Hi, Jacky,
learning: Start with SideFX' own “Learn” button top on this page. Their tutorials actually are good. Their master classes (as long as nobody messes with zoom control …) are MASTER classes.
Luiz Kruel is putting together some learning path links with more recent choices of tutorials: http://luizkruel.com/houdini-learning-links/ [luizkruel.com]
Here is one of the chats I mentioned: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/47530/ [sidefx.com] There is a somewhat more “active” one on Discord, but you need some stamina with the traffic and, sometimes, you need some callousness with the tone there: https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/47336/ [sidefx.com]
“Quickstart”: Choose a project and try to do it in Houdini. Start simple - like animating a snake, model it, rig it in Houdini, animate it. Once you have that done, send me all the videos you made and I'll sell it as THE MASTER COURSE
GPU renderers: I won't get into a religious debate here. Let's just say: GPU renderers - and Redshift is a good example for that - can fly and make your work *a* *lot* easier if it includes “delivery of finnished renders”. *A* *LOT*. Like … sparing years of your life watching some buckets sitting on the same spot for hours …
My personal perspective on rendering is: Do rough previz at home and leave the rest to render farms. Why should anyone have to do EVERYTHING on his kitchen table?
Marc
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Houdini Lounge » Using Houdini as an aspiring indie artist
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Technical Discussion » Houdini Apprentice to Indie Upgrade
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
please try this:
Run the license manager “as administrator” once. Make sure you have at least one Indie license available. If not, install the license following the documentation. If the license manager is unable to find your license, try reinstalling the server license (there's a button for that in license manager). Again, do this as “Administrator”.
If you have one Indie license available in the license manager, close the license manager and start Houdini Indie (make sure to have a matching release to your license, obviously) as “normal user”. Allow Houdini to connect to the internet.
If that does *not* work, please, if possible, do a screen recording.
Marc
please try this:
Run the license manager “as administrator” once. Make sure you have at least one Indie license available. If not, install the license following the documentation. If the license manager is unable to find your license, try reinstalling the server license (there's a button for that in license manager). Again, do this as “Administrator”.
If you have one Indie license available in the license manager, close the license manager and start Houdini Indie (make sure to have a matching release to your license, obviously) as “normal user”. Allow Houdini to connect to the internet.
If that does *not* work, please, if possible, do a screen recording.
Marc
Houdini Lounge » Using Houdini as an aspiring indie artist
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin, Jacky,
I hope I don't sound:
- discouraging
- more arrogant than usually
- all-knowing
- nothing-knowing
- ironic
- not ironic enough
- too encouraging
- too much like a father figure
- not wise enough to give any advice at all
… but I fear even this introduction doesn't help much, so I'll try it another way.
You need to learn:
- modo
- Maya
- Max
- Blender
- Houdini
- zBrush
- Fabric Engine
- Redshift
- Octane
- VRay
- Renderman
- Renderwoman
- Arnold
- Bernold
- and a few dozen of things I forgot to mention, like Clarisse, Kurt and Python.
If you want to do it all, you need to know it all. There is no magic button “make me rich” (artists usually call this “make it awesome”, but in the end it's about “make me rich”). In no software. (here SESI marketing chimes in and whispers “except Houdini 16, of course”).
All solutions have their merits. If not, they'd be long gone. Well, SI is, even it was one of the best, but that's just proving my point.
Houdini has a background of moving points around without connecting them, while Max has a background of moving connected points around, but not too many of them or it might crash. If you want to do particles, fluids, smokes, simulations of all kinds and a bit more, start with Houdini, the more recent versions are so easy to get into that you'll forget having considered Blender in no time.
I don't relly get the point of “Houdini being bad at modelling”, because in my world it is *me* who is bad at modelling. I know some artists, who can model things even without using a computer! Many “3d artists” I know claim that modo is the best modelling application out there - and then there are those who say that anything is better than modo, but those are people who never model at all. If you want “pretty pictures”, have a look at Bryce, if you want to do walk cycles, try DAZ studio.
————————
STOP
————————
Houdini has come a long way with the latest releases and the upcoming version, as far as usability, UXP, rigging, animation and even modelling are concerned.
