a sharing system in Houdini??

[keddefar]

Hi folks

Im a Houdini-noob, but somewhat techsavvy nerd, tryin to learn Houdini by fiddling with it, building stuff!
atm tryin to re-create the "sharing" system visualised w the gif here
( i originally created it w pflow dataops in 3dsmax, but a fine case for houdini i thought  )

idea of the system is each point representing a unit with a certain amount of energy
if a point have a overcapacity of energy its look if a neighbour nearby is in need of energy
if a energy-wealthy point sends energy to another, its withdrawn the amount of energy the lucky energylacking neighbour receives

probably a deep plunge but thought, Hey I can easily write this w vex wrangles inside a SOP solver and voila  - turns out not so easy...
I sort of solved the exchange of energy btw groups of points, but struggle with visualising the "sent" energy as a "extra point flying from the energy-wealthy point to the energy-lacking one... seems fx i cant assign a velocity to the extra added point, only move it by moving its position

Am i taking the totally wrong approach to this or is there hope?

sharing v01.hipnc

[j00ey]

I had a quick look at your scene, looks like it's more or less there.

In terms of adding the energy transfer itself I'd do it as a post process - eg in the SOP solver you could group the points that are emitting and store the frame number when the transfer begins as an attribute, eg 'emit_start', then after the solver, for each point in the group add a point every frame for say 5 frames after emit_start and lerp the position between P and your tarpos attribute. over another 5 frames.

That's probably a bit garbled. Basically I think it's easier not to add the points inside the solver, do it afterwards.

 

[mestela]

wot tim said.

sharing_emit_points.hipnc