Whoopee! The inevitable just happened. We’re on Patreon now. If you wanna show us your appreciation, we’ve got some special things prepared for you.
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We’re on Patreon!
Artistic Quadtrees
You might not be aware of the fact that you most likely have been using the algorithm we’re discussing here – at least if you’ve ever worked in 3D. Quadtrees (and their relatives, KD-Trees and Octrees) are used to accelerate point queries (ever used pcfind() or nearpoints() in Houdini?), make rendering faster (ever waited for “building raycast accelerator” to finish?) or to compress images. Also they are mesmerizing to look at.
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VEX in Houdini: Space Colonization
Branching growth is fascinating as it has a lot of hidden structure to it and is very intricate. Many methods have been proposed over the years to model branching structures, like trees. One algorithm that is particularly beautiful and simple is the “Space Colonization” algorithm, that Adam Runions proposed in 2007. It models branches by looking at their competition for space. The space that contains the branches is filled with points that serve as attractors for the growing parts.
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Quicktip: Visualizing Flight Paths
The past decade has seen a wealth of data visualization elements in UI design, movie sets and motion graphics. When it comes to creating these elements you’re left with two approaches: faking it vs. the real thing. In this quicktip we’re doing the real thing when it comes to flight data. We’re taking publicly available airport and route data and model the (usually) invisible lines that connect our world by air travel.
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Connect The Yarns – With the PBD Solver
This time Manuel is talking about a straightforward way of dynamically connecting simulated yarns. Although, this can be achieved with the wire solver this tutorial uses the PBD solver (grains) in Houdini to simulate the yarns, as it’s easier to work with and gives nice results, quickly. Especially as collisions between yarns are not important here.
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Niklas Rosenstein: Python in Houdini – Visualizing Satellite Data
Finally we venture into new territory in Houdini: Python! With the help of our very talented friend Niklas Rosenstein we’ll have a look at how to import actual satellite data from ESA’s Gaia mission into Houdini and use it to render our very own star map.
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VEX & VOPs: Perspective Halftone Illusion
Knitting in 3D – Building a UV deformer
Knitting in 3D is quite popular these days. Although it is not too hard to achieve, building a knitting setup presents some challenges to the TD. In this tutorial Manuel shows you one way of modeling a knitted 3D object and a method of making the knit conform to the animated mesh.
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VEX in Houdini: Movie Color Visualisation
Quite some time ago I was trying to cook up something like the guys at moviebarcode.com: Some setups that’d deconstruct a given movie into its individual colors in a visually pleasing manner. Recently I thought it was time to try another attempt. Instead of linearly mapping the individual frames’ colors on a 2D plane, this time I wanted to create something that took advantage of 3D space.
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VEX in Houdini: Diffusion Limited Aggregation (Plus Rendering in Mantra & Redshift)
When we saw Andy Lomas’ “Aggregation” series a few years back we were struck. How could you generate those intricate particle sculptures? The series’ title hinted at one possible solution: Diffusion limited aggregation or DLA. In this tutorial we’ll build a basic DLA setup using VEX and volumes. Also we’ll talk a bit about rendering our result in Mantra and Redshift.
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