lisux Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 Hi all. I am making a crowd simulation to get a field combat scene for a Houdini course excersise. At the moment I have the particles/agents (I prefer to use the massive concept) behaviour, movement, facing attacking and dying. The two examples, same sim two cameras, show a simulation of 6000 agents, 1000 in red team, 5000 in green team, the black agents are death soldiers. Some important points about the sim design: - The movemnt is complitely based in UVs along the terrain, to be able to use the Creep POP that saves a lot of time comparing to use the Collision POP. - The simple AI is based in a states machine controled by several Attribute POP and Group POP, only using expressions, not VEX because this is out of the scope of the course. The use of Group POP spped up a lot the sim. - The sim is focused in simplicity and performance and this sim only takes less than 5 minutes for 500 frames. - In the examples the agents movement are a little fast to be able to see all the different states clearly, the speed is configurable for the whole system, per team or per agent. Next step: pollish s little some particle behaviour, specially to avoid some flickering due to inestabilities in the state machine system, and begin to copy geometry that can walk. crowd_behaviour_FrontCam_v6r2.avi crowd_behaviour_PanCam_v6r2.avi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Walters Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 That's pretty cool Lisux. I actually tried something very similar to this in my project "Tiny". You can check it out / download it here: http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=4591 Maybe you can learn something from it? It does use a VOP Network to drive the motion of the particles, so that might be beyond the scope of your course. However, all of the A.I. I put in was done entirely in Houdini's Expression language-- and most of it is very thoroughly commented so you should be able to break that down. What sort of geometry do you plan to copy onto the particles? What sort of combat animation do you plan to have and how do you plan to drive that? Best of luck, and keep us posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted November 10, 2006 Author Share Posted November 10, 2006 That's pretty cool Lisux. I actually tried something very similar to this in my project "Tiny". You can check it out / download it here:http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=4591 Maybe you can learn something from it? It does use a VOP Network to drive the motion of the particles, so that might be beyond the scope of your course. However, all of the A.I. I put in was done entirely in Houdini's Expression language-- and most of it is very thoroughly commented so you should be able to break that down. What sort of geometry do you plan to copy onto the particles? What sort of combat animation do you plan to have and how do you plan to drive that? Best of luck, and keep us posted. Thanks B.WAlter for your comments. Yes I saw and study your Tiny project very instructive and useful. I recommend it to everybody. I made a breakdown of your scene and It was a great source of inspiration for my simulation. At the end I have used a different approach but basically the idea is quite similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 Just a note on encoding .avi's on Linux. You should build them using -ffourcc XVID so that Windows users can read them. http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FMP4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ratman Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 Yeah i'm on a windows box and can't see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted November 10, 2006 Share Posted November 10, 2006 A note on using mencoder to create .avi's on Linux, you should create it with the XVID fourcc code so that Windows users can view them. http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FMP4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucelay Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 I am a windows user myself. How can i watch those crowd AVIs? Pls help! i am very interested to see those video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.Walters Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 I am a windows user myself. How can i watch those crowd AVIs?Pls help! i am very interested to see those video. Try using VLC - Video Lan Client. It plays almost anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abvfx Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 Try using VLC - Video Lan Client. It plays almost anything. doesnt place on VLC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 I'm on windows and CAN see the vids with no problem. I have the MegaCodec Pack with Media Player Classic. The animation is looking good Lisux! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted November 12, 2006 Share Posted November 12, 2006 My solution was to change the fourcc code it to XVID. If you have Xvid installed, I think comes with a fourcc changer program that you can use. Otherwise, I've used this before: http://www.inmatrix.com/files/avic_download.shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted November 12, 2006 Share Posted November 12, 2006 Hi! lisux! Too many of them is disapearing. After first contact they dispear underground. But except this looks really promissing! good luck! Sy. PS Is this to be commercial, private or public project? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucelay Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Unfortunately, I still cannot see it in both of my PCs even I got classic media player installed. Also I got K-Lite Codec Pack installed. I tried VLC media player but it did not work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted November 20, 2006 Author Share Posted November 20, 2006 Thanks for your comments. For symek, yes this is commercial, it is part of the material for a Houdini course. I have change some things and I think that the system is ready to geometry particles on it. I have added a new charging state to accelerate the agents when they are close to their targets. I have solve the interpenetration/collision problem, changing slightly the particles direction to avois collisions between them, but I have to check this code more extensively when I will copy the geo. Changed the combats algorithm, now supports life points and other things to make the combat more reallistic. The animation needs tweaking, because at the moment is intended to show all the states of the agents not to be reallistic, when all the system is done I will addapt all the parameters to have a better behaviour. I have added a paint system too to control where to place every team, I have more control rather than creating every team from a side of the terrain. Thanks to edward for the mencoder info, I have used this new option for the new videoa so I hopw that noew nobody from windows have any problem. PanCam FrontCam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Thanks for your comments.For symek, yes this is commercial, it is part of the material for a Houdini course. That's great! but which cource did you mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIguel P Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 That's great! but which cource did you mean? Houdini course at Aula Tem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted November 28, 2006 Author Share Posted November 28, 2006 Well a new update. One of the first test with copied geometry over a particle system with a few particles. I have copied only one of the armies to make tests. Every animation cycle is composed by several poses imported as bgeo files, every cycle is controlled by a procedural CHOPs system thats controls a blenshape. Then all the animations are controlled by a sequenceblend SOP. The changes between states is postproccesed by another CHOPs network. Is a first attemp to test if the CHOPs systems work properly, now I have to add variation to every animation cycle per agent and control the velocity of some animation cycles, the agent are crazy shooting all the time I have a little problem with the dying animation, some agent play it twice, i have to solve this too. And yes SYmek this is an excersise for the Aula Tematica's Houdini course. crowd_Animations_v3r24.avi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted December 1, 2006 Author Share Posted December 1, 2006 First update with the two armies in the battle field I have solved many of the previous problems and improved the combat algorithm. I still have some problems with the monsters animations, they flicked sometimes. Hope you like it! crowd_Animations_v3r79.avi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted January 22, 2007 Author Share Posted January 22, 2007 Hi everybody, finally I found some time to continue improving the crowds system. Here ara a coule of renders from the one of the last versions: Pan Cam Video Trooper Close Cam Video Hope you like it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.