Final video

Particles, Memory, Limitations

This is probably the highest level of complexity and quality I can get a single asset too without overloading my physical memory. The buffer on the physics combined with the partcles uses alot of the computer's memory. To get this 9 sec footage I had to use up 3 gigs of ram.

Getting the assets to this stage took alot of debugging. The physics and particles clash when combined, and the DOP network(physics-solver)creates issue with the materials associated with objects. Having particles drop off shattered objects crash houdini when the object also has disintergrating particles.

Assets

For the final scene I plan to create an overall scene which houses all the geometry, with some parts animated. The details of the geometry will be animated seperatley to maximise their quality.

Final Quiz

In typical fashion I checked blackbaord to late to find out there's another quiz due yesterday. I looked at blackboard to find the presentation order and didnt expect to find that extra quiz. It may be too late to do the qiuz but I may as well do it just in case. The only artist I can remember is Natalie Jeremijenko.

Quiz: Natalie Jeremijenko

Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist who uses technolgy to critique society, people and nature. One of the works shown in the lecture is the footage of a spy plane flying over an area that is restricted against filming . The model airplane was flown over silicon valley, using a loophole in the information protection law to avoid prosecution. The work raises issues about surveillance and the freedom of information in modern society.

Also covered in the lecture was robtic dogs rewired to go beyond their intended commercial use. This makes the commercial robot dogs into open source material and promotes a community of free use and participation by comsumers. A read/write culture allows for the free use of the products and ties into the freedom of information ideas raised with the spy plane work.

Apprentice HD

I upgraded to the next version of houdini, apprentice HD, so I could render the particle effects inside houdini. This is my only option at this point, due to my inabilty to export the particle effects to other software programs. This means the final video has to staged inside Houdini as an animation. It could simplify some aspects of the finalisation but it also means I have account for large rendering times.

Problems with Houdini

I started looking at exporting from to other platforms for the final product. It seems that the apprentice version of houdini that I'm running doesn't support the fbx export system, which is the only way of exporting particle system. By doing this I also found out that this version can only render out small renders(720*576) with a houdini watermark. This has been a large set back as I've had to find a way around the exporting of the object and I have find a way to render the particle effects if I cant export them.

Upgrading Houdini to the Master version costs roughly 6 thousand dollars (USD) but is the only option for the particle exporter. My only option is to render the particles and thread them through my video by upgrading to houdini apprentice HD, which allows to me render properly. That will cost me $99 USD which might be difficult for me to pay with my limited budget. At this point I have little choice, and hope it works out.

Physics and particles

Turning objects into particles so far only works on full objects. A shattered object can be disintergrated as well but complications arise when the object is put in the physics engine.