Hello,

I'm still trying to get my head around modeling in Houdini and I can do it if what I want to model is from basic shapes.
But then, when it has to have curves, twists, bends etc … I'm lost …

For example, how would you model a car? Around the tires, you have a curve there, not necessarily a circle. And all the curves on the doors, hood etc? How to make them join other non-curved shapes smoothly?

I'm not asking for a step-by-step tutorial but more of the approach you would take, and what tools/nodes.

Also, how would you model a horn? I thought I would start with a cone and bend it but didn't figure out out to do it … I tried the twist node in bend mode but it's not doing what I'm expecting …

Also, is there a tool/node to take an arc and expand it from its center? Kind of like polyextrude but instead of extruding, to split the polygons.
For example, if you have a looped arc around an eye, I'd like to select that loop and expand it for greater details around the eyes.

It depends a lot how you're modeling, I mean NURBS or POLY… I tried poly modeling with Houdini and it's pretty much the same old: Start with a box, apply the poly extrude to the faces you want, add edge loops, apply edit node, and tweak points from there. You can be procedural in some parts of the model, like a bevel and extrude, but keep in mind that some operations down the stream might break the proceduralism if they are dependent on specific point numbers or something.

For joining the curves (as long as they are polygons) you can try the polypatch SOP, or you can create the curves and use as guides to draw polygons, same as in other packages. Just as a side note, I've seen models made in Alias Studio (the choice for industrial design and all) and the workflow is the same, lots of control curves and the model is broken down into patches that share some edges.

I do mostly poly modeling, so I prefer using another package for that like maya or silo. You can still do great complex models in Houdini if you can break your train of thought in smaller pieces and go from there.

Cheers

Thanks for your reply Rafaels.

I will try like that then.

Any idea for a horn? The same way?

What about a profile, a curve and a sweep SOP? Then use the skin SOP to generate the “skin”…

rafaels
What about a profile, a curve and a sweep SOP? Then use the skin SOP to generate the “skin”…

Thank you, that's perfect!
I know about the sweep (saw it on a tutorial somewhere) but never tried it so I didn't know we could change the scale on each points … I learned a lot thanks to you!