Cake Kid Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Hello everyone, I wanted to ask you for your opinion about innovations in Houdini. I am working on a project and it's main idea is to create something new, different, challenging, specialised and innovative. I've chosen Houdini as a tool and I am trying to come up with something visually interesting that hasn't been done much before. It could be anything from tools, effects, shaders, ... I was thinking about making an abstract animation/effects simulation that is driven by sound, or creating a "mixing" effect of water colours (fluids), but it has been done before, so it's not completely original... Is there something new, interesting or crazy you guys would like to see? Or do you know about any tools or effect you would like to use or play with? :} ~Akira Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skybar Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Bring the snow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yesyes Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 motion graphics???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 +1 for snow -- especially if you can somehow make it faster! *) Besides that, perhaps have a look at the new dijkstra pathfinding stuff in H13 and see if you can do cool effects that have more smarts than 'dumb' particles. *) paper/geometry folding techniques (with adaptive mesh optimization) *) implement HACD - Hierarchical Approximate Convex Decomposition --- useful for all kinds of stuff: from creating skeletons (leading into procedural ragdolls) to optimizing destruction setups. *) cartoon effects --- have a look at some old school cartoons (Tex Avery style - roadrunner - bugs bunny) - or some of the more modern Anime effects. Especially the anime style tends to give a certain sense of life to their effects. I think going forward this will become even more of a trend as effects take on more prominent roles in feature animation (examples: the hair in 'Tangled', the snow/ice in 'Frozen'). --- Some other really cool things here are the Pinguins chopping up sushi in Madagascar, or the Squirrel leaving a supersonic trail in 'Over the Hedge'. Even the raindrops in Chicken Little. Go look up some of these on Encore Siggraph. -- Also a lot of Blizzard entertainments effects work has a lot of flair and character to it - this is by desing, not by simulation. -- perhaps consider not driving it by sound, it also has been done a lot and if you do want to go down that route, you may want to look into "touch" instead of houdini for its real-time capabilities. If you do want to use some kind of different input device, consider processing a datastream from 'kinect' or a similar visual sensor. I bet you will have way more information to play with. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cake Kid Posted December 3, 2013 Author Share Posted December 3, 2013 Thank you all very much for the replies!!!! I will have to think about which one should I pick, because I have only 3 months to finish the project. I am limited to version Houdini 12, but except for that all ideas sound very interesting. Thank you :} Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebkaine Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 (edited) I think exploring NPR rendering and procedural Texture / Geo / Shader / Curve / Sprite / FX generation to achieve this in Houdini is a really cool area ... i was looking at wall-e this week end i like a part of the credit from 1:30 to 2:00 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuR8uq9J7gw this one is also a classic http://www.florianwi...ms/smithnephew/ A friend is really good in all those NPR stuff , i really love the non conformist path he follow in his trial https://vimeo.com/user5429327 It can give you some ideas ... Well i really find that CG animated movies all looks the same , with their Shiny Full Option SSS Skin and their big eyes ...it's really BORING ... I don't know if you have see the last 2 Laika studio movies Coraline and Paranorman here we are talking about true ART. They both contain sequence that are absolutely stunning ... The final sequence in paranorman is maybe the most stunning stuff i have see since the T-1000 ... So yes ... if i have the chance to have some time to spend i will love to find ways to make animation less CG and more old school with a stronger identity ... Paperman in this regards is very interesting ! http://graphics.post.../paper/npar.pdf http://artis.imag.fr...s/Salisbury.pdf http://cs.brown.edu/...m/publications/ Here are some cool links extract From Maxime Causeret Thesis (aka Teresuac) ! Cheers E Edited December 3, 2013 by sebkaine 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abvfx Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 Great links sebkaine. This is why i chose to use Houdini over other common tools. Could i have used a skin shader in maya, made the model in silo/wings/etc. Of course. But the freedom of the package allows me other opportunities like tool building. I'm by no means the most technical, im more an "artist" if you had to be me into a catagory but NPR, Render, SOP development and Animation/Rigging are the areas i try to achieve the most in with Houd. Simply because it isn't common but the potential is there (esp with Animation/Rigging). It isnt like i am the only one but i wish there were more people doing the same and posting their results. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mantragora Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 (edited) Andrew, why don't you save yourself a lot of time and just use "AB" as your nick name? Sooner or later you will end up there . Edited December 3, 2013 by mantragora 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djwarder Posted December 3, 2013 Share Posted December 3, 2013 Def +1 for snow (and/or granular effects)! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amination Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 +1 on snow! And I'm hoping to see Houdini's integration with PRman a bit more, specially volumes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeivan Posted December 4, 2013 Share Posted December 4, 2013 Maybe the op was referring to do something with existing tools,snow its freaking hard to implement. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cake Kid Posted December 5, 2013 Author Share Posted December 5, 2013 (edited) Hi everyone, thanks very much for the ideas. As ~georgeivan said, snow is very hard to implement in time I have (approx. 3 months, while having other projects as well - finishing my BA degree), so I would prefer doing something with already existing tools - creating something that Houdini users would find helpful or useful, something that people are missing, custom SOPs that could be reused and extended further. Something challenging that needs to be researched. I had few ideas, but none of them would be super useful to other Houdini users (like for example innovating and improving L-systems and their algorithms on changing geometry)… I looked into the paper crumpling and if I managed to make custom SOP that can be re-used, where do you guys think this effect could be used? What would it be useful for? Edited December 5, 2013 by Akira-san Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 I looked into the paper crumpling and if I managed to make custom SOP that can be re-used, where do you guys think this effect could be used? What would it be useful for? This really depends how you set it up, paper is only one type of material. Similar uses: paper, metal, cardboard, plastics. *) Metal crumbling and wreckage type effects would come to mind. *) Or origami type stylized folding animations (in my opinion this is currently the hardest to pull off) -- imagine linking this in with the hobby community - if your tool could take a set of instructions and it produces a 3d model and an animation interpolating between different steps -- I don't know if this already exists, but this could be worth something in that community. *) Or ripping/tearing paper. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted December 5, 2013 Share Posted December 5, 2013 (edited) yes, maybe following the last tip by Peter, a good SCALABLE project could be a tool that fractures as specific types of materials. The best thing about this project is that you can scale it according to your deadlines depending on how long you take for each part of the project. So you could have a tool that fractures like paper, wood, metal or organic tissue depending on user input, and then if you can´t find enough time or you get too involved in one of the parts you can limit it to wood and metal, for instance. As an instructor, I know that scalability is a wonderful asset to have in a project because it gives peace of mind to the student, for starters. Edited December 5, 2013 by Netvudu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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