Biosuit WIP

[Mathaeus]

Introductory work on hair... I'm planning to have some braids here. In similar way with ICE, strands will be completely guided by geometry. Not hard to get a basic braids pattern, as it is repeating, same pattern for every element. However found somehow hard to model the tight 'packing', really important for realistic look . So here's little setup that utilizes Houdini Cloth. To avoid tons of screenshots, here is entire setup. It has a custom Houdini 'strand generator', able to go to more than three elements, theoretically it's able to create entire carpet - while odd number of yarns somehow works better in that case. Simulation part is Houdini cloth, mixed with Geometry VOP.
Geometry VOP is not-so-well-known Houdini feature, basically it's custom solver in form of VOP that lives in DOP network, able to do similar things like custom simulated ICE tree. So that's reason for having a "Blend Solver" in DOP network, this one ( with default settings) is there just to allow more than one solver. Here, Geometry VOP creates a custom "target force" ( force = some arbitrary vector added to velocity), looking at 'pushed' copy of initial geometry. Houdini cloth is utilized mainly to create self collisions, all parameters for keeping the cloth shape are lowered. Generally I'd always prefer Geometry VOP instead of H SOP Solver for these special tasks, simply because it allows me to utilize existing H solvers, no need to build self collisions and such. Drawback is, if I'm correct, that Geometry VOP is not synced with sub steps of Cloth solver, so I had to practically disable sub-frame sampling of H Cloth solver. Entire thing needs a bit longer simulation without speedy movements, to avoid skipping of some collision.

[Mathaeus]

Now I think it's more or less defined design. Added hair and few more details. Played with huge counts of curves in Houdini after more than year, have impression that everything is really really faster. Or it's just a new machine ;;). Of course such hairdo, perhaps human hair at all, it is almost ideal task for procedural, SIMD style of evaluation. A lot of repeatable patterns of simple basic element, no any ''topology'' change, everything defined by relative simple math.
In any case, today it seems to be possible to edit in enough 'pleasant' way, a full wig of 100 - 150 K hairs, using a custom set of routines created over visual programming system, all that on home machine. Thing in pic shows around 50k, btw.
Had a less luck with ''collar'', which is only thing that uses some form of cloth simulation. Had to switch to Houdini Wire solver for that. While this one is slower than H Cloth for such tasks of connected wires ( btw H Wire solver works on meshes, too), it was able to output a way nicer folding, still artificially invoked by turbulence noise, mapped by uv, used as custom force.

[Bullit]

What is the "collar", the stuff around her neck inside the bubble helmet?

[Mathaeus]

What is the "collar", the stuff around her neck inside the bubble helmet?

Yep, and that's only 'utilized' simulation here.

[Mathaeus]

So here's my first character created in Houdini . That's robot, basically it's only concept and main shape done in H, rest is Maya. Anyway somehow I like it, as rare case when I just 'got' some shape, playing with my Mesh Blend HDA, then actually later I've figured that 'thing' reminds me to voluminous 50s or 60s style SciFi robots, so decided to proceed with all re-topology and details in Maya.

[Mathaeus]

That's first test render, just to start with something. Last time I used H14 for rendering in Houdini. Now with H16, impressions about Mantra and Houdini are more or less same. Great renderer and app when it comes to anything 'unusual': has things like cylindrical curve shading that even with PBR, looks exactly like real geometry (well at least with size around one pixel), has built in curvature map shader (anyway too slow, so made curvatures in geometry network), has usable point/dust rendering, great volume rendering, great dealing with normals in VOPs, of course it can take any attribute into shader VOPs.....
....but when it comes to 'ordinary' things like MR style Ray Switcher, entire joy turns out in almost impossible long chain of changes deeply into shaders, so, nothing of my optimistic idea to use primary rays 'at will' elegantly leaving everything else rays to Mantra PBR rules. Also, it seems they have somehow simplified vision of shader component mixing and conserving energy, for small example, H16 variance of Skin shader seems to just add the 'Fresneled and energy-conserved by self' reflection on top of additive of three sss-something shaders, making an undesired burnout of highlights, some sort of yellow reflection instead of desired blue-ish, *and* it's
making fireflies at surface overlaps, so, had to re-construct the diffuse-sss-reflection component mixing (which is btw an another chain of Maya style A-can-go-with-B-only-if-C-is-applied-before-D). Generally, I went back to good old single scatter SSS from times of H 14, and good old Mantra Surface (now this is 'classic' shader). 'Principled' shader with its 'descriptive' parameters is looking too optimistic for Mantra sampling possibilities, and generally is like toy for anyone who grew up with something serious like vRay, and had to fight with MR. And yeah, 'reputation' of authors makes that 'Principled' thing even worse - from what I've heard, authors are a few facilities who never ever rendered realistic character, not even realistic car.
Long story short, shading and rendering wise, I'm pretty sure I'll be going a way faster and smoother with let's say Cycles and Blender. Anyway, it's still "lovely" Houdini.. weirdo.. in game. Hope I'll have the time to develop a bit more original look than this one. Summer is long...

