Breakdown
Chops Driven by Music
Houdini 18.0.287
Resolution: 1280x 720p
Renderer : Mantra
Samples: 3
Noise Value: 0.01
Min/Max Rays:1/9
Number of Lights in Scene: 10 point lights 1 Environment
Average Render Time: 10 minutes
I wanted the geometry to move with the music and emulate the idea of ballerina’s dancing on a stage through the use of lighting, simple geometry and chops. The challenge for me was learning how to call a grid of boxes to the music file rather than using noise or a wave
Technical guide
To do this I placed a channel operator at the end of my grid network. Importing the audio and using a pitch node to modify the moment I then added together the geometry and audio with a math node. I referenced the height of the geometry so that the height of the objects would change with the different pitches of the audio.
Lighting Reference
I chose the Swan Lake theme as my audio for this project and I wanted to match the lighting to the ballet. This is an image from a performance by the Russian Ballet in Moscow in 2019.
Lights
Six of the point lights have a high intensity and are colored blue to achieve a spotlight effect.
My environment light is also a blue hue to match the overall color of my reference
I also place the point lights strategically to create interesting shadows as seen on a stage.
Overall, if I were to keep working on this project. I would like to push this idea to further express the swan lake concept with possibly the addition of a matte painting closer to the ones used in the ballet. As well as more interesting geometry or individual movement along the grid.
References
I wanted to learn how to use a chops system and have the geometry driven by music. Similar to
Ziye Liu’s procedural animation project.
