Took some time to work on a animation of the Raven skull. This is the first time I have animated anything besides a simulation in Houdini and key framing is much easier than in C4d for me. Need to practice camera moves and learn more about time ramping. Would like this to be way more slow motion but not sure how to go about that yet.
Quick Coffee Time Study
Just trying to spend more time with Houdini and Redshift this morning doing a quick study while having my morning coffee. Seeing what I can make in a limited time and just getting in the habit of it. Not anything fancy, just learning but I did come up with a nice little jack to object merge the particles out of the sim so I could texture and size independently.
Creating a Snowy Forest in UE4- Breakdown.
Really interesting break down by Leah Augustine on how she created this landscape in UE4. A lot of interesting solutions in here.
“When creating the snow textures in Substance Designer, I also created a detail normal of simple noise that I used in conjunction with the base normal. I found that when you use subsurface you tend to visually lose normal information, flattening out your material. Since I knew I wanted close up shots, I wanted to exaggerate the normals a bit more to counteract this.
I personally think that a detail normal and subsurface scattering is what helped achieve more realistic snow for this project. Subsurface, in my opinion, really brought it all together. It helps give the snow better highlights around the edges and creates the appearance of light shining through it. Subsurface can be costly, but it does make a difference .“
I tried making some snow in Octane and C4d and failed tragically. Will have to landscapes another shot at some point.
Animated Last Post
Wanted to play with animating the last project I posted. It’s my first go at actually getting into a keyframed animation in Houdini. Everything else I have done has just been a sim. Actually getting into the POP network and keyframing it to behave how I was wanted was nice. Overall, Keyframing in Houdini seems pretty easy. No need for the Dope Sheet like in C4d to move keyframes.
Attributes / POPs from Images
Little daily render based off of a Nine Between tutorial, “Houdini Tutorial - Nodes Part 1: Attribute Nodes”. Rendered in RedShift. Might try to run a animation of it later. I can not recommend delving in Attributes and VEX sooner than later. This set up is shockingly simple.
Red Shift Layered Materials in Houdini
Just wanted to work on a quick daily messing around with layered materials in RedShift Houdini.
Did a bit of scatter of smaller spheres as well which I need to look into how to UV. Not too sure on how to use Particles in Redshift yet.
More Houdini and Vellum
Wanted to dive a bit into simulating with vellum so here is a pretty simple set up with a heart “balloon” type thing tumbling down some stairs.
Ran into issues with the normals flipping a lot in redshift but not the viewport. Still not really sure how I solved that issue, it just kinda went away as I was futzing around with nodes. Here is a screen shot of the Heart Geo node showing how the dynamics were wired.
Nothing fancy going on with Redshift at all but I am finding it a bit more interesting to use than Octane in Houdini at least. Not using it as much in C4d. But that is where I do “work work” and not just play with Ideas and Concepts. Now that I look at this screen shot, I should really have a Null in there…..
Houdini and Vellum.
Taking a break from learning more about Houdini’s attribute nodes to do a short study with the new Vellum solver. I did not simplify the geo in this model or tweak it. Just dropped all of it into one geo node and Houdini delt with it rather well besides a few pointed points. The animation never comes to a rest but like I said, I just plugged it in and let it rip. Using RedShift for my render engine and learning that now as well.
Moving forward with the new year, I plan on posting my danklife instagram imagery here with a bit more back story for two reasons. One, I can add the backstory and direct link to any tutorials or resources used in the making of. Two, instagrams compression officially sucks major shit. Good lord, it’s terribad. I guess part three would be to replace the dumpster fire the danklife facebook page as well.
Houdini and Redshift
Been wanting to shift more into Houdini and Redshift lately and this weekend I had a little time to test out some particle tracers. Houdini just gives so much more control then Modo or Cinema 4d when it comes to FX, the little details really make the difference. It is rather difficult to parse though. Not a easy switch at all.
Insect Apocolypse Series?
This might be shaping up into a actual series. Working on a Bee piece next.
97% Decline
New Piece I did this weekend about the decline of the monarch butterfly.
CG art updates
Been deep diving into Houdini for the past couple of weeks testing out render engines and various other things. Trying to learn a bit of VEX and understand the attribute node and all that stuff. But yesterday I had a brain meltdown and just wanted to make something in C4D and Octane without breaking my brain. So I messed around a bit with the new Volume and Voulme mesher. Check out how the surface kinda glitches out and “breathes’ a bit. No idea what is causing that, lol! I also wanted to post this here because instagrams quality is really going to hell it seems. I can’t even see the scratches on it.
Yeah, this sums it up.
Webcomics Name sums up the Freelance world pretty well.
Houdini or bust
After much thought and weighing of options I have decided to do a deep dive into Houdini and Redshift and see what I can start doing in there. I am getting frustrated with doing sims and then figuring out how to export them from Houdini, into C4d and then render with Octane. Going to try to just get it all working in one dang place.
The possibilities are super exciting and with the speed of Redshift I can see myself having a easier time with look dev. Doing some basic tuts to start and rehash the basics then moving on to more advanced stuff hoping to absorb some of it. Hopefully I’ll start posting Houdini made abstract skulls shortly, lol!
Starting with these two series to rehash the basics and get some particle work going on. Then I want to revisit Applied Houdini again. I got through the first two working on my smoke sims but got in over my head. So a recap on Houdini and then a deep dive into smoke and particles. That should cover the next few months!
Realism Studies
Been focusing more on my realism with CG lately and wanted to post a few different pieces using Physical Renderer in C4d and Corona Renderer. If you follow me on Instagram you may have been seeing these trickle in. Lots of little differences between the two render engines. The light plays a bit more subtle with Corona but Physical can hold it's own once you tweak the GI a bit. Corona gets the "Flare" of sunlight with shadows way better. Corona is really plug and play, no tweaks from the defaults at all but the materials are a bit different and it crashes Team Renderer every time. So it is not production ready as of yet. Interactive render is very responsive, but save often. Physical gets some really nice details and the Multi-Pass is less glitchy.
Right now in my head I think for stills I would use Corona and for anything needing animation I would use Physical but I got this feeling I can get more out of Physical yet. Anyways, check em out.
Clear LCDs as animated stained glass
This is pretty amazing. "‘Illuminated Glass’ is an interactive art experience that reimagines the traditional art of stained glass. The heart of the installation features a 4 panel box made with transparent screens and mirrors. A generative art system plays across the screens, appearing at first like modern stained glass. Light shines through the art, letting colored light into the experience."
Loops and Learning
Starting in May we took on a big CG project where we were doing all the finishing on product renders. They would send us the raw renders and we would clean up and UV glitches and work up light passes to get the renders to a super clean hero look. This gave me the chance to pick the brain of the CG lead over there about what he was using in his workflow to get his results. They centered on C4d and Octane and the results were really good. I never tested C4d because most of the rabble on the internet seem to slam it as only being good for making spheres look cool on instagram. But after this conversation, I picked up the Demo at the start of June and now can not stand to open Modo. Anything more than converting a file to FBX and I want to tear my head out. With Cinema 4D I find making animations super easy and rewarding. Plus, this also has opened up using DaVinci Resolve to do my post on the renderings which is a very powerful tool as well. Here is a before and after of my latest animation that shows what DaVinci can bring.
Before and After DaVinci
You can see more of the animations on my instagram page which is where I primarily post these things. So far I mostly just use the Physical Render in C4d and have not hit any major snags but I am running some tests with Corona which is really interesting. Corona was also just bought out by The Chaos Group who make V-Ray which is really interesting to me as I really liked the results of V-Ray in Modo. Anyways, just some rambling on what I have been doing for fun, enjoy!
Photogrammetry!
Been making some progress with photogrammetry lately. It's a lot of work but I am really enjoying the results. Been posting these to my instagram but I thought I would add something about how they were made as well. I am shooting with a Canon 5dsr, making the meshes in Capturing Reality, modeling the scene in Modo and rendering in VRay. It's sounds more complicated then it is honestly.
This was my first go with a boot. Was pretty shocked at the results and that it snapped together this easily. Here are the original captures, the mesh cloud in Capturing Reality, the set in Modo and the Final render. I could not yet get the bottom of the boot on so it was hollow.
Second go was a vintage camera and the lens kinda messed upt the whole thing. I would like to go back and try to remodel this to clean it up. The details on the leather and all the dust made me happy. Hollow bottom.
Third time is a charm with a sculpture made by Drew Leshko (big fans here). This time I shot 430 images. Half with it right side up, half with it on it's back. I made two meshes this time and stuck them together in Modo to get a full 3d model with no hollow bottom. Really digging on this.
VRay Fun
Been testing out VRay for a bit and it has started to really grow on me. I can spend more time getting the lighting and textures right instead of hunting down the noise demons that dwell in Modo's render engine. I really just hit render and let VRay do it's thing. Here is a outdoor study I worked on last night.
"Some places are better left forgotten..."
New Work in the Wild: Maui Brewing
Being big fans of Hawaii how could we say no to doing some product renders for Maui Brewing? I simply can't. The fine folks at The Butler Bros reached out and asked if I could do some renders of their brand redesign and I jumped at the chance. Check out the full project here.
