Hi Guys

I'm still relatively new to Houdini, but I'm trying to simulate an “Elephant Toothpaste” effect, as seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kou7ur5xt_4&feature=youtu.be&t=42 [www.youtube.com]

What would be your overall approach/strategy for creating this kind of expanding foam effect?

Thanks in advance,
Adam

adametheridge
Hi Guys

I'm still relatively new to Houdini, but I'm trying to simulate an “Elephant Toothpaste” effect, as seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kou7ur5xt_4&feature=youtu.be&t=42 [www.youtube.com]

What would be your overall approach/strategy for creating this kind of expanding foam effect?

Thanks in advance,
Adam

I would try to experiment with a pyro and different settings for converting the volume into meshes and of course try to set up some nice displacement procedural noises for the final look. It might take some time until you get what you want and learning about the pyro solver. Even with a sop solver it is possible to set up something like this but if you want to have splashes, physics, etc, you will have to dive into DOPS unless you want to control everything by hand. Patience and diligence and you will make it. Best of luck!

I'd recommend taking a look at grains. If your source has animated an @pscale attribute and is constrained to a tight space with some opening it will behave exactly like the elephant toothpaste reference you mentioned, after tweaking a some of the parameters. You will want to increase the particles friction, as well as pumping up the clumping.
Can't provide a scene file right now, but let me know if you need further help.

You can try to simulate it using flip.