Houdini Tutorial | Blooming Flowers | Model, Rig, and Animate | Part 2

Support on Patreon: / dannylaursen
Download HIP file for free: dannylrsn.gumroad.com/l/uvwzw
Check out part one if you didn't already: • Houdini Tutorial | Blo...
In the first part, we went over procedural modeling for a single petal, procedural rigging, and how to animate and deform a single petal.
In this part two of the Houdini flower tutorial series, we will create a phyllotaxis point distribution setup and run a growth attribute through it.
After that, the orientations need to be right to get the flower looking like a flower. This will be done with some per-point matrix transformations.
That growth attribute drives a skeleton blend, blending between a flower bud pose and a bloomed flower pose.
At the end, we will go through how to bone deform a single petal onto a flower full of petals.
In the following parts of this series, we will go over preparing the setup for simulation in Vellum, doing some post-sim tweaks, and creating materials and rendering in Karma and Solaris. At some point after that, we will break down a photo reference of a flower and create an animation based on that.
These methods are a mix of things I have seen from John Kunz on Patreon, Entagma, and some things I figured out together with Simon Reher.
Resources:
Mark Fancher // 01 - MAPPED TRANSITION - MFX Modules for Houdini
• 01 - MAPPED TRANSITION...
Flower Garden | Carl Krause | Paris HIVE 2023
• Flower Garden | Carl K...
Flower Projects | Paul Esteves | MucHUG
• Flower Projects | Paul...
My KineFX notes on Notion:
dannylrsn.notion.site/KineFX-...
My VEX notes on Notion:
dannylrsn.notion.site/VEX-cb3...
Feel free to ask any questions or leave feedback in the comments. Would be happy to see any flowers people create.
Instagram - / danlrsn
Behance - www.behance.net/dannylaursen1
Artstation - www.artstation.com/dannylaursen
Chapters:
00:00 - Overview of Lesson
00:29 - 1. Phyllotaxis
02:57 - Phyllotaxis Parameters
04:36 - 2. Growth Attribute
06:00 - 3. Orientations
06:45 - Visualizing the VEX
07:08 - Rotating in Y
07:55 - Rotating in Z
08:30 - Improving Parameters
09:00 - 4. Scale
09:48 - 5. Skeleton Blend by Attribute
11:46 - 6. Petal Deformation in For-Loop
13:50 - Attribute Copy
14:25 - Compiling the For-Loop

[@abhijithsjayan9575]

Ohh ya I am a fan now 😊 thanks brother

[@DannyLrsn]

Glad to hear it :)

[@hbskr]

amazing tut! finally somebody who does not overcomplicate things. I've seen lots of these flower tuts over the last couple of weeks. Now I was trying to to make my own setup, grabing the most useful info out of theses videos, while making my research again I stumbled upon this is one! Definitely of the best out there. Keep it up!!

[@DannyLrsn]

Glad to hear that. Definitely tried to keep it simple, but obviously creating a flexible setup like this comes with some complexity. Thank you for the kind words!

[@KenosDromos]

Thank you very much for this material, I’m really looking forward to the third part.

[@DannyLrsn]

Thanks for your comment. I am working on it!

[@limitlessrender]

At 5:35 I found the difference between this tutorial and the .hip file which caused the janky skeleton opening animation: Instead of: float p = fit(f@Frame, 1, 48, 0, 1); Danny changes it to: float p = fit(f@Frame, 1, chi("flower_bloom_length"), 0, 1); and remember to click the button to create the spare parameter. Note: The "flower_bloom_length" is set to "48" which I believe is equivalent to the total number of frames we have set on the timeline for this tutorial (frames 1- 48) - so this depends on how many frames you have on the timeline! :)

[@fengshieh]

Very clear explanation, and also organized all kinds of information in the description, i mean..nothing better than this!! thank you so much sir👍👍

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you for your kind words :)

[@IanStarr]

Thank you for this! looking forward for a new one, it's amazing how much info u provide with these videos

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you Ian! I am hoping to have the next one out early next week.

[@henrythejeditube]

beautiful animations, Danny, thank you so much sir

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you!

[@heyJasonLee]

insane tut，thx a lot😆

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you :)

[@massimobaita7178]

Thank You very much, Danny!

[@DannyLrsn]

You're welcome!

[@walabe8]

This is top notch man

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you!

[@frigbychilwether]

Hi, great tutorial , thanks for sharing.

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you. Glad it was useful

[@vjcyper]

great tutorial , thanks a lot

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you!

[@troopxl666]

Thanks!

[@philippwelsing9108]

Yaaay. 😍 Thanks so much.

[@DannyLrsn]

No problem! Hope it's useful:)

[@fluffypoochie11]

Hello! These are amazing tutorials but I got a little stuck towards the end. After I blended the skeleton around the 11:00 mark or so, my skeletons move at different times (yay) but they Jump to the open flower position instead of slowly open up. I don't know if this is a name error or I didn't animate a weight somewhere. I keep replying the part but no luck. Thank you!

[@DannyLrsn]

Thank you for your comment! I would recommend downloading the project files (there's a link in the description, it's free). That way it's easy for you to compare the nodes and settings in your setup to the ones in mine. Just take it one node at a time and see where there are differences in our setups. Hope that helps. Good luck!

[@limitlessrender]

hi @fluffypoochie11 - I had the same exact situation as you and figured it out. I put a separate comment above, but i'm pasting it here again: At 5:35: Instead of: float p = fit(f@Frame, 1, 48, 0, 1); Danny changes it to: float p = fit(f@Frame, 1, chi("flower_bloom_length"), 0, 1); and remember to click the button to create the spare parameter. Note: The "flower_bloom_length" is set to "48" which I believe is equivalent to the total number of frames we have set on the timeline for this tutorial (frames 1- 48) - so this depends on how many frames you have on the timeline! :)

[@sophienieu4877]

How to create this thing in vop

[@DannyLrsn]

You could try to find all the same operations in VOPs or just write the code exactly as you see it on screen and don't worry too much about how it works