PROJECT LADYBUG

made in Houdini 14 for Intermediate by SideFX

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Category Rendering

PostedMay 05, 2015

This workshop will focus on the modeling and shading the elytra (shell/wing cover) of the ladybug. In the process we will explore using point clouds to interactively place the spots on the elytra.

Once that is completed we will create a custom “beetle” shader that will allow the artist to quickly create the material for multiple types of beetles. Finally we will learn how to save the geometry as a packed primitive and then render a scene with thousands of instances of the shell.

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

An introduction to project and what you will accomplish by the end.

PART TWO: CREATING THE ELYTRA

Designed for complete beginners to Houdini and its modeling tools. Here you will learn how to model the shell using a NURBS Sphere and a couple of Carve Operators. Other Houdini nodes used include the Sweep, UVTexture and Group.

PART THREE: GENERATING A POINT CLOUD

Here you will use the Add and Ray nodes to generate a point cloud that can be modified in real time. The point positions will be used by a compositing network in the next video to generate the interactive color map for the spots on the shell.

PART FOUR: BUILDING THE SPOTS

First you will create a user interface to control the final color map and test size in the geometry context. Then you will create a custom composting node to read in the point cloud and generate the spots on the shell. You will then test the interactivity of creating the color map.

PART FIVE: CREATE A BEETLE SHADER

Now you will create a Beetle Shader that imports the color map generated in the compositing network but also procedurally creates secondary spots, shell coloration, and shell bumpiness.

PART SIX: PACKED PRIMITIVES

fter testing and rendering the Beetle Material you will complete this lesson by learning how to create a packed primitive and then using it to instance thousands of beetles..

CREATED BY

SIDEFX

For over thirty five years, SideFX has been providing artists with procedural 3D animation and visual effects tools designed to create the highest-quality cinematic results. We are passionate about what our customers do because our roots are in production, both as artists and as pioneering technical innovators.