Modelling: Houdini is not modo (as far as subD modelling goes), but it actually has a few kicks that make it *better*, even in the modelling department. It isn't zBrush and never will be, and it, so far, does not provide the most “approachable” modelling layout, but there are external (plugin-like) addons AND Houdini's modelling toolset is getting improved. Including UXP/UI. Houdini's development is rapid, and its developers are not only “listening” (like on other platform I witnessed), but actually interested and open to suggestions, that they, often enough, turn into features.
Animation in Houdini is strong, but it is a bit “hidden”. I am on a mission to help making people see that they just to have tear that blanket away to see H's power in animation. Rigging in Houdini is exctasy on … err … well … speed? Powerful, easy to grasp, flexible. It's not Messiah (yet ), but Messiah isn't as vivid, constantly evolving and getting better every single night (thanks to constant releases).
There is a FREE version of Houdini to get you started (Aprentice). There are lots and lots of tutorials out there giving you some heads ups on almost every aspect of Houdini. There are some very, very active communities, in forums and on various chat systems (IRC, Slack and something like “Dixie Klo” or so).
Rendering: Houdini both has a good renderer “on board”, but Mantra can be slow. There is support for external renderers (like Redshift), and you can, of course, export your data to Alembic or FBX to utilize other render pipelines. It depends on what you want to render … and how fast …
Scene sizes: This is something all software packages have to deal with over the coming months and years. Models are getting heavier every year and even flagships like Maya definitely have NOT kept up with requirements in production (at least in some aspects like polygon heavy geometry). Here tools like Clarisse fill a gap that even Houdini cannot, for the time being. BUT Houdini has some quite usable, stable reference/deferred loading mechanisms that, in my current experience, can be considered “better” than some other products' states.
Learning curve: People kept telling me that it's impossible to “get into Houdini without years of hard work”. I found out that this is complete utter bullshit - for me. It took me about 30-60 minutes to get familiar and comfortable with most of the navigation and fundamental UXP guidelines and a couple of weeks of 15-30 minutes a day to understand enough of the internal workings to seriously break Houdini beta versions. I personally find Houdini (15.5 and the upcoming one) one of the most approachable, most logical, easiest to understand (fundamentally) 3d applications available today. Far, far, far easier to understand than, say, modo - for a simple reason: Houdini is *consistent*. You need to understand the basic structure, how it “ticks”, then, in most cases, you can work your way around most cliffs. You may not find the *best* workflow, but that's where the community is of invaluable help. But different to other software, there (usually) isn't some jibberish that just works COMPLETELY different than all the rest.
But, again: Houdini is no silver bullet, it won't provide you with everything plus something. I do think that the recent version(s) are absolute “musts” in any generalist's toolbox. Especially at the entry price range offered for “small freelancers and/or aspiring artists” (read: people who don't really make any money from their work)
Marc
I hope I don't sound:
- discouraging
- more arrogant than usually
- all-knowing
- nothing-knowing
- ironic
- not ironic enough
- too encouraging
- too much like a father figure
- not wise enough to give any advice at all
… but I fear even this introduction doesn't help much, so I'll try it another way.
You need to learn:
- modo
- Maya
- Max
- Blender
- Houdini
- zBrush
- Fabric Engine
- Redshift
- Octane
- VRay
- Renderman
- Renderwoman
- Arnold
- Bernold
- and a few dozen of things I forgot to mention, like Clarisse, Kurt and Python.
If you want to do it all, you need to know it all. There is no magic button “make me rich” (artists usually call this “make it awesome”, but in the end it's about “make me rich”). In no software. (here SESI marketing chimes in and whispers “except Houdini 16, of course”).
All solutions have their merits. If not, they'd be long gone. Well, SI is, even it was one of the best, but that's just proving my point.
Houdini has a background of moving points around without connecting them, while Max has a background of moving connected points around, but not too many of them or it might crash. If you want to do particles, fluids, smokes, simulations of all kinds and a bit more, start with Houdini, the more recent versions are so easy to get into that you'll forget having considered Blender in no time.
I don't relly get the point of “Houdini being bad at modelling”, because in my world it is *me* who is bad at modelling. I know some artists, who can model things even without using a computer! Many “3d artists” I know claim that modo is the best modelling application out there - and then there are those who say that anything is better than modo, but those are people who never model at all. If you want “pretty pictures”, have a look at Bryce, if you want to do walk cycles, try DAZ studio.
————————
STOP
————————
Houdini has come a long way with the latest releases and the upcoming version, as far as usability, UXP, rigging, animation and even modelling are concerned.
Modelling: Houdini is not modo (as far as subD modelling goes), but it actually has a few kicks that make it *better*, even in the modelling department. It isn't zBrush and never will be, and it, so far, does not provide the most “approachable” modelling layout, but there are external (plugin-like) addons AND Houdini's modelling toolset is getting improved. Including UXP/UI. Houdini's development is rapid, and its developers are not only “listening” (like on other platform I witnessed), but actually interested and open to suggestions, that they, often enough, turn into features.
Animation in Houdini is strong, but it is a bit “hidden”. I am on a mission to help making people see that they just to have tear that blanket away to see H's power in animation. Rigging in Houdini is exctasy on … err … well … speed? Powerful, easy to grasp, flexible. It's not Messiah (yet ), but Messiah isn't as vivid, constantly evolving and getting better every single night (thanks to constant releases).
There is a FREE version of Houdini to get you started (Aprentice). There are lots and lots of tutorials out there giving you some heads ups on almost every aspect of Houdini. There are some very, very active communities, in forums and on various chat systems (IRC, Slack and something like “Dixie Klo” or so).
Rendering: Houdini both has a good renderer “on board”, but Mantra can be slow. There is support for external renderers (like Redshift), and you can, of course, export your data to Alembic or FBX to utilize other render pipelines. It depends on what you want to render … and how fast …
Scene sizes: This is something all software packages have to deal with over the coming months and years. Models are getting heavier every year and even flagships like Maya definitely have NOT kept up with requirements in production (at least in some aspects like polygon heavy geometry). Here tools like Clarisse fill a gap that even Houdini cannot, for the time being. BUT Houdini has some quite usable, stable reference/deferred loading mechanisms that, in my current experience, can be considered “better” than some other products' states.
Learning curve: People kept telling me that it's impossible to “get into Houdini without years of hard work”. I found out that this is complete utter bullshit - for me. It took me about 30-60 minutes to get familiar and comfortable with most of the navigation and fundamental UXP guidelines and a couple of weeks of 15-30 minutes a day to understand enough of the internal workings to seriously break Houdini beta versions. I personally find Houdini (15.5 and the upcoming one) one of the most approachable, most logical, easiest to understand (fundamentally) 3d applications available today. Far, far, far easier to understand than, say, modo - for a simple reason: Houdini is *consistent*. You need to understand the basic structure, how it “ticks”, then, in most cases, you can work your way around most cliffs. You may not find the *best* workflow, but that's where the community is of invaluable help. But different to other software, there (usually) isn't some jibberish that just works COMPLETELY different than all the rest.
But, again: Houdini is no silver bullet, it won't provide you with everything plus something. I do think that the recent version(s) are absolute “musts” in any generalist's toolbox. Especially at the entry price range offered for “small freelancers and/or aspiring artists” (read: people who don't really make any money from their work)
Marc
Houdini Lounge » Houdini 16
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
> Will the launch event be recorded for later viewing?
Very likely so, since they seem to have a Youtube broadcast planned and those, usually, get archived.
Marc
Very likely so, since they seem to have a Youtube broadcast planned and those, usually, get archived.
Marc
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Point function
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
I haven't watched the tutorial and don't have H installed here, so I apologize if I should completely miss the point. I think, however, that your irritation comes from the function call itself.
The “point” function is overloaded, so the first parameter can be a path (relative or absolute) - i.e. a string - to a node. But it can also be in Integer, as in this case.
If the first parameter is an Integer, input for the function “point” is taken from the wrangle node's inputs, with the first on the left being input number 0, second on the left being 1. Here, input “1” (which is the second input) is used.
“N” (a string) tells the function that the attribute named “N” (normal) is to be taken FROM the point declared by “@ptnum” from the second input.
It takes some time to get the mixup of (local, piped-in) attributes, variables and casts sorted out. The best way I have found to familiarize myself with it is to write my own code and not rely too much on tutorials. While tutorials are great to give you the basic picture, you need to “trial and error” for a bit to really “get it”.
I hope this helps!
Marc
I haven't watched the tutorial and don't have H installed here, so I apologize if I should completely miss the point. I think, however, that your irritation comes from the function call itself.
The “point” function is overloaded, so the first parameter can be a path (relative or absolute) - i.e. a string - to a node. But it can also be in Integer, as in this case.
