Hi All,

My first post and first week(s) in Houdini. Complete noob to say the least. I have some knowledge modeling in Houdini and trying to make a shift over from Maya.
I would like to know more or less how to achieve the following result (image attached). Obviously not asking for a step by step tutorial, but if someone would mind sharing a overview of how to create something as in the image:

As the quite popular Nike ads by Man vs Machine, and ever so popular renders from C4D all over Behance,
I would like to do the following:

One sphere as a outside shape or “cage”
Some spheres inside the aforementioned sphere, colliding and not intersecting, moving around.

I thank you in advance and look forward to this new chapter in 3D!

Cheers

Nic

Nothing like using an app for 1 week and jumping right into complex stuff!

Well, I would start with converting your geometry to VDB using a VDB from Polygons node, then I would use a VDB to Spheres node to fill the shape with spheres. At that point it then just becomes a matter of deforming the spheres in organic ways which you could probably do with a For/Each loop, but I'll let someone else chime in here with that part.

Alternatively you could also break apart your model with Voronoi, and then use a Smooth node to make each piece rounder.

Hopefully there is some ideas there for you.

Hi Nic,
as Midphase mentioned one way is to use voroni to split your model in chunks and then in a for-each-loop convert every piece to VDB -> Smooth -> convert back to polygons.

Hope that helps….

Hi Nico and Kays,

Thank you for your quick responses. The advice navigated me to immediate success! But now, going a little off thread topic here..

I've added in a ray node to make the pieces more spherical, but it seems to pull the Voronoi chunks from the center and not the spherical fringe. How can I tell the ray “to pull from nearest distance” i.e. the outside not inside.

Speaking in Maya language, would i convert this to soft body and the outer sphere to a rigid body and do a simulation to get them to move inside the original sphere pushing each other like balloons, or do you have any better suggestions?

Thanks again!

Nic