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Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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I agree the animal work is amazing. It blows me away too. The step up to sympathetic digital human characters is still very big, and to be possible for individuals working primarily from commercial library art, it's a huge step. If I didn't feel it was getting tantalizingly close, I'm sure I wouldn't bother to push it.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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Maybe I'm misinterpreting your comment …. did you see the stuff from framestore? or core? Clearly this has been done well.
Sorry Andrew, I checked the framestore web site but couldn't identify anything human that was done with Houdini. Do you have a link? If someone has a good link to a concrete example, it would really help me move on.
Of course, I'm talking about ordinary human characters with skin, hair, eyes and clothing that are fairly realistic, not too cartoonish, and not tweaked from live footage.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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I would think Houdini would be a better animation package with auto-rig / muscles / etc. Just import into Houini as an .obj, spend some time and make a great rig (there's a human skeleton on exchange), and great shaders, and there you go.
Actually, that's what I figured too, which was why I asked for the reality check. The more I think it through, admittedly knowing next to nothing about Houdini, the more problems I think there are going to be.
I would love to see some good examples of it if it has been done. If the examples don't exist by now I doubt it can be done well.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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I don't want SESI to waste their time on this…
I suppose that sentiment explains the divide as well as anything. I certainly won't offer any arguement. For the record though, within the community that develops those kinds of characters, Poser files are as close to a standard exchange format as there is.
I can understand the distaste felt toward that community, but I also know I personally could benefit from the crossover.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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In the category of “easier said than done”, I hope someone will at some point put together some asset templates that will simplify the task of reading a Poser figure file into Houdini, with all shaders and materials, etc., attached, along with bones and morph targets and IK chains, and provide appropriate hooks to allow it to be animated straight away.
With the growing interest in Houdini Apprentice, this would be a very popular feature and get more budding character artists and future virtual cinematographers into Houdini, I am certain.
Until then I can't help feel a sense of something unrealized in that these two worlds, so meant for each other, are still so divided.
With the growing interest in Houdini Apprentice, this would be a very popular feature and get more budding character artists and future virtual cinematographers into Houdini, I am certain.
Until then I can't help feel a sense of something unrealized in that these two worlds, so meant for each other, are still so divided.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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If your question implies "Can houdini help me achieve this without a world-class pipeline,
Not at all. I just gave the movie as an example of the style of effect I am interested in. Specifically it's attempt to create more realistic looking human characters using figures with carefully crafted and highly detailed skin textures. I would like to see some examples of how people have attempted this using Houdini. Of if it isn't the tool for that, what are some specific high-level suggestions for combining Houdini VFX with the output of a program like Zbrush, Maya, Poser, etc.
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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When you find one, anywhere, let us know. It's probably the single most difficult thing to accomplish with VFX.
I know what you mean. Let's say I want to create my very own Final Fantasy movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Movie [en.wikipedia.org]
I don't exactly. I mean I would if I could, but that would be nuts.
But Let's say it anyway. Would Houdini be of any help at all? :wink: Does anyone do anything along those lines with this product?
Houdini Lounge » Reality Check, Please
- rikjoh
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I just discovered the existence of Houdini yesterday. I'm trying to evaluate whether it could help me satisfy my intensions or not, and I'm at a point where I think I could be greatly aided by a reality check from the experienced and talented veterans on this forum. So I'm hoping some might read my little narrative and offer up some feedback on how close or far from reality I am so far.
My aim is to produce complete CG animations with realistic human CG models acting in photorealistic settings. For this I need to be able to create a library of animated background assets that can be loaded into each scene without starting again from scratch, and integrated with the scene through global settings and procedural interdependencies of one sort or another.
I like the idea that in Houdini I might be able to take the design of a few kinds of tree that wave in the wind, and clone them into a dynamic forest canopy that moves with the changing weather and casts detailed shadows on the ground.
I also like the way, from the gallery examples I've seen, the tools are able to blend special effects and live action.
My main concern is that in all the Houdini galleries I've found so far (since yesterday), I have not found a single example of a realistic human CG character acting in a scene.
So there could be a couple explanations. One is that it's just too hard to do, and so nobody tries it. The other is that it's not really that much harder in Houdini than in other platforms, but the results of human CG character animation in general aren't in the same league as what professional film projects require, so nobody bothers with it.
Or it could be somewhere in between. Any thoughts?
My ideal scenario would be to be able to take commercial props and figures from the vast hobbyist libraries out there (essentially doing a casting call at Renderosity.com) and convert the ones I like, modify and re-rig them into Houdini assets, and then animate them in Houdini. Does anybody do that in real life? I know if it were possible, there would be some brilliant examples out there somewhere. Maybe someone could point me toward them.
If not, any thoughts on how I might best use Houdini in combination with some other tools like Maya or Poser to create the kind of projects I described?
Cheers.
My aim is to produce complete CG animations with realistic human CG models acting in photorealistic settings. For this I need to be able to create a library of animated background assets that can be loaded into each scene without starting again from scratch, and integrated with the scene through global settings and procedural interdependencies of one sort or another.
I like the idea that in Houdini I might be able to take the design of a few kinds of tree that wave in the wind, and clone them into a dynamic forest canopy that moves with the changing weather and casts detailed shadows on the ground.
I also like the way, from the gallery examples I've seen, the tools are able to blend special effects and live action.
My main concern is that in all the Houdini galleries I've found so far (since yesterday), I have not found a single example of a realistic human CG character acting in a scene.
So there could be a couple explanations. One is that it's just too hard to do, and so nobody tries it. The other is that it's not really that much harder in Houdini than in other platforms, but the results of human CG character animation in general aren't in the same league as what professional film projects require, so nobody bothers with it.
Or it could be somewhere in between. Any thoughts?
My ideal scenario would be to be able to take commercial props and figures from the vast hobbyist libraries out there (essentially doing a casting call at Renderosity.com) and convert the ones I like, modify and re-rig them into Houdini assets, and then animate them in Houdini. Does anybody do that in real life? I know if it were possible, there would be some brilliant examples out there somewhere. Maybe someone could point me toward them.
If not, any thoughts on how I might best use Houdini in combination with some other tools like Maya or Poser to create the kind of projects I described?
Cheers.
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