Week 1

Houdini Interface Overview and Creating a Block of Cheese.

This week we had an introduction to Houdini’s interface and the basic principles of the software. We then used this knowledge to complete an in class task of creating a block of cheese. Process photos are as follows:

Creating the holes in a cube:

Node tree:

Adding colour:

Varying the hole size:

Adding a base:

Applying texture to the base:

Rotation and movement:

Beveling the edges:

Render view:

Render setting:

Week 2

Creating the domino effect:

Creating the brick wall effect:

 

Week 3

Learning water physics and adding floating geometry.

Full lesson screen recording:

Creating the wave variation and adding direction to the scattered ducks:

Node tree for the ducks:

Node tree for the ocean:

Creating noodles

Week 6

This week we looked at volumes and how to use/affect them. First we started with extruding a beveling a logo shape to make it 3D instead of flat.

Then we modelling a furnace to house our smoke simulation.

We used the Billowy Smoke volume as shown below to create a classic smoke affect.

Node graph for the billowy smoke:

This was the original smoke sim.

This was with increased turbulence which created more volume to the smoke.

This was with increased dissipation which made the smoke taper and vanish more sporadically around the edges.

Node graph for the sphere:

 

Week 7

This week we learned how to make the ground plane break like a dirt road.

Week 8

Here I was able to create a ground plane and add texture in certain sections that I had mapped out. This way I could have a dirt path leading through the middle and grass edges. We also learned how to use the transform nodes to make the tufts of grass sit at uneven spacing and directions for a more realistic look.

Week 10

Learning pyro effects to make a frame thrower style sim.

Jitter birth time positive:

Changing to jitter birth time negative to create a smooth run of particles:

Adding rotation movement and variety in particle speed:

Changing the scale of the pyrosolver:

Adding the Pyro Solver:

Adjusting smoke and scatter:

Adding materials for the flames to be bright:

Week 11

This week we created blood droplets that interacted with a skull model. We used the scatter node to create the points where the drops would form.

I then used the copy to points and transform to animate the points flowing down. Then using the VBD from polygon to change the the voxel size to 0.01. I used the flip container to change the viscosity and surface tension.

Then we did a project where we simulated a pod of dolphins swimming. See below:

 

 

Final Assignment Project:

Based off the scene in Jurassic Park where the water in the glass ripples, caused by the dinosaurs footsteps.

I wanted to do something similar for the Godzilla assignment where there is a close up image of a city street, an open manhole releasing steam into the rain and the puddles around the holes ripple due to Godzilla’s footsteps on the ground.

Here I created a mood board based off the Jurassic Park scene where the footsteps make the water in the glass ripple. I wanted to use these images as inspiration for my scene.

Storyboard:

Maya Scene:

I built my scene in Maya using Sketchfab assets. I chose a city backstreet with neon signs to keep in the Godzilla Tokyo theme. I changed from the original storyboard to scale down the scene as I felt the scene was too vast in the storyboard. I then place a grate on the pavement where I want the steam/smoke to come from. I used Arnold area lights to create the different hues of neon reflecting off the ground.

Green light emitting from the fire exit sign above the door. Red and Blue lights coming from the bar sign on the side of the wall.

Warm light from the direction of the street lamp on the left of the scene.

Creating the smoke for the sewer grate:

 

Smoke Main Solver:

Smoke Noise:

Smoke Velocity:

Smoke Final Viewport:

 

Smoke Effect in Viewport:

 

Creating rain with ripples:

Process:

Spheres rain particles:

Ripple Solver:

Adding the Maya Scene into Houdini:

As I couldn’t export the Houdini simulations due to using the Apprentice version, I had to re-think my original plan and import the fbx scene from Maya to Houdini instead. This unfortunately meant I could not use the textures and lighting I had made in Maya at the beginning of the project.

 

Rain and Smoke placed in Scene within Houdini:

I then combined both Houdini simulations into the one scene along with the Maya fbx.

 

Final Scripts for Full Project

Scene Objects:

Maya Imported Scene:

Rain with Ripple Solver:

Smoke:

Test Scene:

I found that because I was unable to render in Houdini apprentice, the water material was not very effective in the end and so I decided to remove it.

 

Final Scene:

 

DISCLAIMER

Because I had to use the free Houdini Apprentice as I work from home, I was unable to access most features fully that the normal Houdini License allows such as, adding materials, rendering, lighting, exporting and certain editing features. Because of this I was unable to export the simulations into my original Maya scene as planned. This meant importing the untextured fbx Maya model and making do with what Houdini Apprentice could offer, hence why the scene is untextured and not rendered and not as originally planned at the beginning of the project.