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Effects Challenges


Marc

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I know that this is something that everyone would want to see more of here, so here's your chance to throw your ideas into the proverbial hat.

What would you like to do? Ideas can range from the silly (check the challenge archive), to the insanely houdini specific, to the general fx style challenge (things blowing up etc.).

Thanks

M

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here's some I've had trouble with in houdini before:

rain flowing in rivulets over the surface of a deforming object - in realtime.

sticking objects to the surface of a deforming object at the precise surface

location of their collision with other objects and/or the surface location of a raycast.

doing footprints/tracks procedurally without particles or the trail sop.

building curves from particles using $ORIGIN and procedurally deleting (or not building)

segments that are over a certain length (animate the emitter moving to another location

over 1 frame to cause these large segments).

more later...

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How about a shading challenge for a change?

I can suggest what I'm working on right now: a realistic (yet practical) solution to multiple scattering in clouds... I can assure you it's bloody "challenging" alright :)

Sure, lets start with the easy stuff. I'm sure plenty of people will be encouraged to join in ;). Perhaps we can move up to the shading challenges, you know... over time.

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Sure, lets start with the easy stuff. I'm sure plenty of people will be encouraged to join in ;).

Heh. I was just kidding, Marc. I was in the middle of pulling my hair out when I saw your post :)

But maybe a lighting challenge where the shaders are given but the object(s) have to be made to blend seamlessly inside a live plate... perhaps?

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I saw a cooking thing on cable when I was in a hotel (I don't normally watch reality tv) and the young chefs had to compete to make a dish that represented each of the seven deadly sins.

I thought that was a pretty interesting idea and I've had quite a few ideas about cooking since then. Maybe a challenge that has a subject that has nothing to do with your classic effects (like explosions, etc)?

Maybe something instead to get people thinking about what an "effect" actually is.

Edited by andrewlowell
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the shading challenge is a good idea. lighting and rendering too.

what is challenging is relative to experience so to involve a range of people the challenge should be achievable fairly easily but take a lot of skill to make really good. it probably takes a lot of skill to think of challenge ideas like that ;)

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How about a shading challenge for a change?

I can suggest what I'm working on right now: a realistic (yet practical) solution to multiple scattering in clouds... I can assure you it's bloody "challenging" alright :)

I would like to see a challenge "low res volumetrics to high res". Very practical challenge. And not easy ;) Who knows possibly someone here could give us a good solution.

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Guys, good challenge has to be "stupid" somehow. I feel like you talk about challenges in context of your current work, which I think won't fit in a community environment. Don't take me wrong, I'd love to see all challenges (their results more likely) you talk about, but let's not deal with a challenge that only two or three people here can stand against.

Let's make it funny not tedious!

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I agree with SYmek and Mark. The challenges should be presented in such a way that it seems like a fun thing to do for almost everyone passing through here. Obviously some people's solutions will be more technical than others, but everyone should be able to at least participate.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi all,

I'm very new to this forum and houdini as well. The only 3D package I've ever worked with is Maya and my experience with effects and procedural stuff has been rather mediocre. Having been desperate to find challenging stuff to do, I decided to delve into houdini as well and I realized that I should have been on these forums ages ago. However, I'm quite excited to read this thread and I'm certainly looking to find new and interesting challenges in order to have something going on in my otherwise mediocre and monotonous career. Please stay alive and come up with something. I've read about the house of cards and I'm definitely gonna give it a try as soon as I manage to learn houdini just about enough to get going.

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

If the car was a bit cute it could be less real and more fun.

Another idea would be a death ray or super power blast on an object, then there will be some artistic choice. Then there will be some personal taste in who the prize will be prise it 100 units of peer respect (non transferable).

So the target could be a safe and the blast comes from off camera to hit it and you decide what the blast will look like.

Someone could model a safe then share it for the rest of us to blow up. That someone may be me if i get the time.

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Edited by meshsmooth
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How about a blending of cartoon and photoreal.

So, perhaps a photo-realistic fish tank (larger or small) with a cartoon/npr fish swimming in it.

To state the obvious perhaps, the big trick is to make sure the fish looks like it actually belongs in the tank.

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  • 1 month later...

I know this thread has been dead for a month or so... but since its getting to summer and some of us wont have someone yelling at us telling we have stuff do for a couple months, I think its the perfect time for something like this!

I love meshsmooth's Tesla deathray idea... immediately got a vision of this episode of a Superman cartoon where Tesla was some mad scientist... As always, youtube had a clip of it... Reference?

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