How to Normalize Arnold Noise for Better Displacements

How to Normalize Arnold Noise for Better Displacements

Slava Sych Shows How You Can Normalize Arnold Noise in Houdini For Better Volume Displacements.

Want to increase the resolution of a volume smoke sequence in Houdini? Adding noise as the displacement parameter in Side FX Houdini may be a great start. If you are using Arnold Noise, however, you might find that the displacement is limited to one direction when you connect it to the volume shader. If you’ve run into this, CG Artist Slava Sych has a fix. Normalize the Noise and create an offset for 3D space.

When the Arnold Noise node connects to the displacement parameter of the standard volume shader, it doesn’t work in 3D. “This is happening because noise works from 0 to 1, so because smoke is volumetric and not flat object, we need to remap our texture from 0-1 to -1 – 1,” Slava says. Check out Slava’s post that shows how to use a Range Node and offset the values into 3D space. Check out Slava Sych’s article for better noise displacements here.

Slava Sych is a CG Artist from Dnipro, Ukraine.