There are two parts to the problem, the shading technique (have a look at toon shading on the web and be prepared to have a tsunami of new concepts) and then the geometry that by when using the shader produces that look in a coherent way from frame to frame (lines not appearing and disappearing)

It is not trivial and I would recommend to have a look at Softimage toon shader who is amongst the best out there. (or should I say was)

In any case, it is not a small project to achieve something to organic as that reference.

Good luck and I hope I can see some results soon.

:-)

Was this built from scratch in Houdini? if so makes me think I should give it another go too.

:-)

Although there are a few quirks the truth is that the release is huge in scope and features, not only UX but point dynamics and crowds are huge tasks that I am sure will keep evolving until they are finished, the same than the UX.

Good times ahead, now I am going to pray they incorporate overrides like XSI and we can all go for a beer.

;-)

With regards with normals workflow I don't really have a good solution but it is true is very cumbersome to keep an eye on it leading to lots of mistakes, specially when you come from a package like Softimage where this is handled for you effectively.

I know it may sound heresy to any Houdini artist but i would rather have the software take control of it even if the mesh is very big. May be would be useful to have a node to force stopping the computing of normals?

Basically an Opt-Out approach.

my 2 cents.

It would be great, I do love my SpaceNavigator and has been extremely useful with Sketchup and Google Earth workflows.

We should add it to the RFE

Hi Paul, thank you although I did not create the section, Side Effects did. I did produce the guides which I am very happy are helping some of you.

Regarding Houdini as your one tool and how fast it is to work with it, I have an approach that I will try to describe.

Use Houdini as your backbone tool that handles all your rendering FX and little by little get into the animation/rigging/etc…

Today Houdini lacks some important quick tools like deform by curve so your point, shrinkwrap, etc… tools I am intending to build (some I have) and compile them on library you can download so the flow is similar.

Hope it helps
jb

Not a coincidence my friend, not a coincidence. ;-)

Constantin X

twod

Werner Ziemerink
Can anyone tell me what the lazer select actualy does? How is this different from the “select visible geometry only” option?

It's basically a macro for Paint selection + 0 pixel radius + Area Selection Visible Geometry Only, so you don't have to continually change those settings. You could do the same thing in H13, except with a bit more hassle.

Congratulations on the new release(i know, i am late)! It's a fantastic, solid release. Also thank you for changing icons into Motion View. I am sure it's a coincidence, but i received at least 3 of my major requests included into this release(some major rework on UV's and animation layers are THE best possible features). I am ramping up my learning so i can go into full production, but this year i am purchasing. I will start with Indie in 1-2 months and then i hope i can go full license as soon as possible.

Check on your terminal profile that you are calling the right version of houdini, chances are if you have installed a few versions you may have a dodgy reference.

hope it is useful

I really would love to play with it…

:-)))

Andy58
Yes they are hard to find, and often not very advanced. BTW, does anybody know if it's possible to use geometry/or points to envelope other geometry.
Like I can in Soft, I use a Nurbs surface, envelope that to the character mesh and use the deformation on the nurbs object to drive the deformation on the character mesh. Can this be done in Houdini, or am I limited to capture regions and metaballs? I would love to hear from the houdini rigging masters ;-)

Think of metaballs as nulls with influence and additive/substractive properties, not in the traditional modelling sense.

Have a look at this for interesting uses of the existing toolset

http://www.orbolt.com/asset/animatrix::bone::1.00 [orbolt.com]
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/houdini_tools::PGMVC_capt_deform [orbolt.com]

(this last one is extremely powerful so keep an eye on it)

hope it helps
jb

You can find that tutorial on 3DBuzz and from what I recall its free. Search on old tutorials (old interface) and surely you will find it and it is still very much relevant.

Werner Ziemerink
Thanks Jordi.

I'm having a blast learning Houdini. How about adding a video on building reverse foot rigs to the list? Rigging tutorials are hard to find in Houdini land.

Werner

I am building a character and would like to turn on/off certain handles based on visibility options in my asset.

When I dive into the Type Properties > Handles I see a field called “onoff” but it does not hide them, simply disables them and displays them as dashed lines.

Any idea? I don't want to see them at all.

thanks in advance

Trying to watch the various official houdini tutorials on an Apple TV has been quite annoying due to the lack of structure as Side Effects has so many videos, so I have put created a group under my Vimeo user so all of you transitioning can go straight to the meat and have a list of these.

Have a look and enjoy it.
https://vimeo.com/groups/houdiniofficialtutorials [vimeo.com]

Regarding the big files… this is totally the opposite of my experience… i am now loading monster files that Maya, XSI, Modo can't simply open, let alone apply any operations on them.

In my case a 18Million polygon terrain convering 8km by 8km with lots of detail and I am applying filters, lattices, fixes, sculpts, transferring attributes from a low mesh to the high res… all works rather fine with a small 32Gb machine.

And for the last 10 years this has been the case so it comes to a surprise you are experiencing the opposite!!

