Space Suit

[amm]

Hello

I've started with this around H 16 release. Basically wanted to explore, to which level I'd be able to use procedural modeling when it comes to characters. So, "non procedural" part here belongs to another app, exactly Maya, where I've created a base body model, rig, posing - while Houdini part is hair of all sorts (hair, eyelashes, eyebrows..), also a lot of suit. Detailed map, what exactly belongs to which app is here. Let's say that 'harness system' is what I'm considering as most successful part.
Later, started with Mantra renders, which turned out in kind of addiction - here are few of around hundred renders of this thing, I did in Mantra.

 

 

Edited November 29, 2017 by amm

[McNistor]

Very cool showcase of procedural modeling. I especially dig the hair braids and the boot generation. Have you created the ground also in Houdini?

Edited November 29, 2017 by McNistor

[amm]

Thank You

Yeah, ground is also Houdini, while there's nothing special there, IMO. Except instanced rocks, they are 'manual' work, it was just easier to get desired shape, still keeping as much low resolution, for around ten of initial instances. Perhaps only special part is small 'blending area' around each big rock, created by VDB combining, smoothing and deleting unwanted polygons. I believe that 'blending area' helped big rocks to fit to ground plane better, visually.

Will see is there a way for as much generic mini-braids generation. For now it's based on (my own) system which generates really too much of guides in such case. Also has probably unnecessary loops, for syncing the along-length-distribution with arbitrary braid thickness, so on. In short, while it works, it's too slow and messy for going in public.

[f1480187]

I see the work of tasteful design with timeless CGI look there.

[McNistor]

@amm That ground looks great. I'd love to take a peek inside its SOP. And maybe at the shader network too.

Edited November 30, 2017 by McNistor

[amm]

14 hours ago, McNistor said:

@amm That ground looks great. I'd love to take a peek inside its SOP. And maybe at the shader network too.

Here is hiplc with complete ground with ground shader, I've cleaned scene a bit. For distribution of rocks, I think there are better methods described in tutorials around. I've used a sort of simple repeating by modulo to get multiple instances into positions of scattered points.

Shader is somewhat special, I've tried to get as much bright  'dry' look, together with as much dark shadows from sun, typical for NASA photos of Mars. So finally there's mix of two PBR diffuse VOPs, one has faded front face to act as a 'dry reflection'. Mix is a bit modified screen blending of these two - instead of 'classic screen blending' where colors are subtracted from RGB 1, here's arbitrary value, I called it 'pedestal'. Effect is exaggerated brightness compared to standard diffuse shading, while color still can't go over 'pedestal' value, also bright parts are gradually blended to that max color, here it is some bright orange. Normally, someone will do such things in post. Doing that directly in render is a bit risky business - as it is for now, I'm not sure is it able to respond correctly to possible additional indirect light. Anyway it seems that Mantra is nicely resistant to such methods.

[McNistor]

@amm thanks a bunch for sharing this. I'll certainly study it.

[schwungsau]

well done !

[Vexosaur]

Nice work.