Color drops (flip)

[caskal]

Hey magicians,

I need to create something like this for a client, some sort of flip drops that need to be timed with music.

My first thoughts are create a flip tank with some particle system falling down that act like drops, and use the "hit" parameter to make them light on? (not sure about this part). Shading will be done with redshift.

As for the timing with music, I think COPs is the way to go.

Any tips on how to achieve this will be super helpful. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

[bunker]

by COPs I think you mean CHOPs 
You should have a look at the ripple solver before going full FLIP, it's much faster for what you need.

 

[Atom]

As bunker mentioned, use chops to generate your impact points, not a particle system.

You might want to mix two techniques together, Use Juraj's splash generator to make the .bgeo sequence for the splash geometry, but also trigger a velocity impulse into the ripple mesh as well.

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Atom

[Atom]

Here is a basic setup to convert audio beat data into a range of 0-1. From there, a fit is used to map 0-1 to the point count on a grid, in this case 0-100. A Sort is used to randomize the point index on the grid. So as the music plays, only one random point on the grid is displayed. You could use this as an impact point to set off other parts of the animation or glow factor on the shader.

The CHOPs setup is based off of this old Houdini 13 tutorial which still seems to be valid.

chops_to_impact_012019.zip

Edited January 20, 2019 by Atom

[caskal]

Hey guys! thanks a ton for the info! 

@bunker indeed, I meant CHOPs  (never dig into COPs n CHOPs yet so still confusing networks for me haha). Thanks for the tut, on my initial research I thought about that but I was afraid about the quality (thought FLIP was going to be more sexy looking), but then I readed @Atom idea about mixing both the ripple and the splash bgeo and that might work (and also will be much faster / effective as you mention).

@Atom I analized Juarj's scene and I'm having issues with reproducing the .bgeo everytime the point appears, I mean, appears on the first beat, but then I get the error as "can't find the seq", I saw he used stamps with "id" and "age" attribute and a couple of wrangles but still can't make it work on the rest of the drops:

Regarding to the final output quality, right now I used the original splash from Juraj, but I'm thinking about simming a crown flip splash in HQ, then maybe add some randomness by rotating the stamps and changing Y size?, and for mixing these, converting all to VDBs and use VDB combine/smooth? just thinking out loud.

Here's the HIP so far:
Ripple_CHOP`s.rar

 

Thanks again for the help!

Cheers

 

 

[caskal]

Dropped a super quick test of flip container + spheres falling down and looks better out of the box, but yeah, sim times might be a headache during the entire song  

Still gotta talk with the client about the asset delivery, so trying out different approaches.

I'll try now to combine the beat to spawn each sphere falling, I think it will be tricky since I gotta have in mind the time that the sphere takes from the air to the water tank, but thats the beauty of houdini 

Would love to hear your thoughts

Cheers!

[ThomasPara]

Tried to make a version without a solver.

rain_01.hiplc

[caskal]

WOW @ThomasPara thats quite a setup, wish I can make that beauty with those wrangles, my knowledge limits me to understand only certain parts of those (at least better than before wich I didn't get anything )

Love the organization of the interface too, super handy setup, thanks a lot!

Btw, I found the original autor (https://www.instagram.com/wirginiaromanowska/) and asked her approach, she told me "it was ripple solver, with just a few particles (pop) for the splash."

Thanks everybody for pointing me in the right direction! will keep working on it

[ThomasPara]

ill will try to make a more understandable setup when ill get some time, im happy that you liked it.

[caskal]

42 minutes ago, ThomasPara said:

ill will try to make a more understandable setup when ill get some time, im happy that you liked it.

Thanks @ThomasPara! Quick question, any tips on how to adapt the setup to music beats? been watching some CHOPs tutorials, I've got the overall idea, but the "Droplets_anim" wrangle node make's me difficult to see how/what parameter should I tweak to drive the drops to the ground at the beat time, will keep digging on it.

Edited January 21, 2019 by caskal

[ThomasPara]

you "animation range" can be created by fitting @Time or @Frame to fit your beat.

float range = fit(@Frame%50,0,50,0,1); //this will give you a cycle that repeat every 50 frame
float range = fit(@Frame%50,25,50,0,1); // this will also give you a cycle every 50 frame, but your animation wont start until frame 25
float range = chramp("curve",range); // this will give you a ramp with some extra controll

 

[caskal]

11 minutes ago, ThomasPara said:

you "animation range" can be created by fitting @Time or @Frame to fit your beat.

float range = fit(@Frame%50,0,50,0,1); //this will give you a cycle that repeat every 50 frame
float range = fit(@Frame%50,25,50,0,1); // this will also give you a cycle every 50 frame, but your animation wont start until frame 25
float range = chramp("curve",range); // this will give you a ramp with some extra controll

 

Master! thanks a lot for the help!

[ThomasPara]

Better ripples, not realy any better explanation. Its basicly a combination of fitrange and modulo.

rain_02.hiplc

Edited January 21, 2019 by ThomasPara

[caskal]

@ThomasPara thats looking much better, love the subtle ocean noise.

Here's a prev of the R&D from today, tried different things, some basic CHOPs stuff with @Atom tutorial, another stuff playing with your setup, and some rainy POP test over the singer stage. 

AG_011_Drops_RD_01_Low.mp4

Hope the client like it, thanks again guys, really appreciate it.

 

[ThomasPara]

The sim stuff might have more potential, i like the mood of the first clip you got. It seems like a fun challenge

[Atom]

Here is an attempt to spherify Thomas' grid drops.

It's not exactly right, the splashes work, but the drops are still falling top down. It would be neat if the drops came in from the normal of the sphere instead.

ap_sphere_rain_03.hiplc

Edited January 22, 2019 by Atom

[ThomasPara]

Heres a version where it rains by the normal of the sphere, havent tested other geometries.

ap_sphere_rain_04.hiplc

[Atom]

Cool, now we can attack the fluidic death star! Or maybe a force field.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Atom

[Atom]

It looks you can swap in other mesh shapes.

ap_pig_rain_05.hiplc

[caskal]

Whoaa what a beauty @Atom @ThomasPara these look amazing! I did a bunch of R&D yesterday/today, im editing them to upload here, would love to hear your opinion, this is quite a big project for me (42 projectors on stage)

Cheers!