Week 3: A Week of Breakthroughs!

This week was a game-changer as I delved into the world of Houdini and VFX. Let me walk you through the exciting progress I made.

Diving into KineFX:

I finally got my hands on KineFX, a tool I've been itching to try. Motion blending was a revelation, especially for someone like me who isn't exactly an animation whiz. The Retime node made it a breeze to cherry-pick segments of animation and seamlessly stitch them together. Shoutout to Mixamo for their animated rigs - they were a huge help. Sure, there were some timeline tweaks, but I managed to lay down the groundwork for some seriously dynamic movement.

Cracking the Concrete:

Next up, I tackled concrete fracture RBD.I used the dynamic emission setup from last week to pinpoint the area I wanted to shatter. The SOP Solver was my go-to for meticulously tracking the mask's changes over 24 frames. Instead of going straight into the fracture action inside the SOP Solver as last week, I only used the solver to calculated mask to scatter fracture points, then used Voronoi Fracture to break those pieces apart. Once I had the pattern I envisioned, it was all about defining where those fractured pieces would burst forth, rather than obliterating the entire concrete grid. That's where the "inactive" groups came in handy, cradling the pieces on the edges of the concrete wall while leaving room for the "emit" mask to work its magic.

Diving into the DOP Network:

And then, the grand entrance of the DOP Network! This was my first time working with it, and let me tell you, I learned a ton. Big thanks to SideFX for those awesome shelve tools. My fracture RBD setup had three key players: first, the RBD Glued Objects holding together the fractured pieces on the sturdy concrete wall. Next, the character steps in as the Surface Collider, interacting directly with the RBD glued objects and orchestrating their structural demise. Finally, the ground takes the stage as the Static Object, exerting its influence on the RBD objects when they make contact - in my case, when those fractured pieces meet the ground.

At my first attempt of creating the debris fracture, I encountered an issue with the shelf tool during my attempt to generate debris from the larger fracture pieces. The ground failed to function as a static collider in my setup, leading to particles passing through without interaction. Given the uncertainty surrounding the specific aspect of the shelf tool setup responsible for this, I opted for a more manual approach to creating an alternate debris setup.