Houdini For The Artist - Quick Tips - The Trace Node

To learn more about Houdini, be sure to visit www.cgforge.com
In this tutorial, we talk about the trace node, and how we can use it to very quickly model a leaf. There's all sorts of applications for this technique that will help you in procedural modeling and simulation, and you can also pair this with instancing to help you create a lot of variety in a short amount of time.

[@basemshenouda9980]

Literally the best video for Houdini I have seen , short, informative and easy . with there was a full Houdini course called " Houdini for Artists " .

[@nathanbayne3576]

stop being afraid of houdini with mark fancher is a great course, it feels more artistically focused than anything, and ive already learned tons

[@carlosmarcial61]

Thanks a lot for this amazing tutorial. Wish there were more Houdini Quick Tutorials out there.

[@noc2_art]

Thank you so much for these wonderful tutorial videos Tyler. You're truly awesome...

[@joellelievre7968]

Short & sweet! Thanks for the knowledge.

[@NielsProvos]

Great video. I like your very succinct style. Looking forward to more Houdini 18 insights. It looks like a ton of new stuff to get used to.

[@i20010]

Your tutorials are very helpful, thanks!

[@MrMythorst]

Those quick tips are pure gold. Thanks

[@IXDl]

Quick and useful, thanks!

[@Cadmium77]

Very nicely done. Thanks for this.

[@activemotionpictures]

I love this! thank you for sharing!

[@adproproductions2038]

awesome. learned something i can understand quickly. Going to try this tomorrow

[@jluisroga]

Great quicktip!

[@massimobaita7178]

Thank You very much, Tyler!

[@KO28JOJO]

Great tutorial. I like how you explain it short and easy and you always introduce other nodes.

[@CGINerd]

Awesome! Thank you for this tutorial!!! Simple and effective! 😁👍

[@irql2]

Love your videos too CGI Nerd!

[@karolinasereikaite]

fantastic, thanks for sharing !

[@NextroneOfficial]

I subscribed to see more videos like this just like you stated at the end of the video. ;) Very good and "precise" tut, which is what we all need. Looking forward to see stuff with good explanation as in this. Not everyone is pro :). Cheers!

[@cgforge]

Thanks for following along Milan! Making Houdini more beginner-friendly is exactly what I'm after right now.

[@georgekwilliamson]

amazing! thank you!

[@massimobaita7178]

Thank You very much!

[@3dtrip870]

sweet and to the point!

[@jeanctoledo]

Amazing video

[@FictionCautious]

You are awesome!

[@oraschannel]

worth subscribing to

[@chrysokerux]

hey thanks for the great tutorial! Unfortunately this doesnt show up in redshift, any idea why?

[@gulagwarlord]

Is there a way to deform the geo using the height map of the atlas set, like a displace modifier in Max? I can't find a node for that.

[@clemlysergy3335]

OK so now this weekend I'm going to be photographing leaves...

[@mahen9394]

This simply awesome 👍🏻.. is there any way we can place then dynamically on the round pile of leafs accumulated on the side curbs?

[@cgforge]

Yeah, absolutely. Each leaf is a packed primitive, so if you delete and/or alter the centroid point that represents each leaf, then you can make it take on whatever shape you'd like. So, in other words, group the points you want to remove by using the group sop, delete them with a blast, and you can move them around by simulating the centroid points.

[@FeatherandtheWind]

very good

[@sparthur]

thanks

[@picosdrivethru]

how did you make the nice pile in the last frame of the video? I'm dumb haha

[@haochen4826]

powerful

[@dissonantprotean5495]

This is cool. Do you have a tutorial to make the pile of leaves as shown in the thumbnail?

[@cgforge]

I don't - but I think all I did here was scatter them as packed prims into a volume

[@WillPreston3D]

how did you get the light to go through the leave like in your final render? is that sss? if so which mode? or some other variable like dispersion,fake casutics etc? many thanks,

[@cgforge]

I'm pretty sure I used transmittance in redshift. I'll double check next time I'm at my station

[@WillPreston3D]

Ah, redshift. Ok. I know how to do this in redshift and Arnold but I can never figure out how it’s done in mantra, do you know?

[@cgforge]

@@WillPreston3D Classic Shader --> Refract tab --> Enable ---> Refraction Model Translucency is what you need in Mantra

[@WillPreston3D]

@@cgforge many thanks Tyler

[@splinterbyrd]

how did you create the "texture map" b&w image you used?

[@cgforge]

Just a little bit of photoshop really. I also took the photo against a blue piece of paper so that I could make a clean selection of the leaf.

[@NextroneOfficial]

How do i get the back of the leaf to also have a texture? (Im creating a flower)

[@cgforge]

If it's just single-sided polygons, I believe there's a setting for rendering the backside of polygon faces somewhere if it doesn't already do that automatically.

[@tiomjias5375]

woooo!!

[@TalkThisOut]

bless

[@viewee22]

wow. amazing ...what the..;

[@edh615]

Hi I'm trying to trace a branch and then make it cylindrical, how could i do it?

[@cgforge]

Not too sure offhand - it would take some experimentation to figure it out. Maybe try extruding it and smoothening from a square shape towards a round one? You'll have to experiment to make that work

[@edh615]

@@cgforge I managed to get decent results with this: Trace -> Polyextrude -> vdb form poly -> vdb smoothsdf -> vdg segment by conectivity -> convert vdb. I used a occlusion mask of branches form megascans.

[@cgforge]

@@edh615 Awesome! I'm glad you figured it out then. That's a super cool method for making branches

[@skunchtv]

😶‍🌫️😱🤯

[@GameDevAraz]

Meh Too Many External Choices... Sadly Thats Boring, I Want To Procedural Create The Veins And Texture Of The Leaf Without The Crappy Normal And Shtty Image Set Up...

[@AndreiTheBadger]

the texture i add is smaller then the geo.. i did press initialize. WTF ?? Houdini 18.5

[@CompositingAcademy]

in the UV quick shade, set the translate to 0, 0, and the scale to "1" "1". It seems like UV quick shade moves some transform data around but it fixed it for me doing this