workflow for modeling this tiny planet

[rickvdvulkaan]

Was looking at this, under the heading "render" (scroll down) ; https://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini/houdini-indie/ 

I was just wondering, can you model on a plane/unfolded sphere first, and then "spherize" it? Or would you just model everything onto a sphere directly? what's the best approach here? Is there a neat trick?

 

Edited November 30, 2021 by rickvdvulkaan

[Librarian]

for roads dokaitutorials..
heightfield tutos you have on Sidefx
details Google ..
wrap with wrangle code
 

@P= relpointbbox(0,@P);
@P.xyz = @P.zxy;
@P *= {1,1,1};
vector dir = {-1,-1,0};
@P = sample_direction_cone(dir,3.14,vector2(@P));
@P += normalize(@P)*@height *0.0014;
@P *= 400;
@P +={1000,0,0};

or this cvex
 

//float x – X screen coordinate in the range -1 to 1
//
//float y – Y screen coordinate in the range -1 to 1
//
//float Time – Sample time
//
//float dofx – X depth of field sample value
//
//float dofy – Y depth of field sample value
//
//float aspect – Image aspect ratio (x/y)
//
//export vector P – Ray origin in camera space
//
//export vector I – Ray direction in camera space
//
//export int valid – Whether the sample is valid for measuring

#pragma hint    x       hidden
#pragma hint    y       hidden
#pragma hint    Time    hidden
#pragma hint    dofx    hidden
#pragma hint    dofy    hidden
#pragma hint    aspect  hidden
#pragma hint    P       hidden
#pragma hint    I       hidden

#pragma hint    side    oplist
#pragma choice  side    0 "right"
#pragma choice  side    1 "left"

#pragma label   offest  "Pupil Distance"

#include "math.h"

cvex
paronamaLens(
            // Inputs
            float x = 0;
            float y = 0;
            float Time = 0;
            float dofx = 0;
            float dofy = 0;
            float aspect = 1;
            float offest = 1;
            int side = 0;
      
            // Outputs
            export vector P = 0;
            export vector I = 0;
            )
{
   float   halfPI = 0.5 * PI;
   float   xa = -PI * x;
   float   ya = halfPI * y;
   float   sx = sin(xa);
   float   cx = cos(xa);
   float   sy = sin(ya);
   float   cy = cos(ya);

   //correspondent position for eyes
   float px, pz, rotation;
   rotation = lerp(-halfPI, halfPI, side);

   px = cos(xa + rotation) * cos(ya);
   pz = sin(xa + rotation) * cos(ya);

   P = 0.5 * offest * set(px, 0 , pz);
   I = set(cx*cy, sy, sx*cy);
}

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Librarian

[konstantin magnus]

Besides the code quality, simply wrapping a square grid onto a sphere would result in heavy distortions. Happens less with spherified boxes:

Depending on the project, I would probably do the majority of work right on the sphere where every patch is connected, using its normals, surface distances and such.

planet.hiplc

[vinyvince]

 

You might probably need to to use 2d voxel volume heighfield and so work on a plane so you might not always be able to work directly in the 3d sphere itself.  (Projecting the heightfield to a sphere will only work for limited angle before the distortion start to become too important)

You could use the patch node to work on the seam... I did that before.

One other solution will be to work with polar UV no cubic and tweak with a mask to compensate for pole distortion. You need to treat the top and botton on your UV map separately. for these, you need to distort the noise/texture input with polar to cartesian interpolation.

Then you comp the 3 parts of the 2d data together and you should get no seam.  See what i mean?

 

________________________________________________________________

Vincent Thomas   (VFX and Art since 1998)
Senior Env and Lighting  artist & Houdini generalist & Creative Concepts
 http://fr.linkedin.com/in/vincentthomas

[rickvdvulkaan]

very interesting insights!

To be clear, i was mostly wondering about the modeling "strategy", not so much these specific models that you see in the picture. For example, i can imagine that modeling some kind of simplistic city would be more comfortable doing it on a plane first, because it could make things like instancing buildings and creating roads easier, and then wrap it around a part of the globe. 

@librarian, did you come up with that code yourself? jeez   

I know the basics of the attribute wrangle, but how do i "apply" this cvex code?

Edited December 3, 2021 by rickvdvulkaan

[animatrix]

Another good ol' trick is to bend a grid twice to turn it into a sphere: