Getting video references
All the resources were from youtube, looking for ones where there are sparks, molten metals, hammer collision, heat-haze, glow emitting from molten items and debris/fragments from hammering. With a little bit of luck, maybe i'll get some with good lighting/mood reference.
Blacksmiths working
Lord of the rings, trilogy
There's too many videos, so here's two of them,
Youtube Video: Lord of the rings, Forging
Youtube Video: Blacksmith, swords maker
Refining Previs
Opened up my hip files and created more iterations for sh020 & sh030.
Rendered all 3 shots again, with different camera angles/framing, since flipbooks renders fairly quick - decided to tick the motion blur options too.
After analyzing Cataclysm Cinematic again, thought it might be good for visualizing my previs with camera shakes as well. Motionfx (CHOP) noise was used to animate camera shake on an null object, the camera was then parented under it. It was a method picked up from Mr Douglas (whose our client) during my final year project a month ago.
Felt the add-on really helped improved the previs, all that's left was to edit the new renders into a sequence for tomorrow's review.
sh011
sh011_mBlur_cShake
sh021_mBlur
sh021_mBlur_cShake
sh031_text_mBlur
sh031_nc_dagger
sh031_nc_ring
Millions of Particles I, Peter Quint Tutorial
Completed the tutorial and documented my hip file with lots of sticky notes, if anybody wants it to learn what was done and how they work. Drop me a mail at zhengjiabao@hotmail.com & I'll you send my version. Credits to Peter Quint!
Documenting nodes
Sphere interacts with vorticles (points with velocity field, those rgb lines)
Sphere interacting with vorticles
Focus on the sphere, you'll see it pushing the vorticles aside, the vorticles created here are just random forces in space affecting the particles.
It is messy to differentiate which are particles or vorticles, a lot of points flying everywhere.
Particles which are create in POP are white points, vorticles generated in DOP are the points with RGB lines (Velocity Field).
You can download the project files from Peter Quint's website but don't think they are documented with sticky notes.
Attributes and Variables
I still had my doubts about yesterday's attribute and variable class, opened up the capsule file again and went through the nodes from start. Eventually added some improvements to the animation,
- Tweaked parameters
- Added alpha ramp in "Color SOP" (either not working or not displaying in viewport)
- Motion blur for particles
- Camera shake using motionfx
Alpha Ramp
Camera shake using motionfx
Camera shake, motionfx
End result
Eric sat down in the evening and cleared my doubts, even went the extra mile using another simple example to illustrate houdini attributes.
- Local Variables namely Cd, width and pscale (Particle Scale)
Using "Line SOP" to demonstrate the above.
- SOPs and DOPs
- Troubleshooting the alpha ramp, "Color SOP"
"Line SOP" Example
A line with 2 points.
Created a custom attribute called "pscale" which houdini recognizes as "Particles Scale"
Created "Point SOP", added Color and color of line changed. Right now you will see attribute Cd when you MMB on the node.
Appended another "Point SOP", this time added velocity - same thing, MMB on the node and now you have a new attribute v (velocity).
The line appears blurry because motion blur is being calculated, this works without having the line being animated at all. One final setting to make this work, see next image.
Select your geo object on scene level, Render Tab, Sampling Tab & tick "Geo Velocity Blur".
By the way, we've had hear this quote a lot since we arrived - "Look at help docs!".
That's all, hopefully this ends up being useful to somebody out there.
p.s: Believe I remember rap showing this to me in the past.
Also have the hip files prepared for this classroom training, can email me if you want them.
Credits to Eric Araujo, SESI!
end.
Good sticky note documentation. Very useful for learning.
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