PROCEDURAL GEOMETRY AND WORKFLOWS
MODULE 1
Statement of Intent
The aim is to re-interpret three kinetic sculptures using procedural animation and modelling techniques. This can be done through using different structures, shapes, colours, lights or movements. The sculptures will be showcased in three rendered animations, each running for at least ten seconds.
Key components that I will experiment with in Houdini include:
Attribute Manipulation
VOPS
Volumes
VDBs
Attribute Manipulation
VOPS
MODULE 2
In the first assessment due at the end of Module 4, we have to re-interpret 3 sculptures. To show how I intend to interpret the sculptures, I will create a moodboard and breakdown for each. In Module 2, I worked on the recreation of the Fluidic sculpture.
Moodboard
For this recreation, I want it to be made up of several points in a cylindrical or helix volume. The points inside of the volume will create waves of colour that affect nearby points and draw emissive lines between them.
Initially, I wasn't sure what to recreate the Fluidic sculpture to look like, and while working on prototyping the helix shape I managed to create a cone-shaped spiral. I then decided to recreate a comet-shape with pulsing waves of light.
Progress
I rotated the objects 90 degrees to make the comet trail appear like it was travelling to the right of the screen. I added more points into the cone volume and packed them more densely to make the planned lines between points more striking. Once I had implemented the lines between points, I created a series of thin cylinder shapes that would act like pulses to trigger the glow of the points and lines.
The issue of black spheres happened constantly when I started to create the lines between the points, and I wasn't able to find a consistent fix for it.
Prototype
After rendering out my prototype, I found that the pulses were too jittery and lasted too long. I had issues with black spheres appearing in the render, which I couldn't fix through many of the suggested methods. Tweaking the values of the scan lines only made the spheres appear on different frames and not remove them entirely.
Final Version
MODULE 3
This module focused on creating volumes through different methods, such as cloud, isoOffset and VDB nodes. Distorting and warping these volumes was done using VOP volume and volume deform nodes. In this module I worked on recreating the Indoor Clouds kinetic sculpture.
Moodboard
To follow on from my last recreation, I wanted to create something space-themed. I thought the best way to do this would be to make the creation of a planet or star. I wanted the cloud to emit light and wrap around the planet in a blurry ring that would rotate around in an orbit. To complete the image I would also need to include non-cloud elements, such as the planet and possibly some asteroids in the clouds.
Progress
To start I created a high-poly torus shape and scattered spheres along its surface. These spheres were then condensed into a VDB from polygon node, and were manipulated using deformations and attribute noise to create a billowing cloud ring. I experimented with a toon-style cloud at one point that caught my interest but ended up sticking with the more realistic billowing cloud.
To add more interest to the cloud, I decided to use the spheres that I used to create the VDB as asteroids in the cloud. I shrunk them down to fit inside the cloud and a mountain node to randomise the deformations of each asteroid. For the object to be placed at the centre of the cloud, I thought it would be a good idea to use the VOP sphere exercise from Module 1, but I reduced the scale of the noise to make the movements on the surface more subtle.
Prototype
I was happy with how the the first prototype render came out in terms the movement and behaviour of the clouds, asteroids, etc. However, the colours and lighting were too bland, and I decided to re-render with different lighting using an HDRI and coloured point lights.
Final Render
MODULE 4
In this module we discussed best practices for rendering our finalised projects. I had already rendered the Fluidic sculpture by this point and didn't feel like I needed to render it with extra elements such as an HDRI. For this final part of the assessment I decided to render my reinterpretation of the Liquid Shards.
Moodboard
For this recreation I wanted to create a final space-themed kinetic sculpture. The best idea to me at first was to create a series of gravitational waves around a sphere. These gravitational waves could be shown using hundreds of smaller spheres or a grid, and I wanted the spheres or points to light up when the wave reached them.
Progress
After following the tutorial I realised that my initial ideas on the moodboard were closer to a ripple than a wave, and that I would most likely have to do some sort of physics simulation for waves, so I changed my idea. Even though it wasn't space-themed, I decided to create a sinkhole or whirlpool of sorts. To create the sinkhole effect, I used a soft transform node to smoothly pull the ocean grid downwards. I tried swapping out the cubes for cylinders and seeing what effect that would create as well.
Towards the end I scrapped the cylinders and returned to using the bevelled cubes. However, the soft transform node had left the geometry warped and filled with gaps. To fix this, I remeshed the grid to pack the points more densely and remove the gaps. To light the scene, I used a HDRI of a well-lit room and a directional light.
Final Render
Final Render Compilation