If the first parameter is an Integer, input for the function “point” is taken from the wrangle node's inputs, with the first on the left being input number 0, second on the left being 1. Here, input “1” (which is the second input) is used.
“N” (a string) tells the function that the attribute named “N” (normal) is to be taken FROM the point declared by “@ptnum” from the second input.
It takes some time to get the mixup of (local, piped-in) attributes, variables and casts sorted out. The best way I have found to familiarize myself with it is to write my own code and not rely too much on tutorials. While tutorials are great to give you the basic picture, you need to “trial and error” for a bit to really “get it”.
I hope this helps!
Marc
Work in Progress » 3d Fractals ...
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
> Jos Stam (whom I think is behind Maya Fluids and nParticles)
… he is. And he is a great guy who definitely does not represent the “mean” image that company seems to have with some people
> With Houdini you do have to do more planning and understanding, atleast for me; why must I need to do A&B in Houdini just to do C and D.
Hmm … I partly agree and partly do not. When it comes to R&D, I prefer Fabric, it feels more “direct” and has a more “programmer's approach” to experimenting. But once you have accepted that in Houdini you basically have to speak four languages at the same time and have no way of making things *simple* - experimenting / trial and error is definitely possible in H as well.
> Do you have something you can show so I can get an understanding from your first example ?
I will have a look if I can find that HIP file and tidy it up a bit over the weekend, then I'll post it here. The core code isn't that different from what the tutorial shows, because it is the same formula. Just the stuff “around it” is mine.
Right now I am trying to create a “environment-aware semit-automatic animation rig” for insects or robots. The statemachine is working, I just have to rewrite the behavior from scratch. This is so much easier in Fabric, but it's a great way of understanding how Houdini “messes up Python, VEX and noodles”. Big fun.
Marc
PS: I haven't looked at the fractal software available, because I am not so much interested in the final outcome, it's the way to get there that thrills me
… he is. And he is a great guy who definitely does not represent the “mean” image that company seems to have with some people
> With Houdini you do have to do more planning and understanding, atleast for me; why must I need to do A&B in Houdini just to do C and D.
Hmm … I partly agree and partly do not. When it comes to R&D, I prefer Fabric, it feels more “direct” and has a more “programmer's approach” to experimenting. But once you have accepted that in Houdini you basically have to speak four languages at the same time and have no way of making things *simple* - experimenting / trial and error is definitely possible in H as well.
> Do you have something you can show so I can get an understanding from your first example ?
I will have a look if I can find that HIP file and tidy it up a bit over the weekend, then I'll post it here. The core code isn't that different from what the tutorial shows, because it is the same formula. Just the stuff “around it” is mine.
Right now I am trying to create a “environment-aware semit-automatic animation rig” for insects or robots. The statemachine is working, I just have to rewrite the behavior from scratch. This is so much easier in Fabric, but it's a great way of understanding how Houdini “messes up Python, VEX and noodles”. Big fun.
Marc
PS: I haven't looked at the fractal software available, because I am not so much interested in the final outcome, it's the way to get there that thrills me
Edited by malbrecht - Jan. 20, 2017 15:09:30
Work in Progress » 3d Fractals ...
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
> How did you create your own version, you simply knew what to do off - hand ?
well, “of hand” is not the best way to describe it
I struggle quite a bit when understanding the math I find somewhere - but I use this kind of project to learn new tools. When I learned Fabric, one of the first tools I built was a 3d-interpretation of Julia/Mandelbrot sets, simply setting one of the coordinates by the iteration count (which, usually, gets displayed as an indexed color). Building a software solution to this helps me in getting into the software (here: Houdini) *and* understanding the math - other people prefer bungee jumping or wild water rafting …
My “solution” does not use a SDF (I did not think of that, but that's the nice thing that you can learn new tricks all the time), but only sets points on a “cubed grid” (grids stacked over one another) or deletes them. When I created the image posted at the beginning of this thread, I had no idea about how to render something (not even talking about points/particles) in Houdini (not that I know much about that yet ), so the result may not be as visually pleasing. But *seeing* some result from your experiments is the best motivation, at least for me, so I didn't really care about “appeal”.
The best approach to math-involving stuff for me is to find sample implementations in code. I usually understand code better than math terms, so by “aligning” the code to the formula, I get an idea of what is going on - then I can take it from there, vary the formula and, at some point, write my own version.
