Houdini Beginner Tutorial | Improved Shortest Path Growth

hey guys hope you're good this is max from MHS pod and today we will do an incredible tutorial first of all if you are new to this channel I really invite you to join our Facebook group called motion designers community you will be able to share your walk talk with people meet great artists and of course check out our Instagram page motion designer for daily inspiration this tutorial is pretty nice it's going to be a beginner tutorial we will see how to create the kind of effect and it's really nice because you can adapt it on mostly every object and we will see how we can create a nice variation this tutorial is an update from Ben Watts tutorial a really great one called shortest path course and it's been an incredible inspiration I've learned so much with this style and it's also taking the total Tom only foster techniques that I found on the odd Falls forum like he was updating the Ben Watts tutorial with his technique and I'm a bit updating the thing and this is what I love with education and sharing because in few weeks I guess someone will found out to even improve the set up and make it even further bigger and better maybe faster so huge thanks to Ben Watts and to only Foster because the technique is 100% their technique and not mine I'm just updating it and making some stuff with it so feel free to check an tag mah really great tutorials and Toad stomp like just watching is real is just mind blowing this is mind blowing artists hang is one of the guy working on the motion appear across a set of really nice tools for Houdini and I highly suggest you to check out so just after this small introduction let me show you what we will do with this technique and I will also explain every step so every people not familiar with Houdini will be able to understand what's going on at least it's better if you already done some OG&E because we will do a bit of coding but you can ask curious follow this tutorial the nice thing about this technique is all about the gloves it's an uneven gross the ban was then what technique is pretty simple to create and it's pretty simple to animate but there's one thing it's like all even and that's nice to have a nice even effect you can create really nice effect it's all based on the topology so if you change the topology it's it changed effects and it's pretty great to see all the things you can do but it's growing all with the same length and nice thing about the toad toad storm technique is like it's an even so it's like going and you can see that every shape is not going with the same with the same at the same time and that's the beauty of the effect it looks even more organic and so we will see Oh to create that and Oh to improved setup to make it a little bit more like organic like that so I will add a bit of a pie we'll add a bit of poly reducing dividing I will change some stuff from their techniques to make to make this one and we will see we can make an asset and I'm sure people will see oh to improve this technique and go even further so I hope you're ready after all this talking and let's make some Houdini now let's start I will create a grade into the object network so you can go here and eat enter or it's tab type great and then you can click so you have your grid you need to double click to enter into the network the sub network so we are in the network grid here you can see all your different networks we will do a bit of materials with redshift just after so we will dive into this and we will set the final redshift parameters here so don't be confused by all that it's really simple so all the things you made at the object level is happening in the object network here so you will add your different object and inside each scene you can have a bunch of object it's like subnets and you can even create subnets inside subnets it's pretty easy to understand but so you will be able to understand when I will dive into another network so after having the grid I will also make a sphere just to have the comparison I will I like the sphere and I will set it to polygons maybe maybe at frequency of 6 and we will create two groups so again each tab type group and we will change the group name to start group tied to points and I will group points so if I highlight here I can see that each point as a number so I can choose base group points a range of points or more than that if you want to know more about grouping you can click here and you can dive into the routine help and it's pretty useful because you will understand oh it works but you will also get an explanation of everything and if I type groups let's go to groups and I will have here more infos about the sin tax so pattern for example if I click if I use this symbol I will like group everything I can use group names I can use rent range for example if I go from 1 to 10 it will group 1 2 3 etc and I will not explain all that but if you if you don't understand what I'm doing it's like really easy to go into the help and at any moment learn more about what we can do so to start we will at for example start at the at this point so I will type the point number if I connect my not here the group will be active so you see that my point it's in highlight here so it just selected my point so that's that would be the start point of my house now I will create another group and this one will be a point group 2 and this one will be called end I will use a small expression called Dola Dola and and this will allow me like to reach all the point ok so it will start from this point and then it will propagate to reach all the points following the group and now I will use a node called find shortest path let's connect our node let's go here and let's change the output path from any start to each end because I want to reach each in let's select a start and let's select the end group and you can see that it works and it makes a pretty nice result so now if I want to animate this then what show the care of technique and it's pretty simple just add the count just