[mc_axe]

Dayum nice detail

[NNois]

Mathaeus comment about HDA is exaggerated. Generally it's as simple as 2 click.
Yes if you wan't a full controlable parameter interface it's a little more complicated than ICE but it's not that far.

Does Houdini have compounds to share like Softimage ICE? The question popped up when Mathaeus wrote about deform by UV.

Well as you mentioned 'sharing', I'd say yes and no.
Yes: There is an equivalent of ICE preset manager window, so you are able to drag drop a custom HDA (Houdini Digital Asset) into network.
No: Creation, managing and sharing, that's a way more complex than ICE or Fabric, which must be great if there is dedicated TD in facility, so much more options and all that. However it's a way harder to manage, much easier to do something wrong, for example, I've managed to mess-up few factory HDAs while ago, so had to re-install Houdini to fix. Parameters are linked by expressions, not always by plain connect, so, copy paste of some nodes from one HDA to another, results in zeroed parameters. Evaluation is not same when you're into HDA or out. Finally, installing HDA from Orbolt site, requires a bit of IT knowledge (at least it was few years ago).

As matter of fact, people on H sites prefers to share H scenes, much more than HDAs.

On positive side, copy-paste between scenes works flawlessly, for much wider range than ICE (as (almost) everything in H is 'networked'). Personally I'm trying to avoid HDAs in favor of many smaller, per object networks. For possible systems of compounds, I'd prefer Fabric, which here offers a real multi-platform, together with robust and simple, ICE style of managing.

Thanks Mathaeus. Hope they can improve that. It was amazing the ease of sharing effects in ICE.

[Mathaeus]

Well just for nit picking , when it comes to getting a new, ''fresh" HDA, generally I'm following procedure described by one of Houdini gurus, somewhere on forums, which seems to be a way more than just a few cliks. In any case, procedure is much longer, more dangerous and complicated than in Fabric and, perhaps, other upcoming visual programming systems.
So here's how it is going in H:


"The way I do it is to not unlock the original asset at all but make my own copy first with the Operator Type Manager and put either in my sandbox directory (any directory that you do test stuff in or desktop which is the new /tmp ), add that and edit that.

1. RMB on node and choose “Operator Type Manager…”.

This opens up the Operator Type Manager with the given node highlighted.

2. RMB on the selected operator definition in the Operator Type Manger and choose the “Copy…” option.

This opens up the create new asset definition pop up widget to give your asset a new name and label. Definitely give it a unique new name and unique new label. In tab menus, it's the label that determines the sorting so I add suffix (after name) to identify uniqueness but still shows up with the original version.

3. Give your asset a new name and label along with a directory location and file name with a .hda extension. Then press Accept.

Now add your new node to the same network. MMB on the node to verify that it is your new defined node in the directory that you saved it in with the correct file name.

Unlock and edit away. "

[Mathaeus]

Dayum nice detail

Thanks
Basically I have one Maya file with everything related, from rigged models to all pieces of suit, I'm doing material assignments in Maya too . Houdini part is combining and deforming the things from loaded obj files (name of Maya Shading group is recognized as material name in H - for same with SI is SI cluster name plus material name). That Maya part is huge help, to recognize things visually. Transition wise, Maya is going somehow much better than I've expected, at least with fundamentals of 3d, like rigging and modeling. There's a sort of 'zBrush feel', of not so well organized software, but easy to 'get in flow'. In any case, after less than one year of really intensive usage, seems to be possible to 'get focus on creation', mainly thinking of *what* I want to do, not *how*.

Anyway here's last night trial. This time I've added a classic directional light together with environment map (first one is only environment map). While I have a custom envmap generator in H, able to create a precise HDR contrasting, from values around 60 - 80 to bellow 1, and Mantra is really good with sampling that chalenges, envmap lighting alone is still dispersed too much for my taste (nothing wrong with Mantra, here). By the way, 60 - 80 are HDR values where Mantra is able to do significant hair highlights or such, from plain envmap.

For now, my main concern is boring 'old fashion diving suit' coloration, I want something lighter, just for change. But it seems I'll need to go with radical changes in colors for something like that. Will see..

[NNois]

Hehe,
Well, you're describing a very specific workflow about modifying directly a factory node and without wrapping it so yes overwriting it has consequences...

Previously I was speaking about what we do generally in ICE with compound, we select the node, create compound , save, done. Reuse later
In Houdini you select the node, click asset/new digital asset from selection, save, done...

Plus you have the option to use the gallery, I tend to use it instead of HDAs. Generating a gallery item is super easy, you just have to drag/drop nodes to save it or to use it.
Plus generating a gallery item creat automatically a new "preset". For example if you're modifying the transform node, adding expressions to auto center by COG for example, you generate a gallery item to reuse later, then you'll also get a node preset generated automatically when houdini starts ;-)

Well just for nit picking , when it comes to getting a new, ''fresh" HDA, generally I'm following procedure described by one of Houdini gurus, somewhere on forums, which seems to be a way more than just a few cliks. In any case, procedure is much longer, more dangerous and complicated than in Fabric and, perhaps, other upcoming visual programming systems.
So here's how it is going in H:


"The way I do it is to not unlock the original asset at all but make my own copy first with the Operator Type Manager and put either in my sandbox directory (any directory that you do test stuff in or desktop which is the new /tmp ), add that and edit that.