Even if you can't show/share the file, can you describe the amount of polygons, your system, memory, etc..?

jb

Constantin X

eetu

SreckoM
Would love to see LSCM unwrap and scaling and packing of UVs.

There is this old thing http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK_UVunwrapLSCM.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]
and corresponding thread http://forums.odforce.net/topic/6002-lscm-texture-unwrapping/ [forums.odforce.net]

And relating other stuff http://www.fourthwall.ndo.co.uk/HT_HDK.html [fourthwall.ndo.co.uk]

Not very plug-n-play though..

Only for old H versions, and only 32 bit. Not usable. So, Houdini needs a revamp of UV tools.
A new HUGE thing i can add on request list is performance. I checked Houdini with a file(sorry, i can't share it, it's under NDA, not even pictures) 2GB in size. Well, i was not able to open up the file(obj) in Houdini. I did however opened up the file in Cinema 4d and worked very easy with it. It might be the video card(only 2gb video RAM)? Or Houdini has performance issues?

IMO the days of a single package are long gone… from sculpting to UV layout, from crowds to texturing, vegetation, terrain modelling, tracking, etc… it is now an ecosystem of tools and thus I only look at it from the point of view of packages that play well together and do bring some serious advantages.

jb

Constantin X

jordibares
I just wanted to show you the wide range of work I am involved and yes, I'm am making pretty pixels like anyone in the team, on every project and go from A to Z in production (advertising is exactly that). :-)

But I was just curious why not embrace the best of every tool, some are free and really worth checking (for example Blender)

Anyway, hope things move in that directly and Houdini gets better and better in the modelling stages too.

Yeap,
i would say moving pixels. Well i do use Blender and it has some very, very nice features. But you know that is much easier to work in a single package(yea i know, not possible).
Thanks,
C

I just wanted to show you the wide range of work I am involved and yes, I'm am making pretty pixels like anyone in the team, on every project and go from A to Z in production (advertising is exactly that). :-)

But I was just curious why not embrace the best of every tool, some are free and really worth checking (for example Blender)

Anyway, hope things move in that directly and Houdini gets better and better in the modelling stages too.

Constantin X

jordibares
Hey Constantin,

It is great to hear your experiences and needs if your time is so precious (like everybody else I guess) why don't you pick the best tool for the job?

Modelling is not (and I doubt will be anytime soon) as strong as an specialised modelling tool like Modo/Zbush or even C4D… just model it in Modo and take it from there.

There are also better rendering packages for Product rendering, Modo/KeyShot/etc… so I wonder why do you feel Houdini will give you an advantage.

Are you looking at it for parametric modelling? if so, why don't go Solidworks?

Anyway, it is certainly possible to do but way harder than you may need to for these kind of projects.

May be I should prepare a little add-on shelf with some of these things there. ;-)

Hope it helps
jb

PS. To check the kind of work i do day in and day out. http://www.jordibares.com [jordibares.com]

Hi Jordi,
I never implied that you are not an artist, just did not known what part of the 3d is your specialization. Regarding Houdini, why i insist to use it? I just shown two very small projects i did, not everything i do. I just recently finished a commercial for a new vodka and it's full of fluid simulations and dynamics etc. I also did some VFX for a Hollywood movie(big producer, small payments ). So, my workflow implies a lot of different tools from fluid simulations, to dynamics and yea, product rendering, animations. The catch is that i do all this alone, i do everything from start to finish, i don't work in a team anymore and i never will again. Houdini is a tool that can do most of the stuff i work on. So you can say that i try to simplify my worflow by replacing several tools with just one or two. And regarding the missing features, if we can improve it, why not? It just needs few small changes and it's perfect for me…. Most probably i am going to use it along side with a second tool(most probably Modo or Cinema4D).
Thanks,
C

Hey Constantin,

It is great to hear your experiences and needs if your time is so precious (like everybody else I guess) why don't you pick the best tool for the job?

Modelling is not (and I doubt will be anytime soon) as strong as an specialised modelling tool like Modo/Zbush or even C4D… just model it in Modo and take it from there.

There are also better rendering packages for Product rendering, Modo/KeyShot/etc… so I wonder why do you feel Houdini will give you an advantage.

Are you looking at it for parametric modelling? if so, why don't go Solidworks?

Anyway, it is certainly possible to do but way harder than you may need to for these kind of projects.

Hope it helps
jb

PS. To check the kind of work i do day in and day out. http://www.jordibares.com [jordibares.com]

This is GREAT!!! I rely soooo much on this technique for so many things it has been a real pain to rely on non-compiled approaches.

I owe you a few beers.

These were my feelings when i started but then you realise that you should switch how you think about Houdini and the workflow, instead if having “packed tools” you have “tool components”, more granular, more powerful and certainly liberating.

Surely enough proper CAD data support would be great, animation layers, a daylight system (with a nice interface) would be most welcomed, etc… but you will soon realise you don't really want an specialised tool to remove points given you have already the “Delete SOP” which allows you to do that and more.

I will try to point you to some existing tools so you can find your way, hope that helps.


