I was wondering if it was possible to do motion graphics in houdini.

I was just kinda searching around and wondering if anyone had tried this or done anything with this. I know there is CHOPS but unsure how to get started on those. If there is any info on it I would like to learn and experiment with it.

I know there is C4D but not really trying to get into that right now.

Hi,
it is very much possible to do motion graphics in Houdini and we are actually routinely doing so. We've developed some workflows and tools that imitate an empowerded MoGraph workflow inside of Houdini. Your are actually right in your assumption that CHOPs play a big role in this.
To start you should take a look at controlling animations and movements with point attributes and change or create these attributes inside of CHOPS.

If you are willing to spend some money this assets might be a good starting point (though it doesnt use chops I believe):
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/aswaab::soptools_random [orbolt.com]

This asset is also a good example though its unfortunately closed:
http://www.orbolt.com/asset/VFX_MZM::TRS [orbolt.com]

Of course you would need to invest a considerable amount of time to develop a toolset like this one:
https://vimeo.com/8378129 [vimeo.com]

This cmivfx tutorial might be very helpful in learning how to create animations in CHOPS:
http://www.cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/250/Houdini+Procedural+Animation+Techniques [cmivfx.com]

I would also recommend this one:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/xcart/product.php?productid=58&cat=11&page=1 [3dbuzz.com]

The most important thing to remember is that there is not ONE or TWO aspects to learn in Houdini until you can do motion graphics with it. You might be able to create simple motion graphics after a very short time but everything you learn about Houdini can be adapted and will help in creating more powerful and flexible solutions.You can actually employ every context of Houdini for this and surpass MoGraphs abilities easily. But that takes time.

I hope this helps a little.

-dennis

thanks for the suggestions.

I got a lot of learning to do.

I just started expressions…Have absolutely no idea what to use them for.

Think of Expressions and CHOPS as the glue for SOPS, POPS, DOPS, SHOPS and VOPS, you use them to put it all together. For example you could in SOPS have a boat you've modeled, and you use a copy sop to do the sails, you might use the stamp expression to have a big sail and than a smaller sail, by using $PT in the variables, you than might use the sin expression to make it sway with a transform or better yet use CHOPS to get really natural movement, in this situation the SOPS is the center place where it's all at, and the expressions and use of CHOPS simply help put it together. Expressions are also useful for making shelf tools, command line rendering and more. CHOPS are capable of standalone stuff as well (Audio) and should never be underestimated as some very impressive stuff can be achieved (Audio driven animation, spacial audio, and more). They will however usually drive stuff in the other networks.

have you ever seen No keyframes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNOCTYgiZ68 [youtube.com]

hope this gives you some inspiration on using expressions

thinks for sharing the post ( Delight0092 )