motion trails in houdini, part 1 » Toadstorm Nerdblog I haven’t posted in a long time mostly because I’ve been spending the majority of the last month devouring Houdini tutorials on the internet. Houdini is capable of handling incredibly complex visual effects, and its node-based architecture makes it ideal for effects R&D… if you can get past the learning curve. I’ve never seen a more complicated-looking program. Anyways, after beating my head against the wall for the better part of a month I’ve finally started making sense out of this program, and I want to share an effect I’ve been researching for an upcoming spot, and turn this into a sort of tutorial for dealing with particle systems, creating objects on the fly, and manipulating shapes using audio. Later on I’ll also go over how to make the effect into a “digital asset,” meaning packaging the effect into a single node with its own interface that you can then use for other shots or share with other artists. I really dislike video tutorials so I’m going to try to write this one out.
Reso-nance How to Make Music with Water Glasses | Connections Academy Take your kids into the scientific aspects of music with this fun learning activity. Not only will they learn how to make a water glass xylophone, but they will also see how making music with water glasses is a great way to integrate math and science lessons. You can find more music water glass activities on our blog. Copy the code in the box below to embed the instructographic on your site. <a href=" src=" alt="Music Water Glasses - Instructographic" title="Musical Water Glasses - Instructographic" width="600" height="2415" /></a><br/><br/><a href=" Academy - Online School for Grades K–12.
Quantum mechanics 101: Demystifying tough physics in 4 easy lessons Ready to level up your working knowledge of quantum mechanics? Check out these four TED-Ed Lessons written by Chad Orzel, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College and author of How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog. 1. One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time. 2. Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, posed this famous question: If you put a cat in a sealed box with a device that has a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour, what will be the state of the cat when that time is up? 3. When you think about Einstein and physics, E=mc^2 is probably the first thing that comes to mind. 4. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you can never simultaneously know the exact position and the exact speed of an object.
NSA02 | CHOPs Projects Lesson 2 | CHOPs ProjectsPublished: Oct 4, 2013 for Houdini 12.5 This week we continue learning CHOPs by doing a couple of projects. Specifically we will learn how to create the “Pin Table” effect in the original X-Men Movie. We will then move on and learn about the Table CHOP to import tabular data and create a small project that uses the data to create a star field. The scene files for this lesson are available using the button at the top right just under the embedded video. Are you New to Houdini? If you are new to Houdini and would like to follow through these lessons, be sure to download the FREE Houdini Apprentice edition then go through the First Steps Intro lessons. Instructor | Ari Danesh Ari Danesh is a Visual FX artist and Interactive Designer with 12 years experience teaching at the University level.
Experiment with Musical Water Glasses > Virtual Learning Connections | A Virtual School Blog by Connections Academy Learning to read music can improve your math skills. But can music help you learn science, too? Sure, it can! Here is a fun and scientific music activity you can do with your child at home. Although this activity is simple, it’s a great way to exercise your student’s science skills and musical abilities. Here are some things your child can learn how to do in this activity: Use measuring cups (and fractions) Create secondary colors from primary colors with food coloring Understand and manipulate sound waves Experiment with new concepts Play different songs on the scale Below is the Musical Water Glasses Instructographic explaining each step of the activity. Here are some additional Musical Water Glasses activities to try: Fill the glasses by increments of ¼ cup. Fun Fact: Did you know that sound travels about four to five times faster in water than in air? What else can you do with Musical Water Glasses?
21 GIFs That Explain Mathematical Concepts “Let's face it; by and large math is not easy, but that's what makes it so rewarding when you conquer a problem, and reach new heights of understanding.” Danica McKellar As we usher in the start of a new school year, it’s time to hit the ground running in your classes! Math can be pretty tough, but since it is the language in which scientists interpret the Universe, there’s really no getting around learning it. Check out these gifs that will help you visualize some tricky aspects of math, so you can dominate your exams this year. Ellipse: Via: giphy Solving Pascal triangles: Via: Hersfold via Wikimedia Commons Use FOIL to easily multiply binomials: Via: mathcaptain Here’s how you solve logarithms: Via: imgur Use this trick so you don’t get mixed up when doing matrix transpositions: Via: Wikimedia Commons What the Pythagorean Theorem is really trying to show you: Via: giphy Exterior angles of polygons will ALWAYS add up to 360 degrees: Via: math.stackexchange Via: imgur Via: Wikimedia Commons Via: reddit
SOUND / Generating Sound with Houdini Above is how you might create a very simple SOUND in Houdini. Make sure that you set it to real time and then set the Audio Panel. I guess it is time to revisit this book by Andrew Lowell.... Creating, triggering and doing something with sound in Houdini seems to be something I have to explore further. In one way, it feels like a huge detour from Houdini and VFX, but on the other hand, it is kind of a revelation as well. MAX AND CHUCK Someone also mentioned about Max not long ago, a node based system similar to Houdini to generate sound and trigger things. Accidentally, I am currently doing this online course from Coursera:Introduction to Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists with Ajay Kapur. Above is a very interesting course where they try to mix sound and programming. I have to mention that only this year that I have been dedicating myself to learn programming and finally got it.
Good Vibrations From the honking of cars to music blaring out of someone's bedroom window, the world around us is saturated with sound. But what exactly is sound, and how do we hear it? From mimicking an owl's wing for quieter aircraft to creating more effective cochlear implants and the science of opera singing, our panel of experts turn up the volume to 11 to answer your questions on anything audible... Listen Now Download as mp3 02:49 - What is sound? Multimedia Beautiful Mathematical GIFs Will Mesmerize You Digital artist and physics PhD student Dave Whyte is dazzling our computer screens with his mesmerizing GIFs that are the perfect marriage of mathematics and art. And we can’t stop watching them. Whyte shares his brilliant, procrastination-fueling creations on an almost daily basis on his Tumblr account, Bees & Bombs. Whyte studies the physics of foam and told Colossal that his first geometric GIFs riffed on computational modules that he was exploring as an undergraduate student. To create his eye catching animations, Whyte uses a programming language called Processing. Check some of them out here (caution: may induce serious time wasting): [Via Colossal, io9 and Bees & Bombs]