For example: I created a gas/smoke solver in Fabric (from scratch). I had an idea of how to do it, but I couldn't make much sense from most of the formulae I found online (only some of them “clicked” with me, but I always thought I was missing something). Then I read the book by Jos Stam and found out that I wasn't missing anything at all, it's just that math-geniuses like to make things over-complicated to keep their caves clean from amateurs :-D So I build the smoke solver based on my understanding. And it worked very well.
So, in short: It's my way of learning tools: Trying to solve problems I don't fully grasp and by that “approaching understanding” and not caring too much about the “unbearable hurdles the tools put up for me” (people kept telling me that Houdini was impossible to learn. By “solving” problems like 3d fractals I can ignore that - and concentrate on the real issue).
I hope this, in some way, makes sense
Marc
> How did you create your own version, you simply knew what to do off - hand ?
well, “of hand” is not the best way to describe it
I struggle quite a bit when understanding the math I find somewhere - but I use this kind of project to learn new tools. When I learned Fabric, one of the first tools I built was a 3d-interpretation of Julia/Mandelbrot sets, simply setting one of the coordinates by the iteration count (which, usually, gets displayed as an indexed color). Building a software solution to this helps me in getting into the software (here: Houdini) *and* understanding the math - other people prefer bungee jumping or wild water rafting …
My “solution” does not use a SDF (I did not think of that, but that's the nice thing that you can learn new tricks all the time), but only sets points on a “cubed grid” (grids stacked over one another) or deletes them. When I created the image posted at the beginning of this thread, I had no idea about how to render something (not even talking about points/particles) in Houdini (not that I know much about that yet ), so the result may not be as visually pleasing. But *seeing* some result from your experiments is the best motivation, at least for me, so I didn't really care about “appeal”.
The best approach to math-involving stuff for me is to find sample implementations in code. I usually understand code better than math terms, so by “aligning” the code to the formula, I get an idea of what is going on - then I can take it from there, vary the formula and, at some point, write my own version.
For example: I created a gas/smoke solver in Fabric (from scratch). I had an idea of how to do it, but I couldn't make much sense from most of the formulae I found online (only some of them “clicked” with me, but I always thought I was missing something). Then I read the book by Jos Stam and found out that I wasn't missing anything at all, it's just that math-geniuses like to make things over-complicated to keep their caves clean from amateurs :-D So I build the smoke solver based on my understanding. And it worked very well.
So, in short: It's my way of learning tools: Trying to solve problems I don't fully grasp and by that “approaching understanding” and not caring too much about the “unbearable hurdles the tools put up for me” (people kept telling me that Houdini was impossible to learn. By “solving” problems like 3d fractals I can ignore that - and concentrate on the real issue).
I hope this, in some way, makes sense
Marc
Technical Discussion » Where is the houdini.env??
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
installing Redshift for Houdini is described in detail on the Redshift homepage (reading the docs quite often solves a few questions ). Generally you need to use the Redshift configuration that matches your Houdini Plugin version (which may be older than your Houdini Program version).
Assuming you are talking about Windows here: The houdini.env file is in your documents folder (that's usually c:\users\your-username\documents\Houdinixxx - with xxx being the version number you are running).
Add Redshift's binary directory to your houdini.env PATH variable as described in the documentation, also add a variable “HOUDINI_PATH” pointing to the Redshift plugin version mentioned above (Redshift usually installs itself to c:\programdata\Redshift).
Marc
installing Redshift for Houdini is described in detail on the Redshift homepage (reading the docs quite often solves a few questions ). Generally you need to use the Redshift configuration that matches your Houdini Plugin version (which may be older than your Houdini Program version).
Assuming you are talking about Windows here: The houdini.env file is in your documents folder (that's usually c:\users\your-username\documents\Houdinixxx - with xxx being the version number you are running).
Add Redshift's binary directory to your houdini.env PATH variable as described in the documentation, also add a variable “HOUDINI_PATH” pointing to the Redshift plugin version mentioned above (Redshift usually installs itself to c:\programdata\Redshift).
Marc
Houdini Learning Materials » Facial Rigging Tutorials?
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Houdini Learning Materials » Facial Rigging Tutorials?
