Crowds

Built for VFX, animation, and game cinematics, Houdini’s crowd system is a complete solution for instancing, simulation, and behavior. This can all be found inside a procedural, artist-friendly workflow.

Geometry Level
Crowds

Crowds can now be set up at the geometry [SOP] level using a suite of new tools. The Crowds MotionPath tools allows you quickly make changes to the motion path or the animation of a small number of agents without the need to re-simulate the entire crowd.

Dynamic Look at

Crowds can now dynamically switch who they are looking at while in motion. Based on certain rules, each agent turn their eyes and then their head to look at another agent nearby. This results in a much more natural look to both medium and background crowds.

Crowd Procedural

The Crowd Procedural provides render-time optimization that improves memory usage and performance.

KineFX Agents

The crowd tools integrate with the new KineFX character tools which make it easier to prep and refine your agents.

Hero Agents

At the same time, these tools provide a workflow for directing hero agents to achieve specific results that stand out from the crowd.

CROWDS IN PRODUCTION

Bacon X | Commercial Projects

Bacon X is a VFX studio based in Copenhagen that specializes in commercial work, but has also worked on HBO shows and Scandinavian films. They recently created a commercial for Etsy, using Houdini to simulate crowds, cloth, and smoke effects. They also crafted a Martian landscape and sandstorm for the client BKW. Despite challenges, they successfully utilized new tools, resulting in projects they're proud of and clients love.

Terrain Adaptation

Crowds can now dynamically switch who they are looking at while in motion. Based on certain rules, each agent turn their eyes and then their head to look at another agent nearby. This results in a much more natural look to both medium and background crowds.

Partial/Full Ragdoll

The Crowd Procedural provides render-time optimization that improves memory usage and performance.

Banking

At the same time, these tools provide a workflow for directing hero agents to achieve specific results that stand out from the crowd.

Crowd Nodes

Here some of the nodes to look out for when working with Crowds in Houdini. These nodes let you add agents then set up their behaviour. These nodes can work at the Geometry level or the Dynamics level.