Huh, did Pearl Jam just somehow make themselves relevant again?
Houdini Particle Doodle
While not trying to do the “Daily” thing, I do wanna try to do SOMETHING in Houdini everyday as a learning exercise. Last night I got into some particle effects which was super fun. Using only three nodes and no code I was able to come up with this movement. I just did a bunch of keyframing in the popAxisForce, popAttract and popWind nodes.
Rendered out in Redshift and then I threw some sound design on top of it all in Davinci Resolve. Pretty fun little piece for a quick little doodle.
Some Personal Renders messing around with Houdini
Just some of the instagram images I have been posting as I mess around in Houdini. Might have to switch to some High Key imagery for a change of pace… lol!
Impossible Pork?
I dig the burgers, but in our opinion they are still a treat and not something that is “more healthy” per say. Be interesting to see the nutritional breakdown on it.
Animation point cloud study
Here is the animation I have been working on for the last few days. The first time really getting into camera movements and editing and I really enjoyed the process. Looking forward to doing more in-depth animations like this soon. Sound Design by We Are Parasols. All done in Houdini and Redshift. This blog post has some more stills and shows how it was built out.
Flip SubFrame Interpolation
Or, how to make Houdini sims move in slo motion using the Time Shift Node.
Messing around with a new animation in Houdini
Taking a class on VEX and I’m applying some of the ideas from it in this animation I started yesterday. I want to add in some camera movements yet before I render it out. Hoping to get to that today…..
Better Flip book export for Houdini
Working on a VEX class and was looking to get a flipbook out of Houdini and it’s kinda wonky but I found this way to use ImageMagick to export as MP4s. Much easier.
Alienated, Alone And Angry: What The Digital Revolution Really Did To Us
10-20 years ago if you would have asked me about killing off the internet somehow I would have fought you tooth and nail. Now though, I think many of us agree, the internet has become a hellscape and it kinda needs to be changed or go away. So sad to see what so many of us hoped would improve the world be corroded in such a way. This article does a good job of summing up a lot of my feelings about where we are.
“Which brings us to the new economy of freelancers and gig workers, precarious, unprotected, and connected. Hourly workers fry their brains with images no one should ever see — information detoxification — working to meet bizarre and inconsistent standards handed down from a distant authority, and then melt down in filthy bathrooms. Harried subcontracted delivery drivers feel so desperate to meet overnight shipping deadlines they get in deadly crashes. Uber drivers, some of whom sleep in parking lots, have separate bathrooms than Uber corporate staff. These people, it stands to reason, might be alienated. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Meanwhile, the median home price is San Francisco is $1.4 million. This is where the Digital Nation mostly lives, in the most beautiful place in the country, profiting directly or indirectly off our participation in the alienating world they’ve built. Many of these people don’t want their children using the products and networks they build and sell. The people running the country don’t really care what happens to you.
Still, they’ll listen to you and spy on you for law enforcement. They’ll use that data, which they may or may not protect, to get richer. They’ll build special privacy schemes for themselves. Most people with power try to take advantage of people like yourself. Disempowered and unsure how to express it, you may take a strange comfort in the fact that there is another alienated human on the other end of your device. You’ll never meet them, but at least they will hear you.“
Band Photo for We Are Parasols
Did a fun shoot and CG set build out for the newest We Are Parasols EP release. Going for something a little different then the last moody ones.
Oh yeah......
That just happened.
DarkAge 2.0
Late night cloud study
Messing around in Houdini last night and felt like doing some cloud work. Here’s the result of that.
William Gibson
“After “The Peripheral,” he wasn’t expecting to have to revise the world’s F.Q. “Then I saw Trump coming down that escalator to announce his candidacy,” he said. “All of my scenario modules went ‘beep-beep-beep—super-fucked, super-fucked,’ like that. I told myself, Nah, it can’t happen. But then, when Britain voted yes on the Brexit referendum, I thought, Holy shit—if that could happen in the U.K., the U.S. could elect Trump. Then it happened, and I was basically paralyzed in the composition of the book. I wouldn’t call it writer’s block—that’s, like, a naturally occurring thing. This was something else.””
Good interview with William Gibson on the New Yorker.
Aside from that, I am pretty burnt out ATM so not a lot going on. When I am not working I want to get as far away from computers as I can. Since all my artistic output happens on computers… well…. my art output has been pretty low as of late. “Burn out” is real, people.
Book on CG cinematography
I found this really awesome online book that covers many aspects of CG cinematography. It covers everything from Color Theory, Gestalt Theory, Lighting Principles and so much more. I have been reading a chapter a day trying to absorb it all. This is a serious knowledge dump here with some excellent examples. He made it so I can’t copy any of the text somehow so just take my word for it and click the link.
Landscape Concept Study
I have been playing with this landscape piece in Houdini for a while now and finally got it to an interesting place. It’s my first landscape in Houdini and using Quixel Bridge has been amazing. It is integrated with Houdini in such a fluid way. They made it one click to import everything ready to go in Houdini and Redshift. I still struggle with so many little things in Houdini and take classes CONSTANTLY, so to just be able to click on a plant and have it import with scatter nodes and materials all set up is a crazy time saver.
Another little mental leap for me was being able to art direct the smoke how I wanted without bashing my head against the monitor for a day.
Did some post work in Photoshop of course. ;)
Couple new Portfolio pages up
Just threw up two more galleries, one of random digital art pieces I have been doing and another one of a series I did called, “Insect Apocalypse”.
Messing Around with Strands
Was messing around with strands in Houdini and Redshift and came up with this logo concept.
Feel Machine music vid
Did the opening and closing titles for newly released music video for We Are Parasols. Did it all in Houdini with Redshift render. Damn happy with the results. Pyro is triiiiiiicky.
New Ep cover art to share
Just finished up this illustration for a upcoming EP from the band We Are Parasols. C4d and Redshift on this one. Put some VDBs in a cloner instead of going into Houdini and making the smoke / clouds from scratch. Pretty happy with the outcome.
