Deforming geometry

[caskal]

Hello everybody,

I'm learning houdini, been reading stuff from a week ago, was super hard at first, too much words (vex, sop, vop, chop, vdb, and so on) and a different worfklow, node based. (I'm a designer and come from apps like photoshop and cinema 4d).

Thing is yesterday I was able to create my first setup and now I'm addicted to this, can't stop thinking how to make stuff and never tried a most powerful soft.

Here are some samples and my basic ideas on how to deal with, but some tips or help would come super handy,

First example

When I watched this I thought maybe can be achieved with a geo file node, selecting geometry by some attributes, a copy node with small spheres (or are they particles?), and some deformation via attribute vop, but this seems more complex, I'm missing something?

 

Second example

I'm particullary interested on abstract geo stuff, I'm a zbrush sculptor and wanna use houdini capabilities to do something like this, a doubt I got is how to deform the polygons (ie quads or tri) but keeping the overall silohuette, I did a test by saving the position, deforming with a mountain and then give the position back with a point wrangle, but it didnt worked.

 

Third sample

I was able to achieve something similar with vdb workflow, only thing I couldnt do is the cyan borders, were they made by another vdb combine / reshape sdf? or there's a way to make groups based on edges on vdb? like what the cookie node does on geometry separating autogroups?

 

Sorry for being that long, I'm pretty excited about this soft, here are some more cool images of what I would like to play with, autor is Anton Won Soder

Thanks for reading! cheers from Argentina

 

 

 

 

[caskal]

I love this software, some experiments so far

[caskal]

nobody? maybe vops?

[Skybar]

Exactly what was your question? I thought you made all these and just wanted to show it.

[eetu]

I thought the first ones were some inspirational images he wants to recreate, and the second set was his own experiments. In that case, well done, your stuff looks great already 

And, yes, more specific questions are easier to answer..

[caskal]

3 hours ago, Skybar said:

Exactly what was your question? I thought you made all these and just wanted to show it.

My bad, eetu is right, I'm trying to figure out how to do things like my first post, I do some sculptures like that in zbrush and I want to use houdini power to make them more abstract like the first examples provided, any hint on what direction to look at for doing that stuff will be helpful

 

1 hour ago, eetu said:

I thought the first ones were some inspirational images he wants to recreate, and the second set was his own experiments. In that case, well done, your stuff looks great already 

And, yes, more specific questions are easier to answer..

Thank you! you were right I'm trying to recreate the kind of stuff thats is on the first post

 

cheers

[iamyog]

On 03/07/2016 at 2:33 AM, caskal said:

Third sample

I was able to achieve something similar with vdb workflow, only thing I couldnt do is the cyan borders, were they made by another vdb combine / reshape sdf? or there's a way to make groups based on edges on vdb? like what the cookie node does on geometry separating autogroups?

have a look at this video:

https://vimeo.com/169438726

Around the 1st minute, you can see some sketches explaining how they'll create the effect with a VDB workflow, it should give you ideas.

Edited July 6, 2016 by iamyog

[caskal]

1 minute ago, iamyog said:

have a look at this video:

https://vimeo.com/169438726

Around the 1st minute, you can see some sketches explaining how they'll create the effect with a VDB workflow, it should give you ideas.

Thank you! I saw that video, thats how I did the skull and the hand, about the cyan border on the cilinder image, do u think that was that done with another vdb combine? thanks!

[caskal]

Nevermind, got it now, thanks iamyog!

[f1480187]

Here some starting points you might use.

misc_procgen.hipnc

[caskal]

1 hour ago, f1480187 said:

Here some starting points you might use.

misc_procgen.hipnc

Analizing that file, thanks a lot for this! 

[sidandmj]

http://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/44970/

 

here is another one asking the same question , blackpixel replies with a much better method than vdb heavy work flow and provided a couple of example files on how to achieve the look purely in a shader!  much much better...unless you need geometry for some reason

[dfmn]

Glad you like all my work

Here's my (6 months?) of explorations with Houdini for people who is interested https://www.behance.net/DFMN

AND also a BIG thanks for the odforce community that help me a ton!