1. RMB on node and choose “Operator Type Manager…”.

This opens up the Operator Type Manager with the given node highlighted.

2. RMB on the selected operator definition in the Operator Type Manger and choose the “Copy…” option.

This opens up the create new asset definition pop up widget to give your asset a new name and label. Definitely give it a unique new name and unique new label. In tab menus, it's the label that determines the sorting so I add suffix (after name) to identify uniqueness but still shows up with the original version.

3. Give your asset a new name and label along with a directory location and file name with a .hda extension. Then press Accept.

Now add your new node to the same network. MMB on the node to verify that it is your new defined node in the directory that you saved it in with the correct file name.

Unlock and edit away. "

[Mathaeus]

Hehe,
Well, you're describing a very specific workflow about modifying directly a factory node and without wrapping it so yes overwriting it has consequences...

Actually it was about *my* nodes..... Of course, nothing impossible to learn, after all I think I am one of rare people who were able to successfully submit something to Orbolt (well, not from first trial.... ), and even get some response by users...
But, yeah I have to admit that, after three years, somehow I did not fell in love with that workflow. Looks like a set of great possibilities for pipeline, but also I've experienced things like two SOPs saved in one HDA with completely different name, local per file install where certain HDA appear in one file and not in another one, so on.

All that by my fault, of course, but anyway, let's go a bit further of me, me, me, me, and my skill - imho real question is, how all that works in hands of let's say proficient artist, who's not having any positive attitude toward HDA organisation and such great subjects. From my little experience with acceptation of ICE, and little bit of H, answer is : it doesn't work at all.
While system like let's say Fabric, gives a way nicer ways to give to both sides, coder and artist, what they want, imho. Some people simply do not want that "Houdini way", that's all I wanted to say. While again, with something like Fabric, it can go as just another set of more or less standard Maya nodes.

[NNois]

Hi Mathaeus,
Yeah I understood all that of course.
I love your very good work, your talent, and, because of that you have a big voice here so I just wanted to be the little devil's advocate about houdini which I think is not that bad and is a very good replacement for softimage for some people ;-)

By the way can we see some of your work on fabric on a forum or something ?

[Mathaeus]

Hi Mathaeus,

By the way can we see some of your work on fabric on a forum or something ?

Thanks for nice words.

Not really, my ability to post on forums and my freedom of speech is related to my own software, that's XSI 7.01, Modo 8.1, latest Maya LT and of course latest Houdini Indie. Not that much sense of doing something solely by Fabric Canvas, imho - while in reality, when it comes to facilities and jobs, facts are somehow inverted - we all know that Maya or Max are much widely accepted than H.

This weekend is dedicated to background of pic, created in Houdini, of course. Stones, sand waves (if I'll find some feasible way to get that pattern) and such things.

[Mathaeus]

That's closer to final. Bright things on sides are mock ups, will put something else instead of them. Looking from positive side, just to mention a few nice things in Houdini and Mantra world:

Point rendering. Used it for dust on suits, also on ground, to avoid unpleasant 3d look of 'things' trying to be stones, scattered on plane. Somehow it melts the look of all things used for emitters. It's plain scatter of few millions points, density modified by noise, dot product to Y axis, curvature, whatever. Allowed me to use low poly, simple 'stones' created by hand in Maya. While there are nice stone generators for H, all that creates a bit too much of polygons.

'Ends' SOP and Hair Normal shading VOP. First one is able to turn polygons into lines by one click, creating a sort of renderable wireframes. Second allows to use any shader on top of this. Used it to exaggerate an intentional faceted look of suit, also to avoid bitmaps for cloth textures. For now, only bitmap is environment map. Will ad textures for skin shading, that probably will be everything about textures, here.

Constant Smoke shader. As name says, this one does not calculate scattering or self shadowing, so it's a way faster to render. It still takes color and density from VDB voxels, so, pratically anything except maybe believable scattering is possible to get by volume VOPs in VDB calculations, before any rendering. Used this one for depth fog, have plans for more ambitious tasks.

Played a bit with realistic sand waves, it seems that only some recursive, packing method is able to create a typical Y branches, together with typical almost even distribution - so nothing of that for now, too much of hassle for backround.

[Daniel Brassard]

Hi Mathaeus,

Great job on the character designs and polish render. Your feedback on H is interesting and informative.

Have you considered changing the helmet designs to be in line with the organic biosuit? The current design is acting like a magnifying lense, increasing the head size of the character and IMHO not fitting with the rest of the biosuit design.

I found those on the web for inspiration. Overall great job on the scene.

Cheers!