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Just to nitpick:
> i know is true
… has at least 10 poses, including jaw, lips and tongue. “I” has at least two, “know” at least three, “is” two and “true” three or four minimum. :-)
Marc
> i know is true
… has at least 10 poses, including jaw, lips and tongue. “I” has at least two, “know” at least three, “is” two and “true” three or four minimum. :-)
Marc
Houdini Learning Materials » Facial Rigging Tutorials?
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
hundreds. :-D
Google should help you finding lots of them - like I said above: Which methods work for you really depends on what your needs are. I think that, the more “realistic” you want to get, the more you need to combine everything possible. If you are going for stylized expressions only, a bone-setup and captured (hand painted) geometry should work nicely. The more “realistic” touch you want, the more you may have to spill in some corrective morphs - until you finally land at scripting each modifier/transformer yourself.
If you want to start at the realistic shore, also take some anatomy into consideration. The better you understand the bone structure underneath the skin, muscle and fat, the better you can organize your rig.
I doubt that there is a single “do it this way and you get paid” tutorial.
Marc
Google should help you finding lots of them - like I said above: Which methods work for you really depends on what your needs are. I think that, the more “realistic” you want to get, the more you need to combine everything possible. If you are going for stylized expressions only, a bone-setup and captured (hand painted) geometry should work nicely. The more “realistic” touch you want, the more you may have to spill in some corrective morphs - until you finally land at scripting each modifier/transformer yourself.
If you want to start at the realistic shore, also take some anatomy into consideration. The better you understand the bone structure underneath the skin, muscle and fat, the better you can organize your rig.
I doubt that there is a single “do it this way and you get paid” tutorial.
Marc
Houdini Learning Materials » Facial Rigging Tutorials?
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
depending on your needs, either one or all of the approaches you mention may work or are actually required. There are hundres of tutorials on facial rigging out there, the fundamental ideas all apply and you just need to convert the technical aspects to Houdini.
Brian Tindall's “The Art of Moving Points” is said to be outstanding good for understanding basic facial rigging methods. I don't have it, because I don't use Apple devices (if not getting paid to do so), but I haven't yet heard any negative critic on his book, yet a good amount of praises.
Marc
depending on your needs, either one or all of the approaches you mention may work or are actually required. There are hundres of tutorials on facial rigging out there, the fundamental ideas all apply and you just need to convert the technical aspects to Houdini.
Brian Tindall's “The Art of Moving Points” is said to be outstanding good for understanding basic facial rigging methods. I don't have it, because I don't use Apple devices (if not getting paid to do so), but I haven't yet heard any negative critic on his book, yet a good amount of praises.
Marc
Work in Progress » 3d Fractals ...
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
> Let me understand this; the first post in that link can be re-created as 3D in Houdini ? First how was it created as 2D ?
it's all just math. Entagma has a nice video on creating “Mandelbulb” geometry in Houdini, using an SDF to get higher “resolution” without having to iterate too often:
… of course I only found that video after I created my own version from scratch. But that's the way I learn the most anyway
By changing the formula and playing with the “zoom factor” (or boundaries) of the values piped into the formular, you get varying extracts and/or completely different outcome.
It's not about “how to create it in 2d”, because these formulae are not exactly “this will create a visually pleasing result” kind of things. More often than not the 2d “version” of this specific kind of fractal visualization is not really resembling the 3d “version”. For the “Mandelbulb” the 2d version is the “Apfelmännchen”, aka Mandelbrot set. If you iterate over that formula slightly different (checking individual positions in space instead of distances to the origin), you get the “Julia set”. Both look quite different in 2d versus 3d.
There is a whole community dedicated to this kind of graphics. If you want to learn about the basics, I found this explanation very helpful: http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbrot.html#pandora [skytopia.com]
Marc
> Let me understand this; the first post in that link can be re-created as 3D in Houdini ? First how was it created as 2D ?
it's all just math. Entagma has a nice video on creating “Mandelbulb” geometry in Houdini, using an SDF to get higher “resolution” without having to iterate too often:
… of course I only found that video after I created my own version from scratch. But that's the way I learn the most anyway
By changing the formula and playing with the “zoom factor” (or boundaries) of the values piped into the formular, you get varying extracts and/or completely different outcome.
