Vacuum Formming?

[jedijones]

Hi all

This may seem like an odd question but here goes is there a way of using SBD to create an effect similar to a Vacuum forming machine. Basically I want a grid to pull neatly over a shape and have the grid take the form of the shape. Is there an expression that will make the grid have more resolution up on collision with the shape so a cleaner effect can be achieved? I don

[AdamJ]

Sounds like 'ray' sop should be able to do what you want. Ray your grid onto your shape and then use that as a blend shape target to blend from flat grid to deformed grid. If needed you could use another attribute (color?) to drive the blend if you're after more nonlinear blend. Guess you could use soft bodies to do something similar but raying is probably the quickest/simplest. just throwing ideas..

Hi all

This may seem like an odd question but here goes is there a way of using SBD to create an effect similar to a Vacuum forming machine. Basically I want a grid to pull neatly over a shape and have the grid take the form of the shape. Is there an expression that will make the grid have more resolution up on collision with the shape so a cleaner effect can be achieved? I don

[jedijones]

Sounds like 'ray' sop should be able to do what you want.  Ray your grid onto your shape and then use that as a blend shape target to blend from flat grid to deformed grid.  If needed you could use another attribute (color?) to drive the blend if you're after more nonlinear blend.  Guess you could use soft bodies to do something similar but raying is probably the quickest/simplest.  just throwing ideas..

21455[/snapback]

Hi Adam

Ray sop works fine with the sblend used to animate. The Ray SOP does not create much detail? Ive upped the res of the projecting grid but it starts to slow things down. If only there was a expression for the resolution of the grid to increase useing sum sort of ray hit group?

Thanks for your help so far Adam

jj

[stu]

I threw together two really quick possibilites. They're not very elegant, but they work:

ray_subdivide.zip

Hope it helps,

stu

[Jason]

You could also look on the Houdini Exchange at Simon Barrick's SoftRay OTL.

[jedijones]

Hi Stu,

thanks for the hip, I love the way you have used the group transfer sop to nail down the ray detail to be subdivided. I was heading down that path myself but I was subdividing manually on the high detail parts of the grid which was intended be used with the ray sop.

An efficient bit of thinking which results in much faster outputs.

Nice one stu thanks

I am also playing with Simon Barrick's SoftRay OTL. Thanks for the pointer Jason

jj