I've just finished another personal project and I'd like to share it with you.
http://www.vimeo.com/9153952 [vimeo.com]
This time I took the idea from an RnD called “Electricity Weapon” by Brandon Riza and I tried to improve it and make it fully procedural through the use of CHOPs.
I created a digital asset that controls how a laser weapon looks and behaves.
This HDA controls:
The starting and ending positions which are taken from its inputs (two nulls),
the starting radius,
the shoot's starting frame and its velocity,
the shoot's ending frame and its velocity,
the velocity and the number of turns around the main straight line,
the number of frames of gap between the collision and the explosion,
the constant material's attributes and
the width of the lines.
In this example there are three lasers (those use the same HDA with different parameters) around an unique straight line. Their animation, the column's explosion (with debris and dust) and the fluid from the lasers are controlled by a bunch of CHOPs. In this way I've been able to achieve a whole procedural workflow.
As soon as possible I'll make a technical video to show you how the controls work and some other rough examples.
Cheers,
Emanuele