It's not about “how to create it in 2d”, because these formulae are not exactly “this will create a visually pleasing result” kind of things. More often than not the 2d “version” of this specific kind of fractal visualization is not really resembling the 3d “version”. For the “Mandelbulb” the 2d version is the “Apfelmännchen”, aka Mandelbrot set. If you iterate over that formula slightly different (checking individual positions in space instead of distances to the origin), you get the “Julia set”. Both look quite different in 2d versus 3d.
There is a whole community dedicated to this kind of graphics. If you want to learn about the basics, I found this explanation very helpful: http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbrot.html#pandora [skytopia.com]
Marc
Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
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Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
I am too late to the show …
> It is possible to not transfer the materials since it is all in skin color at the moment?
Yup. Just exclude the UV attributes from the attribute transfer (you probably currently are transferring everything, you can use the dropdown menu to just copy those that you actually need), create new UVs and attach a new material to the cloth geometry.
Marc
P.S. or, instead of creating new UVs, if your cloth geo already has UVs, make sure that you do not delete those. UVs are attributes, like almost everything else in Houdini (it's a common rumor that even license fees are just attributes of users). So check your workflow if attributes get deleted or replaced somewhere. The geometry spreadsheet is your friend (and your friend is a geometry spreadsheet - I guess you never saw her like that, right?)
P.P.S. What's wrong with my tea?
> It is possible to not transfer the materials since it is all in skin color at the moment?
Yup. Just exclude the UV attributes from the attribute transfer (you probably currently are transferring everything, you can use the dropdown menu to just copy those that you actually need), create new UVs and attach a new material to the cloth geometry.
Marc
P.S. or, instead of creating new UVs, if your cloth geo already has UVs, make sure that you do not delete those. UVs are attributes, like almost everything else in Houdini (it's a common rumor that even license fees are just attributes of users). So check your workflow if attributes get deleted or replaced somewhere. The geometry spreadsheet is your friend (and your friend is a geometry spreadsheet - I guess you never saw her like that, right?)
P.P.S. What's wrong with my tea?
Edited by malbrecht - Jan. 18, 2017 10:23:49
Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
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Hi, Matthias,
just wanted to state this here: Thank you for the patience and great support you are doing here on the forum - I am a Houdini greenhorn myself and merely fiddling my way through a completely new world. Seeing someone so willingly chiming in and helping another newbie is *great* moral support!
@Almina: I am lost about how to really help you. One thing would be to just get your setup working for you, but I am afraid that wouldn't really *help* you, because you seem to want to cross the finish without running all the rounds. The other approach does not seem to work for you: Trying to get you over the steps involved in a complete setup.
If your scene, even in a simplified version, is too big to upload it here, why don't you use a free Dropbox account or something like that? It is really hard *guessing* what is going wrong, especially when you seem to miss (really basic) steps like actually enclosing the geometry in the capture regions.
Please try to help us helping you. Break down your setup. E.g. cut off everything but an ARM. Understand how to rig and cloth-rig that. Then transfer what you learned from that to the rest of the body. Learn procedurally (sorry, couldn't resist)
Marc
just wanted to state this here: Thank you for the patience and great support you are doing here on the forum - I am a Houdini greenhorn myself and merely fiddling my way through a completely new world. Seeing someone so willingly chiming in and helping another newbie is *great* moral support!
@Almina: I am lost about how to really help you. One thing would be to just get your setup working for you, but I am afraid that wouldn't really *help* you, because you seem to want to cross the finish without running all the rounds. The other approach does not seem to work for you: Trying to get you over the steps involved in a complete setup.
If your scene, even in a simplified version, is too big to upload it here, why don't you use a free Dropbox account or something like that? It is really hard *guessing* what is going wrong, especially when you seem to miss (really basic) steps like actually enclosing the geometry in the capture regions.
Please try to help us helping you. Break down your setup. E.g. cut off everything but an ARM. Understand how to rig and cloth-rig that. Then transfer what you learned from that to the rest of the body. Learn procedurally (sorry, couldn't resist)
Marc
Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
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Hi,
in your simplified version you need to adjust the capture regions (they are too small, they don't enclose the actual geometry). To do this, use “Edit Capture Region” from the Rigging-Shelf, then select one of the bones, press enter and adjust the size of the capture region using the little black arrows.
Second, do not delete the capture attribute. Go to your deform node and deselect “Delete Capture Attributes”.
