Thought some might find this interesting and more importantly - usefull for their own applications.
Have a ‘short blurb’ and ‘longer possibly coffee induced blurb’ for this post…
***********
Short Blurb
***********
I wanted to know if it's possible to create morphing(animated) displacements on a model.
But I wanted to know if it was possible to do so from an algorithmic(codeing)approach - rather than using texture files such as *.pic, *.rat, etc.
Here is the video that is my initial proof of concept to build upon for implementing in my projects.
http://babajaiy.org/displacement_morphing/ [babajaiy.org]
In order to accomplish this I went through 2 tutorial videos and one forum post:
Ari Danesh - VOP Pattern Generation - Concentric Tiles:
https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/vop-pattern-generation-concentric-tiles/ [www.sidefx.com]
Kaistavginski - Houdini 16 MasterClass | Custom Shading:
https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/houdini-16-masterclass-custom-shading/ [www.sidefx.com]
The forum post included a hip file which was the helpfull in the process although I believe the above two videos pretty well covered the salient points and you might not need to look at this file referenced:
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/33872/ [www.sidefx.com]
ref: concretedispl_109_jrh.hipnc
************
Longer Blurb
************
My interest in wanting to create patterns algorithmicly stems from enjoying writting small snippets of code - which is why I tend to work in VEX and often unintentionaly re-invent the wheel, since Houdini offers many nodes that can get the job done much more quickly and easily.
But creating patterns from code also can give greater control and fine tuning.
With the example hip I have included I am not at a stage where I have developed any code that I envison is possible.
But when I first started Houdini I remember seeing many examples using the sin and cos functions, with for example, the combination of the two generating circles.
So after ( and still am ) going through Ari Daneshs' tutorial listed above I thought I would just experiement to see what I could get and so the the material builder network put down some sin, cos and tan vops to see what I could get.
I then turned to the MasterClass tut in order to get hints on how to turn the patterns into displacements.
I also created a number of parameters and promotion of others in the material network which I ‘brought up’ in an attribute wrangle which in turn had channel references linked to.
The ones I used in the wrangle were all ‘controls’ I saw could influence the shape of the pattern in some way or another.
The goal being to have lots of control for a wide variety shapes.
And as I like using chops, I drove one of those parameters with a channel export to get the final morphing in the video linked above.
I have other ideas in the back of my mind on how to create more patterns in other algorithmicl ways like the sin, cos and tan I used but I think exploring this as it is will keep me busy for a while.
Hope some find this usefull in their own projects.