Modeling a nurbs grid to paste to nurbs model

[Dr. Gore]

I was just going to ask my question about pasting nurbs, but I have to tell the whole story. I 'm trying to recreate a FX from the first Matrix. When Neo sticks his finger in the mirror and it creep up his hand and arm. I know Dfilm did the FX with Houdini with nurbs and the creep op. I have the creep FX working on the arm but not the hand because the join sop is a shady. So I have been working with pasting nurbs grids but I can't seem to pull a good finger out of a grid; is there a better way to model features out of nurbs grid. I have try some different methods like the ray sop to shrink wrap a grid around poly finger without messing up the 2 row of the outside of the grid for pasting. No lucky yet. I have even try snapping curve along the finger to skin with a grid at the back of the finger to recreate the grid of pasting. It skins fine , but all the point numbers are out of order. I think thats why it not pasting right is where a way to reorder numbers point in order. Plus, rigging a finger modeled out of grid is really hard without evenly flow mesh. This for my demo reel is if any one can help a million thank yous.

[Mcronin]

This is something that's s much easier to do in reverse. Rather than try to create a hand from a grid, approach the shot backwards, make the hand turn into a "grid" ( a flat palne, doesn't have to be a perfect grid). That way you can model the hand however you want without putting so many constraints on yourself. Much easier.

[aracid]

hey Dr. Gore

if i were u, i'd use isosurfaces

render ur animation out as mataballs copied onto ur object,

render out a 3d texture, then bring it back into ur object with the iso sop. theres a video on doing this

what gave me better results when doing that was changing the render procedure to "procedural", then iso-texture, then using a nice texture filter, very smooth results

If u set it up that whay, i felt the detail was easier to manage - rather than a high res iso sop and u could have a fast ui but high render quality.

i dont know if u know about this method,

but whats nice about it, is its connectivity to other objects.

its seamless, nice and "matrix like"

and go one step futher by taking it into chops and add a spring chop after using some sorta deformer with the force from the copies of metaballs..... then u get nice ripples with secondary animation.

anyways

hope this helps

all the best

aracid

[edward]

how is that any different from just using metaballs directly?

[aracid]

hey edward

it's smoother, because you can filter it.

metaballs have a blobby look to them.

ive been playing around with realflow with objects coming out of the liquid in houdini and the results are much nicer when i do it that way over straight metaballs- however the rendering is a bit taxing.

all the best

aracid

[edward]

if you turn it back into polygons for rendering, would that work?

[aracid]

hey edward

turn what into poly's? if u mean the iso's?

i suppose u could with a convert sop, but ive been doing all my iso rendering using the procedural iso's at obj level.

why would u want to convert the iso's them back to poly's?

aracid

[edward]

Sorry, I meant the metaball output out of realflow as you mentioned that rendering them was slow.

[Dragon Ranger]

Dr. Gore

I think that this file may help a little.

I am looking for a way to do it easier.

:thumbsup:

This took me about 2 hours as I have never done this in Houdini Before. It needs to be documented and maybe tutorialized, also something I have never done before.

Hope this helps.

stitch_test.zip