That should get your simplified version running correctly - and you can take it from there
Marc
P.S. Just saw the video (well “seeing” … let's call it: I had a vague vision ). I don't see a deform node on the cloth object. Possible that I missed it, but are you sure you followed the examples above?
in your simplified version you need to adjust the capture regions (they are too small, they don't enclose the actual geometry). To do this, use “Edit Capture Region” from the Rigging-Shelf, then select one of the bones, press enter and adjust the size of the capture region using the little black arrows.
Second, do not delete the capture attribute. Go to your deform node and deselect “Delete Capture Attributes”.
That should get your simplified version running correctly - and you can take it from there
Marc
P.S. Just saw the video (well “seeing” … let's call it: I had a vague vision ). I don't see a deform node on the cloth object. Possible that I missed it, but are you sure you followed the examples above?
Edited by malbrecht - Jan. 17, 2017 16:06:31
Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
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Hi, Almina,
without being able to look at your file, I am clueless.
The error messages indicate that you are referencing objects that don't exist at the given path (like Matthias said). I have to admit that I am a non-noodle-type of guy, I really can't do with nodal “programming”, it takes me 10-20 times longer to understand a node-setup than seeing the same thing in the typical 2-3 lines of code.
So I don't even know *what* you are trying to attribute-transfer.
Did you have a look at the sample file I created for you? Did you understand what was going on in there? If so, I would *think* that transferring that idea to your setup should work without errors. In the end, you'd just be binding some point-deformation to the same weight as the original (body) points, straight forward.
If you don't want to provide a (simplified, readable) version of your rig, maybe you could do a screencast where you show how you set up each (important) node, including the attributes you created?
The best solution, though, would probably be if you tried to achieve your goal with a blank project, simplified geometry and rig and *understand* what you are doing, then redo it in the complex scenario of your rig. “Try to crawl before attempting a home run” …
Marc
without being able to look at your file, I am clueless.
The error messages indicate that you are referencing objects that don't exist at the given path (like Matthias said). I have to admit that I am a non-noodle-type of guy, I really can't do with nodal “programming”, it takes me 10-20 times longer to understand a node-setup than seeing the same thing in the typical 2-3 lines of code.
So I don't even know *what* you are trying to attribute-transfer.
Did you have a look at the sample file I created for you? Did you understand what was going on in there? If so, I would *think* that transferring that idea to your setup should work without errors. In the end, you'd just be binding some point-deformation to the same weight as the original (body) points, straight forward.
If you don't want to provide a (simplified, readable) version of your rig, maybe you could do a screencast where you show how you set up each (important) node, including the attributes you created?
The best solution, though, would probably be if you tried to achieve your goal with a blank project, simplified geometry and rig and *understand* what you are doing, then redo it in the complex scenario of your rig. “Try to crawl before attempting a home run” …
Marc
Technical Discussion » Attaching clothes and hair to a rigged body
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
- Offline
Moin,
you have to transfer the capture data from the body to the cloths. I am attaching an over-simplified example with a smaller tube inside (“body”) and a larger tube outside (“cloth”).
The idea is that the originally captured object has an attribute on its points that “weights” the respective point to position changes of the attached bone. If you want to attach another geometry to the same bone, all you have to do is “copy” this weight over by using an attribute transfer node and add a deformer that uses this attribute to deform the secondary geometry.
Maybe this helps?
Marc
you have to transfer the capture data from the body to the cloths. I am attaching an over-simplified example with a smaller tube inside (“body”) and a larger tube outside (“cloth”).
The idea is that the originally captured object has an attribute on its points that “weights” the respective point to position changes of the attached bone. If you want to attach another geometry to the same bone, all you have to do is “copy” this weight over by using an attribute transfer node and add a deformer that uses this attribute to deform the secondary geometry.
Maybe this helps?
Marc
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Moving Flame
- malbrecht
- 806 posts
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Moin,
I am not fully understanding what you are meaning with “it is moving to fast” - do you mean that the simulation is running too fast? Do you mean that the cart is moving too fast? If the later, you may have to check the fps settings, modo used to be extremely buggy when it comes to exporting Alembic (for example).
What do you mean by “particles with vdb qualities”?
Marc
I am not fully understanding what you are meaning with “it is moving to fast” - do you mean that the simulation is running too fast? Do you mean that the cart is moving too fast? If the later, you may have to check the fps settings, modo used to be extremely buggy when it comes to exporting Alembic (for example).
What do you mean by “particles with vdb qualities”?
Marc
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