Challenge 1 - Bridge of Cards (apprentice): Tatsu

[Tatsu 4]

Hey everyone. I know this challenge is almost over but I literally just started learning Houdini this past weekend and this looked like a good opportunity to see what I've learned so far. Then I hit a stumbling block right off the bat. So... what I've done is ran a 2 segment line through a sweep on a resampled curve, skinned it and made a selection of the points running down the middle for the template of the copy sop. I've added a slight Y rotation in the copy SOP to get the overlap I want but I can't figure out why the cards are twisting as the path moves up and down. Any ideas?

I don't know if anyone will be able to open the attached .hipnc. It is of course made with the Apprentice version.

cards.hipnc

EDIT: Well about five minutes after posting this, I realized I could do what I wanted without the copy SOP. Just sweeping the card itself along curves now. I don't know if this affects how easy it will be to animate later down the line. But I guess I'll figure that out some other time.

Edited March 26, 2008 by Tatsu

[Tatsu 4]

Progress so far tonight.... Might try and figure out how to get some texture on it and get rid of the shading errors tomorrow.

[bealobo 0]

Hello Tatsu,

that's looking very good.

The twisting of the cards might have to do with the input of the copy sop, as you need a normal direction and an upper vector (you can add this with a point SOP before copying).

I was making the same technique, like using sweep instead of copy, but then I saw the marhazan file (the one SWANN cleaned) and he actually uses both, so he has adventages of both sops. I really liked it, I recommend you to have a look at it.

[Tatsu 4]

Thanks for the comments. I had tried the copy SOP but had a hard time manipulating the normals and up vectors to get the layout I wanted so for now its almost all sweeps. I do realize that this makes it much more difficult to randomize things and probably animate as well. However, I know very little about surfacing and rendering in Houdini as of yet so I can tackle that stuff later. As it is, it took me quite some time just to get a properly shaded surface. I must say, even with such a simple scene and very simple lighting, I love the look of the mantra renderer.

cards_V03.hipnc

Edited March 28, 2008 by Tatsu

[Tatsu 4]

And I guess will call this one final. I'm sure everything in the scene is a bit clunky in it's execution.

cards_V04.hipnc

[maharzan 0]

Looks really nice and you did it fast.

The cards looks bit straight. How about putting a little bend on to it so it looks more natural.

I love the sea.. good work mate!

[bealobo 0]

I agree with maharzan, you were fast and it looks very nice!

[Tatsu 4]

Thanks everyone. Hopefully I'll revisit this later when I know more about the program. I'm pretty sure the was its constructed now would seriously hamper any attempts to animate it coming together....

[eetu 531]

Yea, that was quick. i especially like the water

eetu.

[stevenong 3]

It looks good. I like the water bit. Also, I feel the arch could be made out of smaller cards than one big card.

Cheers!

steven