Musical Notes Effect Thingy

[priel]

Hey all,

We've been asked to pitch on a effect, which to us is quite the challenge as we just transitioned from max to houdini a month ago. The effect is per the attached jpg, however, in animated form. We won't be able to get that handpainted look I figure, which is ok. A more digital treatment should be fine. The idea is that the notes transition from famous musicians, as a swarm of notes that build up the shape and then swarm of to the next shape etc etc.

The way we've aproached it is like this:

Footage tracked and a 3d proxy mesh representing the person is keyframed ontop to match the movements. Footage is camera projected onto our proxy mesh (footage is first processed, turned monotone and blacks & whites crushed to get min/max levels). Then have a particle system swarming around and building up the person over time. I was planning on using the texture attributes that is mapped on the 3d proxy mesh to drive the scale / fatness of the musical note. So wherever the particle will attach on the mesh, the underlying attributes are transfered to controll the particles attributes. So that the lighter areas makes the particles tiny and thin, while the darker areas turn them fat and big. This would then be rendered with backfacing not visible.

So... Would work in theory or? Any suggestions?

If the above sounds like a plan... how would I transfer the attribs from the texture to the particles? I've spent a few days dissecting the example files from the h8 docs, there's some stuff in there that could be hacked togheter to do the above... However, I'm really green in houdini and would appreciate any ideas or pointers if possible, just so I know that the way I'll choose to handle this effect is correct... would hate ending up with the board and not being able to deliver the goods..

Thanks!

Peter

[DaJuice]

Sounds pretty good to me.

Maybe this file will give you some pointers, nothing special and not exactly what you need to do but might be useful.

note: the nodes with blue text have comments, you can middle click to read them.

Wish I could spend more time on it. It would make for a fun Effects Challenge.

for_priel.zip

[sibarrick]

Sounds like a fairly sound plan. forgive the puns. Attribute transfer sop would work in sop land to transfer the attributes from the mesh to the particles, just make sure to use a pop network in sops when you start. So set up your particle system and use sops for final processing. That's a very typical procedure for Houdini. I would recommend Houdini 101 from Gnomon workshop if you have time, it it goes through the basics of this type of effect, particle/geometry which Houdini totally rocks at.

Actually thinking about this some more, if you are birthing particles from your mesh they will pick up attributes from the surface anyway so you might not need the trabsfer bit, depends how you set things up I guess.

[priel]

DaJuice: Thanks so much for the example file, I had a quick look earlier and it looks perfect for what I need to do! I'll dig in and dissect now, fun fun

sibarrick: Thanks for your suggestions, but you're waaaay ahead of me, I'll come back once I know how to respond

We do have the 101 dvd, and I'll watch it again tomorrow.

Thanks!

Peter