I like this you can use the first you but you can also choose the second you and we'll be more accurate in your in our case and you can see that it makes this nice effects and it follows the topology so that's pretty great or I can change my effect I can change the topology to have a different effect so if I choose for example to go here and create as an example an extrude so let's type extra I go here I select a small distance I divided into individual elements maybe go here maybe have a bit of an inset if you come back at the end you will see that it's following the topology so it makes a really different effects and I can have even more influence as an example I can choose fully reduce go here and if if I play with the person to keep it will change the shape so let's make few changes and let's add divide node and with the divine node you have a pretty cool option called compute job to make nice X patterns and you will see that it will follow the patterns so pretty nice pretty great effect so oh do I create a more complex setup of that let's first create more variation into our topology let's create a point of up so it tab type point up go here highlight the point up maybe let's choose to have a bit more frequency like 12 double click end point Bob will allow us to code with nodes so it's pretty useful to create bunch of things but you can use instead an attribute or angle and type everything in the expression the language of Houdini so you can like use boss but sometimes whap is really faster than vexed an attribute wrangles and sometimes attribute ringers are really faster to create something in point whap you must also know that point verb are always easier to compute than full code but I'm not like coding or technical artists so I use as much as possible Bob because yeah sometimes easier to angle sounds so dive into it and we will grab the position of our points and we will add a bit of turbulence so type turbulent and you will AB the nice connect the position into the position here let's change the noise let's keep the noise one D noise and let's connect the noise into the color channel and you can see that I have applied noise let's right-click here let's go to vex lab option and create input parameters it will allow me to control all that parameters outside of the verb and it's going to be easier to use so all our parameters are here and I can make you change for example to get rid of all that if I just want to have controls let's call that was an example controls you can select a color as an example let's have this in red and you can add a small note for yourself in the future of a collaborator and use red nodes or controls are over red nodes can even change the color here so if you are diving into and in the future in your file you will remember all the things you've done so let's go here you can go here edit diameter in TFS interface and you can get rid of all that so it shift select all that and you can just set them as invisible so you can still add them but there will not be displayed in the map so you can really focus on things you want to control instead of a bunch of useless parameters now let's change the roughness of the noise maybe point I don't know just choose a low value because you will maybe need to change it depending the object let's change amplitude and have something big to have black and right areas and we will use this black and white data to control our body reduce so if I go over the body reduce you can see that it's reducing using percent percentage to keep and it's quite on them like it will be even even oh all around my sphere but I wanted to have a more addiction and less friction following the color so oh I can do that I can go here make religion sensitive to attribute and hit the plus and here I will just type C D and why I'm typing CD because CD is the color attribute in OD knee in Oh Denis you must know that you have some like premade attributes like P for point position you have P scale for particle and point scale you have scale scale you have orient for orientation of copies you are CD for color you have a bunch of things and you can also create your own attribute so you must know that there's if you like pre-made attributes and that you can also create your attribute with values and different type of stuff so now let's see what it does CD and let's change let's pulley reduce all that and you can see that it's not making something even and it's pretty great you can see the difference here I can change over my control the frequency of the noise if I want something different and using the divide it will create a really more relation so the clothes will be even more organic so that's a way to create some and I can get rid of the color using an attribute delete and why I'm using an attribute delete because not free Butte is like exists till it's deleted you can see it in the geometry spreadsheet you can see your ultra buttes here and you have points attributes you have vertex attributes primitives attribute and all that and you can also middle click to see the different attributes and that's why I still have color after my attribute web and that's the difference between an attribute and variable variable is just like existing in in a line of code but we will see that just after because we will make some coding and you will understand the difference so all that to say just delete the color and it's primitive attributes here I found in I that's why I didn't found it in to the geometry spreadsheet and now I get rid of the color with this attribute delete cancels complicated that once you get the logic it's easier to understand and now what we are going to do now we want to change the space the clip space to use to control everything with the clip node and not with the the care of node because we will be able to add some jittering to all of that so now let's use resample node and resemble node will address to resample stuff but it will also you its making interesting shape but we don't want to resample we want to get the curve you attribute and