final project - university of california, los angelesjteran/270a.1.16f/houdini_basics.pdfrendering...

Final ProjectHoudini

Houdini (Apprentice Edition)

• Download from https://www.sidefx.com/download/

• install run etc

• need to create account

https://www.sidefx.com/download/

Loading OBJ

Loading OBJ

hover mouse and hit ‘tab’

Loading OBJ

Loading OBJ

hover mouse and type ‘file’

Loading OBJ

Loading OBJ

click ‘File’

Loading OBJ

this thing appears,

click it

Loading OBJ

now this thing

appears

Loading OBJ

double click it

Loading OBJ

Loading OBJ

this will let you tell it where to load obj files from

Loading OBJ

click it

Loading OBJ

choose dir to find obj,

e.g. teapot.obj

Loading OBJ

click it

Loading OBJ

Making a flip book• you need to load a directory of obj’s

• put all of the obj files in the directory

• need a naming convention like ‘file_0.obj’, ‘file_1.obj’, ‘file_2.obj’ etc.

• you can then animate these using “flipbook”

Loading OBJs

this will let you tell it where to load obj files from

Loading OBJs

click it

Loading OBJs

choose dir to find obj,

e.g. teapot.obj

Loading OBJs

the objs, click it

Loading OBJs

Loading OBJs

Making a flip book

• you need to load a directory of obj’s

• put all of the obj files in the directory

• need a naming convention like ‘file_0.obj’, ‘file_1.obj’, ‘file_2.obj’ etc.

• you can then animate these using “flipbook”

Making a flip book

click this little flip book icon

Making a flip book

these are the start and end frames for

the flip book

Making a flip book

you can watch this like a movie by

clicking play once it’s generated

Rendering

• the last flip book is with OpenGL level quality

• you can render it more realistically with Houdini

• this can be done in the following sequence of events: improve sharp normals, add material property to objs, add ground plane, add lighting, set camera angle, render

Rendering• improve sharp normals

• add material property to objs

• add ground plane

• add lighting

• set camera angle

• render

Normals

double click on the obj node

Normals

now hit tab the type “normal” to add a normal processing

node

Normals

now a normal node will appear

Normals

click the bottom of the file node and connect it to the

normal node

Normals

click on the normal node, then click the tab at the right (in blue) to turn it on

Normals

now adjust the angle threshold slider, it treats

edges below it as sharp

Normals

Notice the edges are sharp now




• add lighting


• render

• you can render your obj as plastic, glass, metallic etc

• if you want to make it look like “jello” you can use glass

• this is a little more expensive to render though, you can use plastic for a quicker turn around

Material properties

Material properties

Back out of the file node by clicking

“obj”

Material properties

Now click on “materials pallete”

Material properties

Let’s choose plastic: click it and drag to window at

right

Material properties

Now click it to examine properties

Material properties

For example adjust color

• next you need to tell the file/obj node that it should render with the plastic material as you set it up

• you have to click on the file node to do this

Material properties

Material properties

click on /shop to go back to node view

Material properties

click on shop tab to reveal obj option, this will bring you back to node view

Material properties

now click on the material tab to

reveal plastic as an option

Material properties

now click on this icon to reveal the material choices

Material properties

choose plastic and accept




• add lighting


• render

Ground Plane (Grid)

• adding a ground plane makes the rendering look a little more realistic

• this is a “grid” node in Houdini

• you can create it by hitting tab the typing “grid”, similar to the creation of the “file” node used for objs

Ground Plane (Grid)

Ground Plane (Grid)

enlarged lower right

Ground Plane (Grid)

• double click the “grid” node to modify it’s size, e.g. set to 100X100 (default is 10X10)

• then exit back to “obj” view to see all the nodes

• then modify the height of the grid (e.g. shift y by -.7)

Ground Plane (Grid)

double click grid node then modify

size

Ground Plane (Grid)

click on obj to exit grid node to see the other nodes

Ground Plane (Grid)

now shift plane down in the y

direction to make some room for the

object




• add lighting


• render

Lighting

• a simple version of this is to add an environment light

• this is like an ambient light that has no obvious source but lights everything up nearly equally

• you can add it from the obj view by clicking tab then typing “environment”

Lighting

click tab, then type “environment”




• add lighting


• render

Camera Angle

• click and drag in scene window to move the object around until you get an angle you’d like to render/create the flip book from

• click in upper right of the scene window on the “cam” tab

• click “new camera” to save this viewing angle

Camera Angle

position for viewing then save camera

view




• add lighting


• render

Rendering

• you can preview the render by clicking on the render window tab

Camera Angle

the “render view” tape is here

Rendering

click here to render

click here to choose your saved

camera view

Rendering

it will look like this as it converges

Rendering

by default it renders vertices as sphere (this doesn’t look good)

Rendering

• to modify this, we have to go back to obj window and modify the rendering geometry settings in the file node

• click the node, look for render option tab

• select the geometry tab

• select “no point rendering”

Rendering

select no point rendering

Rendering

now it renders the surface triangles instead of the points

Rendering

• to create a rendered flip book, click on the obj bar above the obj window

Rendering

click on “out”

Rendering

tell it to render a range of

frames

Rendering

tell it to render to frame 120

(or whatever is your final

frame)

Rendering

you have to delete

channels to do this

Rendering

then click Render to Play

and wait

final project - university of california, los angelesjteran/270a.1.16f/houdini_basics.pdfrendering...

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