Chetal Gazdar shows an easy way to create a strobe photography effect using operators and some math.

A new tutorial from Chetal Gazdar walks through how you can create a successive freeze-frame effect in Side FX Houdini. Reminiscent of a strobe photography effect, or stroboscopic photos, the effect freezes the action of animation as it happens through the frame.

Strobe Photography Effect Using Trails.

The animation is an Alembic one. Chetal shows how to bring in an Alembic cache animation into Houdini. A Trail node forms the foundation of the effect. From then on, its all operators and a bit of math. Download the project file so you can follow along here.