[caskal]

On 7/6/2016 at 10:14 AM, f1480187 said:

Here some starting points you might use.

misc_procgen.hipnc

Thank you for these samples, really helpful, one thing I'm still trying to understand are the point wrangle stuff, I'll dig more into vex, what I understand from this is

 

if (@Cd.x > 0.7)
    removepoint(0, @ptnum);
    
@P += @N * @Cd.x * 0.1;

 

if the colour on x is lower than 0.7, removepoints, then position += normals * colour x * 01, will dig more into that subject, I'm taking hellolux intro to vop vex that is helping

On 7/6/2016 at 1:18 PM, sidandmj said:

http://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/44970/

 

here is another one asking the same question , blackpixel replies with a much better method than vdb heavy work flow and provided a couple of example files on how to achieve the look purely in a shader!  much much better...unless you need geometry for some reason

thanks! looks awesome, will check that, anyways im trying to learn basics before mantra, but from what I see seems such a powerful render engine, great link, thanks!

On 7/6/2016 at 2:15 PM, dfmn said:

Glad you like all my work

Here's my (6 months?) of explorations with Houdini for people who is interested https://www.behance.net/DFMN

AND also a BIG thanks for the odforce community that help me a ton!

really inspirational stuff! keep the good work!

[Marc]

2 hours ago, caskal said:

if the colour on x is lower than 0.7, removepoints, then position += normals * colour x * 01, will dig more into that subject, I'm taking hellolux intro to vop vex that is helping

That's it, except if the colour is greater than 0.7  

[f1480187]

@caskal, @P += @N is basically what Peak node does: adds to position vector the normal vector scaled by distance value. @N is usually normalized (it's vector length is 1 unit). So, we need to scale it, unless we want to push points 1 meter away, which is very large value. At first, we scale with our color, since we already drive our disintegration effect with it, so, it will follow. It does not matter, which of vector component we use, in fact, we can use the vector @Cd itself: this will scale Normal vector per-component, but since all three color values of greyscale color are same, it is same as scaling with one single float. Houdini shortcuts for accessing vector components are: vec.x/y/z, vec.r/g/b and vec[0/1/2], they are all same and I usually use first for everything. Since this value still very large (our color in range 0..1, pure white is still pushing points for 1 meter away), I added another scalar value of 0.1 to reduce the distance ten times. Prior to this, I randomized normal vector a bit with a brilliant Attribute Randomize node.

This setup can be replaced with particle sim driving repelling force with color, I guess. There is more than one tutorial on Houdini disintegration effects available. There may be more interesting example files with it, including particle ones.

[caskal]

12 hours ago, Marc said:

That's it, except if the colour is greater than 0.7  

Ahh I always confuse those < >, thanks!

 

6 hours ago, f1480187 said:

@caskal, @P += @N is basically what Peak node does: adds to position vector the normal vector scaled by distance value. @N is usually normalized (it's vector length is 1 unit). So, we need to scale it, unless we want to push points 1 meter away, which is very large value. At first, we scale with our color, since we already drive our disintegration effect with it, so, it will follow. It does not matter, which of vector component we use, in fact, we can use the vector @Cd itself: this will scale Normal vector per-component, but since all three color values of greyscale color are same, it is same as scaling with one single float. Houdini shortcuts for accessing vector components are: vec.x/y/z, vec.r/g/b and vec[0/1/2], they are all same and I usually use first for everything. Since this value still very large (our color in range 0..1, pure white is still pushing points for 1 meter away), I added another scalar value of 0.1 to reduce the distance ten times. Prior to this, I randomized normal vector a bit with a brilliant Attribute Randomize node.

This setup can be replaced with particle sim driving repelling force with color, I guess. There is more than one tutorial on Houdini disintegration effects available. There may be more interesting example files with it, including particle ones.

Perfect! thanks for the detailed explanation, helps a lot, will keep playing with this, is awesome how much control can the user have inside this soft, with the right knowledge it can do basically anything, thanks again for the samples and the explanation

[elguerra]

Hey Caskal...  How did you do the Lady with the holes... the Orange looking one... I'm curious to see your hip... good job...

[6ril]

On 7/9/2016 at 11:41 PM, elguerra said:

Hey Caskal...  How did you do the Lady with the holes... the Orange looking one... I'm curious to see your hip... good job...

since I've read this thread, I can answer you. (as your answer is already in this thread)

Caskal didn't make that orange lady, he posted it as an example of what he likes and aim toward.

Now if you read and open F1480187 post/hip, you will see one way to make it.

 

[f1480187]

There is no example for Orange Lady, since I haven't figured it out that day. SDF Smooth and Reshape example may look like it is the way, but it is more about creating lichen-like structures of previous example.

 

You can create exactly such model by making extruded, then subdivided holes in Divide SOP's Dual output over triangle mesh, computed by Remesh in Adaptive mode with several iterations.

 

orange_lady.hipnc