- Adding functions for curve editing : Check the Delete SOP, Carve SOP, Point SOP and certainly Wrangle SOP.

- Having primitives with slicing, you have them but works only on certain types of geometry, for example, you can “dice” it if it is a poly mesh but not if it is a pure primitive. And really that is what you really want. Also, you should think in the various steps, Houdini tends to have a step by step process rather than one tool that tries to do too much.

- CAD data can be imported via ives but and it is quite good but it is not as modern as the current CAD data formats like STEP, unfortunately that is not being addressed yet.

The presets for Lsystems may be a good idea at first but surely enough you will probably want to do grass with fur instead or curves, or instances, or…

The PBR materials is 100% necessary and something i have been banging about recently so I would love to see the next release on that respect.

Again, good ideas you are throwing our there and I am sure they are reading it but I think it would be great to also dive a bit more on some of these things that are already there in a less obvious but more powerful form.

hope it helps
jb

Constantin X
Ok,
So this will be like a converging topic. There are disparate topics: modeling, animation etc, but i want to have a topic where we can talk about what we think Houdini misses to be a great production tool(no matter what your field of interest/expertise will be). So i will start with my own list of missing features(this are only related to my workflow). I don't know if this subject have being debated, but i think there is a LOT of room for improvements into NURBES/CURVES sector. What i will need on top of what is already there will be:

- increased number of primitives - rectangle, spiral, ring etc;

- adding functions for curve editing: add/remove point, CHAMFER, join, split etc;

- 2D boolean operations;

- adding more default options into primitives(like slice for example);

- extracting intersecting curve from a project curve/carve object with curve operation(this might be in place);

I find there is a serious lack of features into this aspect of modeling witch i extensively use in production. An upgrade into this area will be more then welcome, crucial to my modeling/animation work. There are also few other missing features:

- layers and/or animation layers(this is different from NLA witch works with clips; this works on keyframe level, not motion clips);

- a serious(or better said total) lack of support for importing CAD files

Well, almost no one finds creativity into product shots/animations, but let's face it it's a huge market and puts food on the table. A huge chunk of my workflow involves product shots/animations and i find out that i can't import anything directly into Houdini. We can debate on this(Houdini is for special effects bla-bla-bla), but as long as there are PBR rendering and amazing animation/particles/fluids into Houdini, why not use them to create all type of product shots/animations? I need to import Solidworks, CAD and Parasolid(maybe other formats too like Rhino) models so i can create product functioning animations and product renders. With Mantra being so good, this will be a huge hit. And if we are here few more things: why have so much amazing features but almost no presets at all? How hard can it be to include:

- few dozens Matra pbr materials(the most often used ones) with variation possibilities: glass; metal, wood, concrete, pavement etc;

- few dozens of L-System presets(fir tree, grass, decorative plants etc);

- a small but well thought library of the most used objects;

- few already textured and animated scenes(witch can be modified by the user): mountain, plain/hills, beach etc;

- a much improved daylight system(Cinema 4d is THE best example to look at)

So far this is what i would like to see added into Houdini. The CAD importers can be a separate/pay-for module like it is on Modo, or it can be integrated into main app. My conclusion after few months of sporadic use is that it's a fantastic application. It just needs few small add-ons and it will become a huge hit.
Thanks,
C

Depending the task you may want to do it with a script or via Chops.

I guess you are trying to export these transforms only once… here is an example from the Massive forum.

hope it helps

def createGenerators():
import string, math

# Execute this code when Export button were pressed
geo = hou.pwd().geometry()
tuplePoints = geo.points()

masFileParm = hou.pwd().parm('masPath')
print masFileParm.eval()

# Archive to create with point positions
f = open (str(masFileParm.eval()), ‘w’)

# Orient terrain/flow variables
oTerrain = hou.pwd().parm('orientTerrain').eval()
oFlow = hou.pwd().parm('orientFlow').eval()
pOffset = hou.pwd().parm('angleOffset').eval()

# Place block start
f.write ('Place')
f.write ('\n group 5 fromHoudini')
f.write ('\n translate 0 0')
f.write ('\n colour 5')

# Funtion to calculate angle
def pointAngle(vector):
angle = math.degrees(math.atan2(pointNormal, pointNormal))
return angle

for point in tuplePoints:
pointPosition = point.position()
pointNormal = hou.Vector3(point.attribValue(“N”))
pAngle = pointAngle(pointNormal)

f.write ('\n generator point')
f.write ('\n centre %.3f' % pointPosition + ‘ %.3f’ % pointPosition + ‘ %.3f’ % pointPosition)
f.write ('\n normal 0 -1 0')
f.write ('\n number 1')
f.write ('\n distance 0')
f.write ('\n noise 0 0.001')
f.write ('\n angle %.3f' % (pAngle + pOffset) + ‘ 0’)
f.write ('\n height %.3f' % pointPosition + ‘ 0’)
f.write ('\n flow ‘ + str(oFlow))
f.write (’\n terrain ‘ + str(oTerrain))
f.write (’\n groups ')
f.write ('\n end generator')

f.write ('\nEnd place')