Hi,

I'd like to know how you can use an L system lightning preset to have the bolts of lightening target deforming geometry.

What I have is a device that is attached to the arm and it will send out electric shards. I plan to parent a few L systems to the arm device and have them sending shocks to the arm, and hopefully be able to climb up the arm as well.

Someone has done something similar here:

http://pepefx.blogspot.com/2013/05/in-this-nth-experiment-i-wanted-to.html [pepefx.blogspot.com]

But I have no idea how he set it up as he does not go into enough details for my level of Houdini knowledge.

In my example the arm apparatus will likely come in as FBX with animation so it will have motion I can parent to.

The arm will be a deforming object that will come in from Maya as Alembic. So I have a previously created animation I plan to use as the source and target motion for this effect. Hope that is clear enough to understand.

I simply chose L system as a seemingly easy place to start.

I also found this:

http://www.sidefx.com/forum/topic/13822/ [sidefx.com]

But it is 8 years old and it seems to assume certain things I don't know.

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

This is an older post that goes over some lightning techniques using and not using L-Systems.
http://forums.odforce.net/topic/12360-approaches-to-lightning-in-houdini/ [forums.odforce.net]

http://forums.odforce.net/topic/24500-lightning-effect-polywire-taperwidth-at-the-ends/ [forums.odforce.net]

I had better results with a line between two points than L-Systems. I couldn't control the lightning with L-Systems too much.

Glen

Thanks for the links. First one I saw. But they don't explain anything. I am having trouble reverse engineering things. Not that good at Houdini yet. The second link is more or less a fake. And I can do that in Lightwave all day long. I'd really like to have something cool looking like an L system that branches out dynamically.

Sad to say I need a blow by blow, this node does this, that one does that etc. To be able to put it together. I have seen some awesome set ups but can't seem to sort out where to start.

Any tutorials? I can seem to find anything that is relevant to what I need to do.

Here is a video on Vimeo going over L-Systems. No talking since it was a stream. There are some links in the about section that may help. When I starting learning L-Systems I just started with the basics and then explored from there. Not much more out there for L-Systems as far as tutorials other than those links, cmiVfx and digital tutors. I am not sure of specific tutorials, good luck.

https://vimeo.com/117764209 [vimeo.com]

Thanks, I wonder if anyone can cut to the chase and explain a node set up to target the L system to something. So if for example I want to use the lightning preset I can simply have it become attracted to a mesh. Is that possible?

And if so, in simple instructions, how do I do it?

I found a tutorial how to do this with particles. I just wonder if I can do it with an L system. That is, target it to something. Like, well, a lightning bolt does. If there is a preset for Lightning one would presume a parameter or tweak (additional node set up) exists to target it to something. That is what lightning does. It shoots out at something. The preset is random.

So is this possible?

Have you checked the orbolt store?