Hello Houdini master-minds working along with Jeff Wagner at the SideFX Toronto HQ,

I'm wondering if it would be possible to have Jeff Wagner going through some Generative Design process and methods within Houdini in the upcoming webinars. Maybe something within the same lines as Moritz and Manuel from Entagma have being doing…any chance?

I have watched every single piece of Houdini material out there and only a few people have touched such subject.

Please let us know.

Thanks!

Not sure if you've looked back this far in the SideFX archives but the ‘Non VFX VFX’ webinar by Matt Estella was very much a proceduralism in preference to simulation seminar.

Non VFX VFX [vimeo.com]

With Aixsponza being so heavily focused on motion design, the Entagma content is unique in it's focus. Houdini's bread and butter is VFX but many talented artists in the motion design community are utilising Houdini's procedural prowess to explore generative design aims and Entagma sits at the centre of this community of artists. I agree that it would be great to see content from SideFX that recognises this ever increasing new segment of Houdini artists.

In the meantime a good place to explore for inspiration is the Processing community. There's a ‘Bees and Bombs’ thread over on Odforce, that has lot's of example HIP's where Houdini artists have taken a Processing animation and recreated it in Houdini (most often with VEX). Even though Processing is a language founded on Java it has many parallels to VEX in that it contains many unique functions specifically designed for creating and manipulating geometry. It's often a relatively easy exercise to translate a Processing project into something that functions in Houdini. And even if it's not so easy it's a fantastic learning exercise.

Hey Jonathan

Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, i've watched Matt's video about Non-VFX VFX and it is great. His website is a great resource for learning Houdini too. Also, the “bees and bombs” thread is really interesting. I spent some time in it and it was inspiring, to say the least.

I can see how one could take advantage of the processing language in Houdini but still, it makes more sense for a lot of artists to use the visual node language than writing code. I'm fine with both but it is one more option to have fun in Houdini while creating content.

A good place to look is Jarrets Touchdesigner file that has most of the work done in the “Art of Generative Design” translated into Toughdesigner. The methodology of Touch translates a lot better the Processing.

http://www.derivative.ca/wiki088/index.php?title=Generative_Design [www.derivative.ca]

Jordan

sl0throp
A good place to look is Jarrets Touchdesigner file that has most of the work done in the “Art of Generative Design” translated into Toughdesigner. The methodology of Touch translates a lot better the Processing.

http://www.derivative.ca/wiki088/index.php?title=Generative_Design [www.derivative.ca]

Jordan

It is indeed a great set of examples. Although I still find myself ‘vexed’ (see what I did there) by the single threaded nature of the Chops stuff in TD. They haven't done much work on the nodes that trace their family tree back to Houdini since TD split off as a separate product back at Houdini 4.5! And since they've moved to Python (away from the HScript origins) many things are actually slower than they were back in the day.

The real TD power users have moved most of what their doing over to the GPU partnered with bespoke C++ nodes.