That Initial Post - Why this exists

-
So basically I wanted to create a blog primarily as a place to keep all my thoughts about the things I am trying to learn.

I am a very scatter-brained individual, one minute I am trying to teach myself the ins and outs of VFX pipelines, the next I am trying to teach myself web development.
I am all over the place. But I have heard that having a place to talk through projects and the things I am trying to learn is a great way to not only document your progress, but a great tool for cataloging all the information you are trying to harvest and digest.

So here we go. Lets see if I can keep this thing going. Turn it into a habbit to come here and write down the stuff I am consuming and trying to understand.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Installing & Running Houdini on Linux

-
Since my workplace often ran their 3D tools on Linux machines, I decided to set-up a "linux box" and install Houdini (among other things) at home. Obviously installing software onto a linux computer is different to the quick and easy installation process on a Windows PC. So here are the steps I took to get it up and running on Ubuntu: 1. Download the installation file from the SideFX website . 2. Run the following on the .tar file you just downloaded      (the version I had downlaoded was houdini 16.5) : tar xvzf houdini-16.5.378-linux_x86_64_gcc4.8.tar.gz 3. Then run: sudo ./houdini-16.5.378-linux_x86_64_gcc4.8/houdini.installer 4. Once you have run through the installation, in order to get the 'houdini' command to work in                terminal you need to setup the houdini environment variables, such as the path to the Houdini              binaries (as stated in the houdin...
Read more

Learning Houdini's 'Surface Operators' (SOPs)

-
Image
So after 3 weeks of Uni and not getting back into my 3D study, I am finally forcing myself to learn some things. It's a friday night and I have forced myself to, instead of playing games or generally lounge around, actually start doing some Houdini stuff. I have decided to dive into the basics of SOPs. SOPs networks are responsible for creating and modifying Houdini geometry. Some interesting nodes I found Some of the operators you can use on geometry are polybevel, normal, polyreduce, polywire. I found the polywire node particularly cool, as it lets you create a wireframe of your object: A lot of these were very familiar looking operations to me since I have seen a lot of these things when using Maya, however seeing it used as a node network is very interesting. Especially the speed in which complex shapes can be created. The delete node is something I hadn't seen before. Being able to delete stuff based on rules, such as deleteing any face that is facing a certa...
Read more

Voppity Dop Sop Chop

-
Image
These are some notes I have taken while watching some beginner Houdini videos, primarily discussing the language of Houdini. NOTE: Keep in mind that this is pretty messy and information is a bit all over the place. I am basically treating this post as a way of taking notes while learning new things on Houdini basics from the SideFX site. Nodes/Operators Surface Operators (SOPS) :    Deals with geometry.   Geometry , volumes, attributes, VFX.     e.g. Procedural Soccer Ball - Network Model created from network to the right. Channel Operators (CHOPS):   Deals with motion.   Procedural motion FX (this can be used in place of keyframes for a more realistic motion), e.g. Add motion FX to the Y axis alter the way that the motion behaves kinematic solvers, timing, sound, constraints Dynamic Operators (DOPS):   Deals with simulation.   Solvers, forces and collisions.   e.g. Fl...
Read more