I really like the messy aftermath. #mpm #sidefxhoudini #friendlyspider

Spidey is crawling its way through the desert. A couple of million points. Spent a day optimizing the sim, cache time, and disk space. This way, it not only simulates what's moving, but also only saves what's actually moving. Compressing the points afterward reduces a good chunk of data, giving Spidey room to stomp its way through the sand. #mpm #sidefxhoudini #mechaspider

Spidey is getting some sandy ground to walk on. MPM is awesome! #sidefxhoudini

Working on a sand simulation for the spider and encountered something very new in Houdini (for me). Did you know the SOP Solver is actually a DOP Network in disguise, and you can not only dive into it, but there are also way more settings you need to know about than the usual Solver workflow suggests? Like, interpolation of values can go terribly wrong, looking good on whole frames 1, 2, 3, but going crazy on fractional frames. The workaround is to "Allow Editing" on your Solver, dive into it (there is a hole new world), select the DOP and uncheck "Interpolate Display Data" there. Soooo.... intuitive...

A little preview render of where the friendly neighborhood spider is at right now. #sidefx #houdini

Procedural walk and rig done. Spidey can walk, climb (not too steep), and turn around. I did the transforms manually due to insufficient default options, but it was pretty straightforward, with just some adjustments needed for the rotations. It still doesn’t feel really alive, though, so I have to think about secondary motion, twitching, random stops or slowdowns, and all of that without adding too many keyframes.

Very helpful, especially for mechanical rigs that need custom rotations and precise, controlled movements around joints and gears.

Spidey is getting new legs. Movement is slightly improved, too. The rest of the body will follow, with a couple of secondary motions on top. 2 keyframes manually set. #sidefxhoudini #procedural #spider

My spider-senses are tingling… or maybe it’s just my stuffy nose

Super happy, the Water Swirl Effect is now on Patreon. Cheers and kisses Irinel

I am so grateful to be able to call myself a 3D artist.

sneaky peek for the next tutorial

man, DLSS 5 is crazy...

The HDA is ready and will be added to the shop on Monday. Everyone with an All-Access membership will get access to it. Happy weekend! Cheers, Irinel

As promised, here is the first round of the file (sandbox) on Patreon. Keep in mind that I wanted to show it to you as soon as possible, and it is still a work in progress. However, you can already dive into some of the nodes and pull out any workflows that interest you. I'll keep working on it, as it's quite a large project.

I've built a little HDA that helps bring your geometry to the origin and back. I use this tool in almost every Houdini scene, which makes me think it could also be beneficial for you. I'm polishing it up for release and will put it on Patreon once it's done.

Most artists know the 80/20 rule, where a small set of skills drives most results and getting to the last 20% is incredibly hard. Is there any argument that AI development is fundamentally different (any AI field)?