Creature Experiment
After tinkering with this project off and on throughout the year, I’ve finally decided to put it to rest for the time being. This little creature began as a concept in one of my Houdini classes earlier this year and eventually made it’s way into a client project. It originally began while learning how to make basic copies in Houdini and served as a canvas for me to experiment with particles, dynamics, and CHOPs.
Below is some of my research into creating a procedural creature that is animated without the need of keyframes. The user inputs a single contour line and a motion path if desired and the creature wiggles it’s way from point A to point B. Most of the motion is accomplished in CHOPs, but it also place nicely with vellum for an added layer of dynamics.
General breakdown and additional experiments with particles and vellum dynamics. Using velocity as a particle emission attribute can create some believable air bubbles.
The rig is based around a method of staggering channel data across time in CHOPs (major credit goes out to cgwiki for getting me started with this concept). Essentially, if you have a line with ordered points, you can offset their attribute changes, like @P, by a specified number of frames. If you are familiar with something like the lag effector or jiggle deformer in Cinema 4D, this method can create similar effects. But since we’re in Houdini, we can take it much further and apply things like weighted noise and amplitude to each point. In this instance, each tendril has a ramped attribute that dictates how ‘laggy’ it should be.
Originally, I bundled all of the motion into CHOPs, however, I ended up simulating a ‘spine’ in vellum to have much finer control. Because it was only a few points, the simulation generally happens in real-time.
For now, my creature is destined to whither away in the ‘Houdini experiments’ folder, but I’m happy to have taken the time to share some of my work as this has been an enjoyable process.
