other videos too.

Digital Domain's - this stuff works a lot like cybermax's, similar ideas

Destroying LA - PDF from SIGGRAPH talk

movie of slides - a quicktime showing parts from the talk.

SIGGRAPH Talk - for $10, you can download the whole presentation about 2012 from digital domain. most of the time they are discussing how they destroyed buildings.

others:

Lars' work on odForce - another bullet sop solver example, here on odforce

Hope this helps some! My own school work has kept me from working on a SOPs version (or for working much on the DOPs version for that matter). Good luck!

Edited October 1, 2010 by goldleaf