Morph Objects into Other Objects in Houdini

Morphing objects into other objects can come in handy for certain animations. Today we go over how to do this in particles as well as with geometry.
Also make sure to check out the newly launched website at:
insidethemind.space
Leave a like and a favorite if you enjoyed. Subscribe if you want to.
Please let me know what you thought of the video.
Follow me-
insidethemind.space/
/ stormzedits
/ mindofstormz
www.artstation.com/matt_ekstrom

[@chaseaveta1175]

You could also use the first method of morphing points of two objects, and then convert that to polygons. This might allow you to have more interesting effects with the additional noise in the point vop node.

[@zninghe6345]

How to convert those points to polygons? Thank you!

[@thibaultzvat7438]

@@zninghe6345 I guess, point to vdb > vdb to polygons

[@JazzJustDGAF]

thank you for making this video I have been searching for something like this

[@shubhamrai4850]

Thanks for the tutorial your tutorial helped me a lot keep uploading videos

[@ghisleri]

A really fantastic tutorial, the effect is incredible and it has so many possibilities! THANK YOU VERY MUCH

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Glad you found it useful!

[@graemepalmer2306]

Perfect, thanks for the tutorial!

[@theresajones1015]

Incredibly helpful! Thank you

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Happy to help.

[@whippet_boy8594]

Surprisingly simple. Really good tutorial. Thanks.

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Happy to help.

[@karantaleykt]

Very Informative, Thanks

[@mannezak1738]

I think it will be finished earlier because Houdini does not automatically do any linear animation, it has a curve, you would have to make the animation linear in the animation editor. Greets

[@asklapios]

thank you so much

[@nathanbayne3576]

great explanation on this video, always grateful for your content as you pushed me into trying Houdini, now I'm more comfortable in Houdini than C4D haha

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Thats awesome! Houdini is extremely powerful. Definitely worth the time it takes to learn

[@shark6334]

thanks so much!

[@patrickortman2659]

It would be extra super cool to learn how to not only morph the geo between objects but also the textures. I haven't found anything online about this yet. Great video!

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

I've had multiple questions about this. No promises but I may look into it.

[@patrickortman2659]

@@InsideTheMindSpace a wise Houdini master told me this, but I don't know enough for it to make sense yet: i would add an attribute to the points. like 0 is sphere and box is 1. and then use that attribute to blend materials over at your render engine.

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Yeah thats a relatively simple concept but in practice I don't believe it would work if you are using UV's. If you are using something like a triplanar protection that would work. Basically he is saying to add an attribute that's zero or one depending on the object. Then in your render engine set up a material for object one and two and use a blend material with the weight of that blend being set to that attribute. In my mind that doesn't work though for UVs because the geometry changes when you morph so the UVs wouldn't be accurate anymore. I could be wrong though. It's worth a shot. Hopefully my explanation makes a little more sense to you. If not feel free to jump in my discord and I can try to run you through it better

[@patrickortman2659]

@@InsideTheMindSpace Thanks!

[@Oknto]

Great! tutorial

[@matteoforghieri]

awsome tips, thx! could you show how to implement a c4d style falloff to drive the morph in both cases?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Thats a good question. Initial thought is to drive it with a ramp or a noise through the color but that would only work for the initiation of the effect. Something I will have to experiment with once I have time.

[@servo69]

This is sick but how do you add the rubber toy texures back on? transfer attributes isnt doing to great. edit:just saw your comment about trying this out soon

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

I never ended up doing more with it but a thought you could try would be to take the uvs of the first object and the second object and lerp between them. Not sure if it would work or not

[@XBen1X]

is there a way to only morph half or certain area of an object or maybe even a water/liquid effect?

[@tetianahurchenko8050]

Thank you so much for this video! It has been super helpful. Is it possible to keep morph them into more objects? Do I need to use a foreach loop to switch between objects that are pipped in to the second input of the solver?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

You might be able to use a for each loop with a switch node to keep moving between objects or you could daisy chain set ups together

[@tetianahurchenko8050]

@@InsideTheMindSpace Thank you! Will try it out

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Good luck!

[@glmstudiogh]

Will it be the same procedure morphing between objects that has animations on them? Say; I import and abc cars, both moving, I want to morph from car 1 to car 2

[@ivaniliev2272]

thank you

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Happy to help

[@petewallace4376]

Do you have any tips on how to maintain the topology and UVs?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

I thought about this but never came up with a solution. Theoretically it might be possibly doing something like an attribute transfer or something but I haven't done anything myself testing wise. Easiest thing I can recommend is just using triplanar projections but that wouldn't work for something like characters. I believe when you see stuff like that its using a different technique.

[@sheamotion724]

@@InsideTheMindSpace kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3LVkoJoepKpbpY point deform the solution, no?

[@canjb]

so no texture to the morph?

[@jeppejuel7720]

Hi this might be very late to the party - but morphing in the geometry version, the "lobsters" claws sort of detech and shrink into nothingness as the transformation takes place - is there a way to morph without that happening to make it even more seamlees :)?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Probably. You can mask vdbs. I would look into that to control how the morph takes place

[@pavinivfx]

Is it possible to get particles and turn them into an object using this?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

Not sure. You could copy spheres to points and that would work to turn it into an object

[@madmodder]

Awesome stuff, so, for variety I want to morph between 3 objects, so 1st, to 2nd, to 3rd, then back to first, something that I can render out as a geometry cache and play on a loop in a game engine. Tried taking the output of the first morph solver, and use a second one to blend between that and my 3rd object, starting it from 0 at the frame the first morph is done, and my system is slowing to a crawl, and the results are kinda glitchy and poppy during the second morph. Anybody have any ideas how to approach that?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

I would think your approach would work. Maybe try using a switch node as your inputs and when it fully morphs switching to the 3rd object and animating back to a zero percent morph. After that just do the same thing to get to get back to the initial object

[@madmodder]

@@InsideTheMindSpace Yeah that would probably help kinda "lock it in" when moving to the next transition. It's almost like it's recomputing the morphs that came before even if they're not really changing, so that could be why it's slowing down so much.

[@Jordanc87]

would this work for alembic animations?

[@InsideTheMindSpace]

I believe it should

[@dissonantprotean5495]

these days you can use Blend Shapes node but I guess you don't get as much control

[@shubhamrai4850]

hey dude will this work when i am working on a geometry with texture maps over it , this is not working over textures can you please help me with it.