pclaes Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 (edited) Hi guys, I've put together a new showreel with some of the work I did during my MSc in Computer Animation and Visual Effects during 2008-2009. Some of my final year Ba work is in there too. You can find a higher quality version here: http://www.peterclaes.be/reel/2009/showreel_2009.mp4 or http://www.peterclaes.be/reel/2009/showreel_2009.avi For my Masters project I am looking into houdini fluids & pyrotools. This project should be done by the end of August 2009 and is not yet included in the current reel. edit: I've just put some of my fluids work online and thought I would share it. I might make some of this stuff into tutorials soon as I believe this is really cool stuff and more people should be doing it . http://www.peterclaes.be/reel/2009/Peter_Claes_Fluidsreel.avi After 3 years of Ba and 1 year of MSc in computer animation I am finally looking for a job . I hope to start working as an effects technical director in October 2009. I have got a EU passport and I am planning to relocate by the end of August (I am currently living in Bournemouth, Uk), probably to London, perhaps elsewhere. So if you know anyone that can use a houdini effects td from October onwards, please send me an email or PM. Here is my website & Cv: http://www.peterclaes.be http://www.peterclaes.be/about/Peter_Claes_cv.pdf I could not have done some of the work without the knowledge base here at odforce and the advice of this community. A big thank you and I'll hope to be part of it for a long time . kind regards, Peter Claes Edited August 18, 2009 by pclaes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezz Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Hey Peter. Very good stuff man...You are very talented :-) I really love your trainingDVD and I hope you have time to make another one. The best. Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEO-oo- Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Very nice reel! Thanks and all the best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aracid Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 brilliant man that shows a broad range of skills well done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranxerox Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 haha, at first I was like "why does he have those tutorials as examples of his work?" It wasn't til I read this thread that I realized you made the DVD. Awesome work man. -ranxx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andz Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Congratulations Peter, the reel looks great! Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Very nice reel peter. Well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
few_a_fx Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Sick work! Crow animation/fx shot and feather tool are awesome. Very cool concept for the tool. Did you use python or C++? I'm going to be creating my own tool soon, any tips or things to watch out for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted July 2, 2009 Author Share Posted July 2, 2009 Thanks for the support and comments! I've added a showreel breakdown with some more info on certain shots in case people are interested: http://www.peterclaes.be/about/Peter_Claes...9_breakdown.pdf Concerning that training dvd: at some point I hope to make another one, or make smaller ones for sidefx. But I want to get a bit more production work experience first . The feather tool was done entirely in houdini, no python or C++, just expressions and a bit of vops. *) takes in a 4 x 4 polygonal mesh (in my case that was the animated imported geometry coming from my rig in Maya) *) convert it to nurbs, use the carve sop and copy stamping to extract curves from the patch. *) Resample those curves and copy lines perpendicular on them. *) skin those lines per curve to get polygonal strips representing the patch for the feather. *) randomize the feather material on a per patch bases. The actual feather pattern is a texture. *) I used the peak sop on the original patch (offsetting along the normals) to create smaller rows of feathers on top and below the bigger feathers. *) since the pure output is basically curves I could have run the whole thing through dops or chops to add extra motion, but that would really have slowed things down - and for the group project there was never such a close up shot of the feathers. I find the ramps very user friendly and easy to help control otherwise complex patterns. It kind of takes the same concept for variation and randomization as Mario's new pyroshader: You start with full values of 1 (representing "perfect feathers"), and layer noise patterns or re-interpolate values so you get the procedural chaos you require for all the detail. Appart from that, try making your tool a bit generic and write a good help file for it. There is some good information on Sidefx website on the Old School blog concerning asset design. The whole microtools idea is very useful and maintainable/upgradable. Just like in programming, you don't write everything in your main() function, but instead you split it up into different functions - same concept. Are any of you guys on linkedin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 (edited) Wonderful reel Peter. You know a lot of stuff I loved the erosion tool, and it doesn Edited July 5, 2009 by Netvudu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted July 5, 2009 Author Share Posted July 5, 2009 Wonderful reel Peter. You know a lot of stuff I loved the erosion tool, and it doesn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whalerider Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Peter, that's a great reel. I am looking forward to seeing your Houdini tools in action in a few weeks ;-) Good luck with the job search. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted August 18, 2009 Author Share Posted August 18, 2009 A little update: I've worked on some fluids stuff for my Master project and wanted to share it: http://www.peterclaes.be/reel/2009/Peter_Claes_Fluidsreel.avi It's basically a bunch of little experiments to see what I could do in terms of manipulations of fluids by using my own custom fields which I defined in Sops using an attribute transfer tool I created. This tool does either a point cloud based lookup or a metavolume loop in vops and transfers the attributes I want from points in sops to a volume primitive that I can then use in DOPS. There are examples of fuel & heat injection, custom velocity advection and a bit of color diffusion. Some of those examples still have some little problems with rest fields & noise in them as I was learning how to use them at the time of creation. The examples at the very end (the particle blobs streaming down) were basically a test to see if I could get my attributes transferred onto volumes properly and have them rendered. There are minor issues with the temperature field, but that was with a very early version of that tool and that is solved now. I am definitely going to look deeper into fluids and create some more cool stuff with it . I personally really like the dops architecture and I'm hoping to make some tutorials on this soon as this is really interesting and I think more people should be doing it - so more learning happens and more cool effects are shared! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eetu Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 Interesting stuff! I'd be especially interested in hearing a few words about the tree one, are you inserting an advection-like force to a wire simulation or what? How does the fluid->wire->sop collision->fluid loop work out? (Or am I on a wrong track here? eetu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted August 18, 2009 Author Share Posted August 18, 2009 Interesting stuff! I'd be especially interested in hearing a few words about the tree one, are you inserting an advection-like force to a wire simulation or what? How does the fluid->wire->sop collision->fluid loop work out? (Or am I on a wrong track here? eetu. Although a two way coupling would be cool, that is not happening here, so sorry to disappoint . The tree simply has some animation on it and the source fuel field is spreading through the branches - thinner branches will "burn" faster than thicker branches. The point velocities of the animated tree are passed down into the fluid simulation to help advect the density, but there is no interaction going from the fluids to the tree. The animation of the tree itself was simulated by one of my classmates, Nick Hampshire. He exported L-system geometry from houdini, brought it into his real-time simulation application that basically turns the tree into a spring-system. You can then add velocity to it either by pulling a point on the tree and moving it around, or by injecting velocity in a low resolution fluid container. He then exported the animated geometry back to Houdini to build the mesh, light it and render it. Potentially he could read velocity fields generated in Houdini to drive the movement of the tree, but it would still be a sequential process, not two-way. As the resulting movement looks quite nice I was wondering what it would look like when I use it as the source for a fluid simulation. You might want to keep an eye on this site: http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/MastersProjects/MSc09/index.html As the MSc projects of 2009 will soon be going online (probably in a week or so) and there are quite a few that make use of houdini. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted August 19, 2009 Share Posted August 19, 2009 He exported L-system geometry from houdini, brought it into his real-time simulation application that basically turns the tree into a spring-system. FYI, you probably could have just used a wire solver on the Lsystem tree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pclaes Posted August 19, 2009 Author Share Posted August 19, 2009 FYI, you probably could have just used a wire solver on the Lsystem tree. Yes, I have had a look at that example showing an L-system with a pin-constraint pulling on one of the branches in the past. But for me the focus was on the fluids side of things. Nevertheless you should see that L-system moving as you manipulate it in his application in real-time, it is really responsive and fun to play with . Of course there are shortcuts taken as it is less accurate than the wire solver, but you get the speed. I really enjoy creating tools and effects in Houdini but I'm sure at some point in the future I will start programming for the GPU as well, as the speed gains are just undeniable. Probably first in my spare time, as I doubt I will be able to do it in film production environment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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