Hi everybody.
A SI user called Tom Kleinenberg (thanks Tom) showed me a great ICE tutorial by Mark Schoennagel in which several ICE strategies were used, and after contacting Mark himself, I decided to adapt those very same workflows to Houdini, as directly as I could.

The idea was to try to show both approaches to problems. On one side, a typical Houdini approach, and on the other side a direct translation of the ICE technique to Houdini where possible.

Please, if you are rather new to Houdini, your first step should be reading Jordi Bares "Softimage to Houdini guides

Then, check this IntroVOPsForSIUsers scene I shared a few days ago (attached below)



And then go for the tutorial.
As it is pretty long, I add here a summary of the contents so you can decide whether it´s worth your attention or not.


http://vimeo.com/89869747 [vimeo.com]


Just a little disclamer. I had to record this pretty late at home, and because it´s so long, I didn´t have the time to re-record and fix all my “humm..”s, “aaaah”s and “eeeh..”s. I appologize in advance for that. I hope you still find it useful.


ICE TO HOUDINI PROJECT TUTORIAL -Total Length: 01:23:03

- 00:00:00 - Introduction

- 00:02:40 - Emitting Particles

- 00:07:32 - Scale Attribute (pscale)

- 00:21:57 - Particles Orientation

- 00:28:26 - Instancing

- 00:31:08 - Wiggler Tool

- 00:41:11 - Monitoring and Optimizing Performance

- 00:47:40 - Releasing Particles (Groups “Vs” Ice States)

- 00:53:47 - Adding Forces to Particles

- 01:03:58 - Angular Forces

- 01:08:10 - Painting An Attribute (Custom Attributes “Vs” ICE Weight Maps)

- 01:12:25 - Asset Creation (Digital Assets “Vs” ICE Compounds)

- 01:18:40 - Quick Lighting, Shading & Rendering


I´m also attaching the Start and End scene files (for the end one you need the .otl file as well).

Great Video. Thanks alot Javier.

Andy

Haha, amazing! I was expecting a 5 minute ‘yeah, so this is sort of how you’d do this' video, not an hour-and-a-half. Thanks, this is really, really great, Javier.

Have to say, this community is pretty great. Above and beyond.

funny how everything goes in circles

http://www.sekow.com/subaru_carparts [sekow.com]

thanks javier, your help is much appreciated

:!:

PS: I edited the video so now it´s louder.

you just demystified Houdini in 1h of video !

now, i've sort of a question, would it be possible to do it all in a big POP VOP network ?
I mean you had separated tasks just like we do in ICE if we compound things but in ICE we are in the same network, for now it seams easy to navigate and iterate.

Is it just the “houdini way” keeping all promoted parameters at the object level ?
I realise this “houdini way” is also about “factory compounds” like poptorque who sits at object level operators so if we are in a pop vop we can't use them…

yes i've just responded to my own question…
Thanks for this really constructive video

Thanks a bunch for this :!:

This is AWESOME Javier, really really helpful.

:-)

low level lover
you sir are a star!

NNois
you just demystified Houdini in 1h of video !

now, i've sort of a question, would it be possible to do it all in a big POP VOP network ?
I mean you had separated tasks just like we do in ICE if we compound things but in ICE we are in the same network, for now it seams easy to navigate and iterate.

Is it just the “houdini way” keeping all promoted parameters at the object level ?
I realise this “houdini way” is also about “factory compounds” like poptorque who sits at object level operators so if we are in a pop vop we can't use them…

yes i've just responded to my own question…
Thanks for this really constructive video

Yes, you pretty much replied yourself.
Houdini “by design” will force you to jump around much more than ICE. One of the reasons for this being that in ICE there´s no other nodal context for effects, so everything HAS to be put in there, no matter if you want it or not.
I agree it´s more comfortable not to jump around, but it´s also a bit more limiting, as you will hopefully understand from the scope of HDAs (Houdini Digital Assets).