Surf's up

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Hi,

I've started working yesterday on a wave system ala Surf's Up. This is my first real project in Houdini so I thought I'd pick a nice and 'easy' subject Shocked

. It's almost completely procedural. You just pass in a grid size, amount of columns and rows and animate the wave position and the big rollers (see WaveTest2.mov) to animate the breaking of the wave. The only thing that's not totally automatic right now is the generation of the rollers, there are now always 5 of them. I think I'll need to add some Python to make that number flexible as well.

The lip-spray currently is based on upwards velocity of the water surface in combination with the height of the surface. I'm not sure if that's the best recipe although it looks fairly ok as it is now.

If I wasn't already very happy with Houdini, I am now.. I was able to create this from scratch in about 5 hours As I'm only starting to learn Houdini in ernest I couldn't be happier!

Next up:
- improve the curves for the deformation
- add the settling down of the wave
- adding the whitewater where the lip crashes into the water, and the spray that swirls around in the tube. - the probably much harder part.. shading.
- After that I might put a surfer on there and work on all the splashes and wake he/she generates.

In terms of fun, this is only a little notch below actually surfing yourself

Cheers,
Erik

http://dutcheffectsfactory.com/demoreel/WaveTest1.mov
http://dutcheffectsfactory.com/demoreel/WaveTest2.mov

probbins · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:59 pm GMT Post subject:

Well done!!! Great start. Very Happy

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Lots of things have changed since my first post here... One thing I had been postponing a while as the particles were keeping me busy was setting up the wave onto a ocean surface. So yesterday I finally got around that and I ended the day having the wave nicely sitting on a bigger surface, with unified texture space, proper warping of the surface over the wave. Tools where: paste and ray.

Soothsayer · Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 2:39 am GMT Post subject:

Hey, I like your use of nurbs and the paste node there. I didnt know of its existence.

I noticed that your wave intersects the ocean surface in a naughty way. Assuming that you set it up the way I did you can perhaps eliminate that problem by projecting parametrically and animating the U and V range. You get a little dip in the ocean surface as a bonus.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

The wave is actually not penetrating the ocean surface but the pasted wave surface itself. The fact it does this doesn't cause any problems as this area will be covered by a few tons of whitewater so nobody will ever notice Wink

It actually makes it easier to generate a source to generate said whitewater from. I've attached a render with basic shaders and the current state of lip-spray particles.

Cheers,
Erik

Soothsayer · Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:21 pm GMT Post subject:

Maybe you know it but there's a Siggraph paper on surfs up available on Scribd.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Yeah, I know.. I've read it and used as a guide for building this system. Very cool stuff in there. I've got most of the geometry stuff done now (except for tuning shapes as they are a bit rough still). I"m now moving towards getting the particles in shape and shading.

Cheers,
Erik

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

I've started a blog in which I'm posting updates to my project. This way I don't have to post in multiple locations (forums). So if you're interesting I invite you to take a look at: http://dvfx.dutcheffectsfactory.com

Cheers,
Erik

superx · Lurker Joined: 22 Sep 2009 Posts: 1

Wow, Just wow.

I am new to houdini, and would love a tutorial on how to do something like this.

Just amazed at the work.

This just shows how powerful this tool is.

I will also be trying to change from max and maya.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Thanks! I'm very happy with the results so far, especially as this is my first real Houdini project. I think this is testament to the quality of the software and its workflow. I come from a nodal compositing background and before that IT, so Houdini's approach is totally natural.
A tutorial on this would be rather huge I think Wink

Cheers,
Erik

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

posted another update. Communicating displacement and surface shaders fun Smile

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Posted a new render with a new look. Experimenting with new sunset theme. Personally, I really like the look of it. Found some missing elements on the shader though.

Ender47 · Lurker Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 8 Location: Planet Earth

I love surf´s up - got it in HD.

There are some clips on you tube how they made the ways and what elements/layers they are build/made of.

They also used a mesh for the main wave, than mio´s of particles as extra layers. Than different water and foam layers. Some really nice refraction and sub surface scattering aswell. Se very last wave in the movie.

I do believe that they mainly used maya and realflow.

I haven´t tried Houdini´s wave/water tools yet but I have used RF many times. But RF on simulates, than u need another 3d program like 3ds max, maya or softimage etc. I guess its much easier to just use one program.

gotta follow your project.

keep up the good work. Smile

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

It's a very cool movie! They actually used Houdini and Maya... the waves were done without any fluid sims like done with Realflow. My system fairly closely mirrors the system Sony developed for Surf's Up, which I got confirmed from people that worked on the original Smile

(which was really cool). Next thing coming up is the first layer of particles: the lipspray Smile

Cheers,
Erik

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

I've just posted another update on my blog: http://blog.dutcheffectsfactory.com with a first render of the new lip spray particle system.

Lyonz · Houdini Adept Joined: 05 Oct 2009 Posts: 114

Hi i am still wondering what you do to get the geometry to lift up in the form of a wave? Are the points pre defined when you pass a grid through? wondering how to do this in Houdini as i have previously been a 3ds max user.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

I created some curves in the shapes of the wave as it develops from flat to breaking to flat again. The animation of the wave is generated by blending between these curves. A number of these animated blend shapes are then lofted together to form the wave.

Also see: http://blog.dutcheffectsfactory.com/?p=35
and: http://blog.dutcheffectsfactory.com/?p=45

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Posted a new update to my blog...

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

I've just posted a monster update to my blog (http://blog.dutcheffectsfactory.com) on a new white water shader I wrote from scratch that combines tons of control while keeping data sizes relatively low.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Hi,

Just posted an update on my blog with the first white water explosion tests...

roughsporty · Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 3:12 am GMT Post subject:

A very cool project. Would be great to have more insight about your water shader

itriix · Houdini Adept Joined: 26 Jun 2008 Posts: 103

liking it a lot!

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

There's some detail on the water shader in this post: http://dvfx.dutcheffectsfactory.com/?p=51

Cheers,
Erik

Ender47 · Lurker Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 8 Location: Planet Earth

wow u come along way. realy nice. looked into your web and its realy coming along Razz

keep us posted m8. Nice work.

eriktier · Talkative Joined: 18 Jul 2009 Posts: 42

Hi,

I've posted two updates on my blog: http://blog.dutcheffectsfactory.com. One is a quick update on the progress of the project and the other is about beta testing the tool Smile

.

Cheers,
Erik