curve you attribute we'll create some data over the point once again if you feel lost or if you want to know more about a node the genie dock is pretty clear about stuff the other is like to know how you can use each attribute I hope this beginner tutorial is Oakley I know it concerns a bit boring to someone already familiar with wooden II but I'm trying to make this tutorial like if it was one of your first good in each doll then we will use a small node called rest and rest will create an attribute called rest and it will allow us to save the point position so if I make some deformation or some stuff I can come back to the original position right now I will use a bit of code so I will use a node called attribute angle and I will be able in this node to type the expression let's think about a few things about code so code is like you read the code line by line from the top to the bottom line is ending with a semicolon so if you don't have a semicolon like the line is not finished you can use loops to execute few lines of code and execute them three times you can also create condition using if then and you can also add comments using two black tax lashes so if I type hello it's just a comment and here you see it in white and it will be actual code you must know that in code we will have attributes and variables so variables stalls data you need to tell which viable is the value of the variable in the type of viable so if my variable is a float I type float I type the name and then I say the value of the viable and if I use if I create an attribute I will need to use letters so f float it could be even integer V for vector I will create ad and I will type it so that's the difference between variable and variable will only exist in the dislike tile of X and an attribute will be created and will be still exists till it's deleted so the few the common types of variable are int for integer you have floats so interger like one two three four floats are our values with some not integer number numbers vectors is a collection of three float values for example color it's a RGB so vector also could be position an array is a list of position so for array you have matrix you are you have a lot of matrix but there's like grid of float values and you have string so string it doesn't walk here but strings are like texts valuable and you can find them if I go for example here if I go and I want to check some syntax for example like that point cloud let me show you an example ok let's go to the poet expression and you can see here Oh to create for example point reads appointed tribute value from geometry you choose the type you type point you choose Jeremy 3 input so it could be like 0 1 2 X 2 you have a string so we you will need to type the actual attribute name between let's say T for example like that and the integer so prime numbers or 0x title so that's that's the syntax for the common type of variables as I said attributes you will need to use the add before and you will need to specify the type of geometry so it could be F float before vector as for string even integer so example e that's the difference and then you have a bunch of other things for example you have if statement so you have less than you have less or equal you have equal to and equal is to equal if you use an if statement because equal is like to define a value but if you want to make a an if statement to equal now if you have this is not equal to and you can combine for example using that it mean you will you can be able to create a an end so it will take bus parameters all you can also create more than that using more symbols so so I just want to explain quickly what I will do and I think I think that's all at the moment but God could be complicated if you start and even myself I struggled a lot at the beginning and I will basically just reuse the code from totes Tom so I didn't like made something like that I'm just like using what he made so the first thing we will do is move to the UV space where Y is cure view so you can have at key it equal to set so we will use a set expression if you want to know more you can also highlight an expression and if you eat f1 it will open the related the related help so set to be 0 at cure view the attribute we just created before and 0 now I want to get the primitive number of this point and set it as an attribute so I will create an integer called premium and it's going to be an array and I will type plant frames 0 at attribute pit enum and P genome is an attribute that you can find in moodini we also find it here C picking am so you're also here an idea of all the existing attribute like time pitting an MP t pv age ID CD UV n for normal so and then I will say e that premium name it equal to premium see ho so let's connect that to here and let's see what's going on and I just hand with this dismal line and now I want to go further and I want to create like a jitter expression so it will like jitter [Music] along Y based on the on these attributes so up everything is up everything is clear it could be unclear but let me know in comment if you have some struggles I know it's a bit complicated but let's see so let's create another attribute to wrangle let's connect the other attribute triangle here and let's create a float called jitter amount so you can type AMT so I'm just like using the code as I said from dots Dom you can also change the name is not really important like you can change though the thing is just for you when you will read it and we can create a slider and the slider will be channel so I can type CH and I can create a channel of float value if I type CH but if I want an integer I can use t CH I now I will open the parentheses and I will sell create a name so I can type jitter AMT and I will eat the semicolon and when I will eat this button I will create parameters and I will have sliders to control all that so I'm create like a chittering amount and I will also create a seed so let's create another one called seed and let's create another channel called seed now let's use the