Random Y extrusion on individual faces (elements)

[Rival Consoles]

Hi there,

I'm going through a somewhat simple exercise in Houdini where I'm using a primitive, sphere in this case, to control the extrusion of a grid through the zscale attribute. However, after achieving the extrusion effect I would like to animate each extruded face randomly in the Y axis. Kinda slow up and down animation on each extruded face.

I thought about using the for-each number loop sop but I'm having a hard time achieving the "animated random extrusion in Y effect on each face". How could I go about this in Houdini?

I also tried using the primitive vop sop to add a noise to the zscale attribute but by doing that the extrusion becomes exponential and the faces get extruded to the infinite once the animation is running. My idea is to have the faces moving up and down within the area where the faces are extruded.

I'm attaching an image of where I have landed so far and also the file.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Random_Y_Extrusion.hip

[Rival Consoles]

OK, I was able to make the animated extrusion on the Y axis happen for each face within the zscale area but now the minimum value also gets animated. I mean the whole grid including the faces outside the zscale attribute area.

Any tips on how to keep the lower extrusion values out of the animation?

Updated file is attached.

Random_Y_Extrusion_1.hip

[Librarian]

@Rival Consoles just some Idea ,if you Combine maybe you can make Your Final Idea ..."Transform Pieces"

TransSPy.hiplc

NOex.hipnc

Edited July 25, 2021 by Librarian

[Rival Consoles]

Hey @Librarian, those ideas are super cool! Thank you for sharing, definitely helps understanding possible routes for this effect. Cheers