This is a ridiculously big topic, but I have one simple (i think) requirement. I need to create a gently rippling water surface for animation. I'm not doing any underwater shots, but i'm going to be putting a river bed under it, and objects under the water's surface.

Can anyone help me out with a starting point, some tips or advice, or perhaps just tell me to go and film it instead?

Cheers,

Tom

There are some VEX shaders which do a pretty good job of creating the look of a water surface if you want to go the shader route (VEX Choppy Water may be a good place to start) Keep in mind VEX Choppy Water is only a displacement shader. You'll need to assign a shader for color and refractions and reflections and such to finish the effect. VEX SuperMaterial is a good place to start if you want to get the ocean surface to shade properly.

Alternately, Houdini gives you the option to directly manipulate surfaces in SOPS. At the sop level, create a grid on the ZY plane. Set rows and columns to be 40 and 40 and add a “Vex mountain” sop. In the VEX Mountain sop set fractal depth to 3, Roughness to .6, Height to .025, Frequency to 6, 6, 4, and offset set to $F/900, $F/500, and 0.

This will give you a fractal noise that moves over time. It may not be a duplicate of the surface of a lake, but its a good place to start.

If you like writing your own functions, bypass the Vex Mountain route and use a Point sop instead. In the $TX field in the point sop type:

$TY+noise($TX*9+$F/150,$TY*12+$F/70,$TZ*9)*.03

That'll create a moving noise pattern on the surface as well.

To find out more about noise functions go to Windows>Textport and in your textport type “exhelp noise.” This will return a list of the available noise functions…

Hi Tom,

I wrote a VEX Water SOP which is available on Odforce. Please go to this thread [odforce.net] for an example hip file.

Cheers!
steven

stevenong
Hi Tom,

I wrote a VEX Water SOP which is available on Odforce. Please go to this thread [odforce.net] for an example hip file.

Cheers!
steven

This is very cool.

I've loaded the file and rendered it, and I'm wondering what's making the teapot “bob” up and down ? I dont' see any keyframes and don't see any kind of connection between the teapot and the water object. Was the animation “baked” into the teapot somewhow ?

How can I get another object to interact with the deformation of the water?

Is there way to use an animation constraint / expression to make an object's center follow the deformation of the water object ?

Mike

Hi Mike,

Go into the teapot Object, select the align1 SOP and play with the settings. Also, please read the Help for more information.

Yes, you certainly can replace the teapot with another geometry.

Cheers!
steven

Hello stevenong

I've downloaded the file but it won't open, Its a GZ file format :roll:

Any help?

Thank You.

you need to uncompress it.
you can use gzip or winrar(if your on windoze).

stevenong
Go into the teapot Object, select the align1 SOP and play with the settings.

Ahh, I see how it works now

I have to start thinking “Houdini”

thx

Mike

jesta
you need to uncompress it.
you can use gzip or winrar(if your on windoze).

I have winrar (Im on windows) but i cant even unzip it.
Not known application

it worked no problem for me. using winrar 3.61
maybe you need to set you rpreferences to deal with gzip

mmtpour

jesta
you need to uncompress it.
you can use gzip or winrar(if your on windoze).

I have winrar (Im on windows) but i cant even unzip it.
Not known application

I recommend 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) [7-zip.org] Its the swiss army chainsaw of file compression.

Thank you Thank You Wolfwood

Finally it worked.

but I get these error messages and also I dont see the teapot object
is this because of the errors.

Best Regards.
Mohammad.

I think that's because there was a custon otl in there and it's not embedded in to the hipfile.

Do you have the same problem too? :cry:

mmtpour, in the file that you have downloaded there are two thinks: The hip file, and the otl file. This otl is the system to move the water, and you must to install it. Go to File-> install operator type library, and choose the *.otl file.

Hi Mohammad,

Here's the thread with the teapot hip file:

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=2877 [forums.odforce.net]

Cheers!
steven

mmtpour, I get the same load error, it seems to be a missing render entry, but despite the “failed load” message, the file still works (8.1.704).

StevenOng:
Your (VEX Water) SOP is great, btw it seems there is an older version, “water” in the same otl file.

With your water SOP, and now I see an example of the align SOP, and also just found out about the “sticky” object type, I have some basic tools to use for a water scene.

I'm now trying to create some realistic boat wake / spray.

I started to experiment with the particle system, making my “boat” the source. I have more of a “jet engine / rocket exhaust” effect than a boat wake though

I imagine more than one source is probably going to be necessary, along with a bunch of other SOP's to make something that looks good.

If anyone can offer any tips/suggestions / links … example files, that would be great. I'm at a begginer level with (houdini) particles .. (well particles in any program for that matter.)

Mike

O! My Godness!

He gots in that hip old logo “Houdini 3D anim. tool”. I really loved it when new scene had opened with this geo recently. This was so… hmm.. how to say…. gentle persuasion…
I should edit my 123.cmd

**deleted **

stevenong
Hi Mohammad,

Here's the thread with the teapot hip file:

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=2877 [forums.odforce.net]

Cheers!
steven

Yes i can see the teapot now, I still get an error but the file works fine

Thank You.
Mohammad.