Finally done with the first part of the gum shot after a lot of problems with the particle fluids. Am putting up the video I have so far and combined with the previous shot.

Here's a test render of the walk on gum shot. Still a lot of things to iron out. Hopefully I will have something better after the weekend. I will be upgrading to Snow Leopard, heard Houdini blazes by in SL so let's see...cos right now waiting for Houdini to cook the particle fluid surfacer can be very trying on my patience.

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Looks like everyone in Toronto is getting ready for the weeekend...cars lining up University Ave as far as I can see, all heading for the expressway in the south.

Chewing gum test

Using the fluid surfacer instead of polywire sop yielded better results of the chewing gum test.....

Niagara Falls and the Canadian airshow

Had the chance to visit the Niagara Falls. It was really nice and the warm weather helped in producing some decent shots.

American Falls and Horseshoe further away.

Also had a great time at the Canadian Airshow on Monday (7th) with the jets up close and personal....

US Navy's Blue Angels

The F22

The Blue Angels doing their stuff..

Stepping on gum testing...

Have started some testing on my third shot on stepping on chewing gum. I am using Houdini's wire DOPs, wire solver and RBD pin constraints. The elasticity of a gum 'strand' is designed such that they are not uniform along the strand. This is so that the strand elongates more in the centre and less at the ends. Using the distance between the points, I then am able to control the width of the strand - bigger distance or higher stretch, so thinner; and smaller distance between points will mean less stretching and so wider gum width. This elasticity of the each wire (called klinear) is multiplied with a float ramp to achieve that non-uniformed elasticity and stretching.

The distance between points is then calculated with the help of a vop sop. The width of the strand is then calculated by taking the inverse of the distance between points. This width is fed to the radius parameter of the polywire SOP to finally create each strand.

Right now the strands seem to exact same look, so will need some research and testing on how to randomise the widths of different strands.

First single wire test.....

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Multiple wire test, ok but gum strands look alike...need random sizes...more testing later....

A view from my desk in the Toronto office...

overlooking University Ave (North Westerly view).

I can see rain clouds coming in now. Looks like it's

going to be a wet weekend and cooler. But forecasts

say that it'll be drier next week.

Short shot done in Houdini

Been some time since I last posted. Been busy with my project and settling down in Toronto. New place, new office, new people. During the past weeks in LA, I've been working on a shot depicting my walk to work. It is fully done in Houdini. It was a way to learn how to use the various components in Houdini...modelling, rigging, animation, some particle effects, some more SOPs, shaders...etc. Always felt that the best way to learn is to go hands on. Here's the movie clip...it's one shot in a series. The animation is quite bad but I must move on to something else...the next shot simulating chewing gum..