I'd like to start a thread to document some different test projects and experiments I've been doing as I get deeper into Houdini.
I have a growing folder of gifs that I'm going to post here and hopefully continue to update as I get further along. Feel free to give any feedback or suggestions, I am open to the communities comments. Thanks!
One of the first things I did was inspired by some motion graphics type effects. I wanted to displace scattered objects based on their proximity to a single point in space. As that point moved around, it would create a moving displacement. I spent some time wrestling with the idea, and eventually dove headfirst into VEX to eventually get something to work. Here are a few of those iterations:
And this is my first rendered sequence. I wanted to take something I was working on all the way to a final presentation state, so as to become familiar with the A-Z process of completing something.
The next problem I wanted to solve was to have lines grow along a surface. This took a good deal more time to figure out in Vex, but there were some helpful videos out there that gave some useful hints.
lines on a surface [vimeo.com]
swirly trails [vimeo.com]
This went through many iterations of scrapping everything and starting over, but I eventually ended up with lines that grew over a surface in the direction of a target object.
And the great thing is, once you build a system it can be used on anything
The powerful lesson here was that there wasn't a tutorial describing how to do it step by step. But I feel like I learned more by struggling through and finding the answers for myself, rather spending time searching for the perfect tutorial.
The final result:
Then I found Entagma. I started their volume series, which is very in depth and professionally put together. I made these volume growth things based on their lessons:
I will try post more when I figure out what I want to make next. Thanks for reading!
