GoldenNebula: Sketch #37 - Cute

Edit - FINAL RESULT:
https://youtu.be/g38WaWQOWTM

Good Morning Everyone!

My first challenge ever! :slight_smile:

I haven’t chosen which side I am on yet, I wish to explore and sketch both teams before choosing. I will update the title accordingly when the time comes.

But for now, I want to post my references pictures/interesting ideas** I found on pinterest and the sketch for the “Cute”. The “Scary” will come in the next few days.

References: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qIrE8FKxDmAGO7g-ov8rEcxCQt3A7K1/view?usp=sharing

Sketch:

**: Everything comes from pinterest except the bronze statue (by Domenico D’Alisa) that is available on the Sketchfab Market

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Hi everybody!

I’m posting my sketch for the scary team!

Even though I like both of my sketches, I think I will go for the cute one. I feel like it will give me the opportunity to put together different techniques that will be more challenging in the end.

I will soon send an update with different ideas on how I will tackle this challenge.

Have a nice week-end! :grin:

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Good Evening!

Here is what I have done so far in Houdini to generate the plant growth for the flowers. I am pretty pleased with what I have so far.

growingVine

I followed this tutorial and adapted it to my needs: Create Growing Vines and Ivy in Houdini - Lesterbanks

I plan on using this technique for blooming flowers: Some notes about L-systems in Houdini. – Toadstorm Nerdblog
Even if it is for leaves, I like the way the leaves unfold themselves.

Then the meshes will be done, the rest will very probably be in unreal.

I will post updates next week!

Have a nice Week-End!! :grin: :grin:

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Cool :slight_smile: Curious to see how you will translate this to real-time. VAT? Morph targets?

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Probably Morph Targets, but I will see this through this week! :slight_smile:

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Hi Everyone!

Big update today!

So I decided to use VAT to export the my animation from Houdini to Unreal, since it will have a lot more precision without asking too much from the Engine. I wasn’t too sure before how to do this, but I found a great tutorial from Andreas Glad that explains how to transfer everything into Unreal. (YAY!! :star_struck: )

I worked on the blooming flower animation as well as the leaves, based on the link I sent last week. Here is a preview of what it looks like for now:

Blooming

And here is the combination of both the plant and the flowers together :partying_face: :

VineGrowthV1

And finally, I also have created the butterfly particle system where the flapping wings are made with the world offset on the Z axis in the material (based on the answer Partikel gave on this post : Butterfly wings flap materials (Help!) - #4 by TheHobbit202)


And here is the result of magical butterflies poping out for the flowers after they bloom :hugs: :
ButterflyPreview

I will send more updates at the end of this week :slight_smile:

If you have any comments, feel free to share :smiley:

Good Evening!

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Nicely done! The only suggestion I might make is speeding everything up a bit as the sprouting flowers and butterflies feel a bit slow. Excellent work though! :+1:

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Thank you! :smiley: now that I look at it, I see it’s a bit slow indeed.

Good day everyone! :smiley:

Here is my update for the FX. I planned on posting an update last Friday until…
VineGlitch

:joy: :joy: :joy: I both laughed and cried at the sight of this. So I spent some time debugging to find where the problem ight come from, but since I have been using Houdini for less than a month now, well I tried but I found out I probably did something (or didn’t) at some point that gave this result. I tried solving this by making tests only on the flower, but…

FlowerGlitch

Anyway, I will probably spend some more time next month to see where it went wrong, but for now I will go for plan B: Morph Targets, which I know a little more about… The result won’t be as good as I expected, but I’ll do what I can :sweat_smile: (That’s what I get for being ambitious :stuck_out_tongue: )

I’ll give news when I have something new!

Cheers! :clinking_glasses:

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Depending upon which version of Unreal you are using, there were comments on this forum recently that the Vertex Animation Texture workflow between Houdini and Unreal had broken in UE 4.25; if you have access to UE4.23 it may be worth jumping back and trying in there

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Hi @ryvanc, I have been able to do Andreas Glad’s tutorial for painsplat just a few days before. The only thing I haven’t been able to do on this tutorial was change the size and the orientation of the paintsplat, otherwise I had no such glitches. :laughing:

Good evening Everyone!

Here is my update! Almost done! I will just have to assemble eveything tomorrow. But for now here is what I have to show you:

I made textures for the vines and the flower in Substance Painter:

The trunk is a mix of two substances I found on substance share, Moss by adelphia and Redwood Bark by Mauricio Llano

Here is the flower morph target in Unreal with several levels. It’s not as seemless as what it could have been with VAT, but heh… :woman_shrugging:

FlowerMorph

Here are the materials in unreal with a custom function for the GLITTER!! :heart_eyes: (for the leaves and the flower, still needs a bit of tweaking though).



Glitter

And here are all models together, there are just the particles missing and the project will be finished :slight_smile: : assemblage anim.

I will send my next update when the FX will be finished! :smiley:

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Good Friday everyone!

I made it! :grin: I am pretty pleased with the result! I realise now that it may be more “beautiful” than “cute” but I very much enjoyed working on this challenge. I learned a great deal. I will be participating for next month’s challenge for sure!

I hope you liked it as much as I did! :raised_hands:

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