Sharan Vaswani has a new HDA that lets you instantly cull your view based on camera proximity in Houdini.
Suppose you’ve ever created a simulation and found it nearly imaginable to see through all the effects of the particles or smoke. In that case, the Calibrator Toolest for Side FX Houdini can help.
The Calibrator Toolset is a complete HDA (Houdini Digital Asset) designed for intricate attribute and field control based on camera proximity, created by Sharan Vaswani.
The HDA can dynamically scale particles or reduce density as they approach or move away from the camera and can be customized to adapt to any attribute or field. It operates seamlessly with animated cameras, facilitating complex visual adjustments.
Calibrator Toolset’s Key Features:
1. Dynamic Controls: The Calibrator Toolset enables precise data manipulation. This functionality works seamlessly across different attributes and volumes, allowing for versatile adjustments in visual compositions.
2. Camera-Based Clip Adjustment: It provides the capability to adjust both far and near clip planes dynamically based on the camera’s position or movement, ensuring consistency and accuracy in visual representation. Users can change settings based on individual attributes and volumes and enable global settings when needed.
3. Adaptability with Animated Cameras: The Tool seamlessly integrates with animated cameras, maintaining functionality and accuracy even in complex animation setups.
4. Custom Clipping per Input: The Tool allows users to customize settings based on the input attribute/field or use a global clipping setting throughout the Tool, letting artists control and adjust values based on the shot’s requirements.
5. Easy to Use: An intuitive shelf tool and menu system simplifies complex processes for effortless integration into production pipelines. Users benefit from user-friendly functions and accessible guides within the viewport, enhancing usability and streamlining their workflow. The underlying code leverages various calculations and attribute/field manipulations to achieve these dynamic adjustments. It operates efficiently across particle and volume/vdb data, employing distance calculations, attribute mapping, and conditional operations to modify while allowing artistic liberty precisely.
The Tool is compatible with Houdini 19.5.493 and up; the Houdini 20 version is soon to come.