float Y and let's type let's create a feet expression so feet range um it also exists in the in the table and it's clear to understand if you never use them in the verb so a feet range it's like something that allow you to remap values so you have like sauce mint sauce Max and you can change it to different so as an example zero and one let's say it's 100 and minus five I could say that minus 5 will be 0 and 100 will be 1 so that's what the the fit expression is doing but here the syntax is different and I will create also a condom so I type around I add prim name plus a seed 0 and cheater am T and again seed is related to this variable and jitter AMT is related to these values to to this variable so if it's called sheeter with to G I will need to add to 2 J here I'm gonna apologize for my French accent it's it could be I'd like to stay focused on a tutorial and singing and talking at the same time and now we will say it set our P so P will be equal to set 0 T dot Y so only the the the Y so if you are the point why for example after Pete will just take care of the axis here plus original Y and 0 and now I should click here and I will have jitter amount here and a seed so right now what I want to do is to add a clip to add the clip to control our effect because we will not use the cow-calf to control but we will use distance here to control what's going on so let's come back to our original state so let's use the attribute angle let's put the attribute angle here and now let's stop type ad be it equal to rest and let's see if that worked like that's the that's the Whitney and I'm like I hope this will walk so the latest thing to make it walk properly is to change keep primitive above the plane to go to primitive below the plane and you can see that the effect is really interesting and organic I love that so let's select red shifts let's go into our parameters and let's make few changes first of all I select some global illumination setting brute force and irradiance cache I now add a light dome to be able to light my scene with an HDR eye I will choose a NHGRI that I use quite often and I will add a backplate so all the background will be black at the rendering I need to create a webcam most of the cam not a webcam us all the time redshift is like creating a camera for us but some time we can like forgot so I need to set it in the scene I need to select my camera and Thai view to camera and you will need to make that even if you already have your camera you have all your strands let's go to the the render view let's open the render view and let's see what it does and at the moment I think it will not do something because we need to set few things at the object level let's go to the object level let's go into redshift object let's go to strands and let's click render object as strands you have different option I personally love cylinder but I will stay with strip as it's a really fast render and I don't have my color so how do I get color on that I need to create an attribute I need to create a material and grab my cg attribute because I already have a CD attributes but if you don't have color you need to create first your color attributes so let's going to the nets let's create a material builder I has metal builder let's dive into it and let's choose material so let's have our material let's plug it here and now I will go here into render and select my material paths so let's go to Matt let's go to redshift web net and let's eat accept so now I need to go back to my material path and I will type LS point attributes and I will be able to use CD you must know that sometime it will not walk because you will need to have some object that you can render as curves or you can may end up with some bugs sometimes with this technique depending the object because you will need to convert it in aleni but here I had a simple setup with polylines and it works properly actually I didn't try it out with our previous scene because I just had a crash and if it doesn't walk please let me know but at last you you get the the technique to render in redshift using point attributes up you guys enjoy this video feel free to you to check everything and also I would love if you can let me finish this video telling you that we've opened a patreon with the motion designers community with a bunch of really nice tutorials including free and private tutorials and the first three tutorials made by myself are here to help you begin with Houdini and create interesting shapes and there's like no code and no legs at all so I will show you all the things you can create and it's pretty it's pretty interesting so you will be able to create all these shapes without any cutting and you will get all the you teeny bases really quickly that's the result from the second tutorial pretty interesting and this tutorial are designed from people for people who comes from cinema4d so if you want to learn how to create all those interesting things and maybe go further and create different type of stuff feel free to check out our patreon tutorials and there are not that technical it's really really designed from someone that never touch eldini before thanks again for watching this video big up to Ben Watts and Todd storm I hope you guys will have other ideas to improve this setup and make some goals even more interesting and different and you will be able to adapt this set up just by changing the main object and it's going to be really great because you can change a bunch of things see you guys

Channel: Motion Designers Community

Views: 32,106

Rating: 4.9070969 out of 5

Keywords: motion designers community, tutorial, motion design, video, copilot, greyscale gorilla, greyscalegorilla, eyedesyn, brograph, sidefx, houdini, houdini 17, houdini 17.5, houdini 18, houdini crack, houdini download, crack, download, houdini tutorial, how to start houdini, houdini motion graphics, entagma, houdini beginner, learn houdini, learn, vdb, particles

Id: QXbz0TZz-e0

Length: 41min 41sec (2501 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019