This project was based off of a Render Challenge called Moving Meditations. With render challenges I really use these project templates to learn something new. This was one of my first render challenge submissions so many of these projects take me longer than the deadline. I use it as an opportunity to break things. I mess with properties to better understand the aspect of Houdini or 3D that I’m learning.
In this project my priority was learning Houdini Oceans and water. The secondary field was taking rigged characters and transferring them between softwares. Also in this, I took a look into Houdni Clouds and the system that works with.
Starting with the rock I made 2 versions. a high poly stone that resembled obsidian, and a low poly smooth rock. I used the low poly rock to test the wave and collisions. Once I was satisfied, I switched the models for the final simulation.
Creating a wave tank with collisions was fairly straight forward. It took some time to develop the best wave for the situation, knowing I would add white water later on. Much of my work with water took a long time because of the hardware of my computer. Taking a lot of time to simulate with such a high number of points. Once that was figured out my biggest obstacle was the ocean.
Creating the ocean itself wasnt too difficult. The harder part was making the water choppy. It needed to act like storming seas. We aimed for this without creating an obvious tile-looking effect. Gettting the water to look more random, without wave patterns appearing was a hurdle for sure. Lastly trying to morph the ocean with the wave tank water was what took the longest. The problem was the edge of the water tank. It did not have the same waterline as the ocean. This resulted in an obvious line.
I was finally able to troubleshoot this, add the character for the simulation and render. Finally, I comped in the cloud render. I added lightning behind it for effect. I also added water spouts and rain for better immersion.
Austin Gochenauer 