Patrick's VFX Blog

Houdini Ocean Spectrum on Toy from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . Watch this on YouTube too! Here's my latest test in Houdini. In this test, I manage to apply Houdini's Ocean Spectrum a non-planar shape. The ocean spectrum in Houdini allows the artist to define parameters that describe an open-ocean surface. With these settings, Houdini can generate a very natural-looking ocean surface without the expensive simulation time (this is much like how Houdini's Heightfield is implemented). Since this tool was meant for an open ocean surface, it mainly works with a flat grid by adding displacement to it. If we plug a non-planar object to evaluate this spectrum with the OceanEvaluate SOP, it results in a streaking projection downwards in the Y-axis. Also, the faces that face towards negative Y will get an inverted displacement pattern of that ocean spectrum. In this test, I derive a set-up that overcomes the planar nature of the projection and the negative pattern caused by the same pr...

  This is a Houdini implementation of my previous Maya Boxes Rolling Rig . In this set-up, I also switched in a Rubber Toy to see how it would look. The path of travel was created with a Solver SOP that advances the position with a noise animated over time. Another Solver SOP handles the rotation of the box/rubber-toy, and driven by the accumulated distance travelled.

Video is also on YouTube here . In this video, I talk about a basic feature working with Houdini: flags in network nodes. These are the display, render, template and template-shaded and lock flags. I also show how I use them in two working situations. The most note-worthy flag is the lock flag. This helps to freeze the evaluation of upstream nodes for faster evaluation of nodes downstream. A special shout-out to Kin Hoeng from Voodoo Visual (https://voodoo-visual.com) who contributed to the asset in the later demonstration.

Maya Boxes Rolling Rig from Patrick Woo on Vimeo . Here's my latest crazy experiment in 3D! The principles and techniques behind this deceptively simple-looking rig took years to click together for me. This is more so from the perspective of optimisation and simplicity of the implemented solution in my mind. The paths of the boxes are pre-animated via a path constraint. But I make sure the boxes are pivoting with their corners planted on the ground, that they are not sliding.  Students who have attended my rigging classes will understand the tedious process of manually rigging a "rolling cube" by unfolding it from corner pivots. The main technique used here is very different. It treats the box more like a rolling wheel than a pivoting box. I may create a tutorial for this in the coming months.

Watch this on YouTube  and Vimeo . Here's my latest test: directable and procedural cubes transiting from a shape to another in Houdini. It is mainly a VEX-driven set-up. This is part of a research effort to determine the viability of an idea for my student's project. Before I began I was wondering if I was able to achieve this at all. Even though it is not perfect in its present form, I am quite happy with the result and confident that I can help to guide the student in her efforts. #houdini​ #vex​ #motiondesign​ #procedural

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This piece is based on the still image I created for my track "When Darkness Stares Back": soundcloud.com/patrickwoo/patrick-woo-when-darkness-stares-back  Here I used a video to displace vertices. In the finished version I also added further rock maps displacement, shader tweaks, tracked light sources, re-timing of footage and render, and further compositing processes to augment my renders.