How is this effect made?

[frokito]

This effect at 0:16-0:20 is inspiring me to learn houdini. But what is called and how do I achieve this effect

 

 

Edited June 21, 2018 by frokito

[toadstorm]

looks to me like the effect is called "rotating a bunch of things and then meshing them together".

learning how the copy SOP works with template point attributes, and how VDB surfacing works, are probably your main goals for this.

[merlino]

I don't know if it has some name, but it seems they are working on the primitives that compose the geometry, transforming them with the "primitive" node. I think that's the easy part ... Before that you should make points uniques and after that fuse the geometry again. Maybe this is a good start.

 Good luck!

[kiryha]

 

[jonidunno]

This should help too.

[Midphase]

You might be able to use MOPs for this. The Explode modifier, with a shape falloff affecting a Transform modifier which acts on the individual primitive rotations.

 

 

[dyei nightmare]

there are many techniques there...    done in diferent ways   most of them based on geometry solvers