End of a Species
A reflection on the rapidly accelerating climate crisis and the self-destructive nature of our species.
Overview
This project sprung from a collection of random R&D in Houdini over the last month or so. From researching ways to create procedural organic forms to using gobos/brute force GI for interesting lighting/shadow casting. I eventually found a way to piece everything together, inspired by the frightening scenes of climate chaos across the planet right now.
I also created all the sound design myself, using Ableton.
Breakdown
Shortest Path Groot
The main technique behind the organic tree forms is Shortest Path Growth. It uses Houdini’s built-in FindShortestPath SOP, which takes start and end points defined in groups. To have the roots flowing down the arm I defined a bunch of points at the shoulder, then for the end points just selected one of every 5. The density and distribution of geometry on the incoming mesh is crucial for defining the look. To have more growth detail in the fingers I remeshed it using adaptive sizing.
Base mesh, remeshed to triangles
End point group selection, one of every 5
Shortest path curves
Swept curves, using a mix of curveu and cost attributes to ramp the width of the wires as they get smaller.
Swept scattered curves, for twigs and leaves
Scattered leaf geometry
Basic shortest path curves
Converted to VDB
VDB to polygon, smoothed and aligned to original surface distance
Using a tet conformed base mesh to scatter the paths inside the legs, not just over the surface
Standard paths on the outside of leg
Combined
Circular Storm System
I based my storm simulation on Saturn’s Great White Spot
Scattered points used for the volume emission.
Spherical Black Hole
Particle / Volume Process
Original volume sim
Particle sim
To displace the original particle sim into a spherical shape, I took the volume sim as reference and compared each particle to its distance from the surface of the sim. Usually this would be done to conform it to the surface, however if you push it too far you can get some pretty crazy displacement effects (which seem to still follow the overall contour of the reference sim).
Compositing Process
Rendered particles
Radial distortion
Figure and smoke element layered on top
Comp (opticals, defocus/lighting flicker)