Tyler Bay Covers Working With the Trace Node for Procedural Modeling Tasks in Houdini.

Tyler Bay has a great and free introduction to working with SideFX Houdini called “Houdini for the New Artist.” that is perfect for anyone interested in learning Houdini for the first time. A new excerpt from that course covers how to quickly and procedurally model a leaf using Houdini’s Trace Node.

The trace SOP can read an image file and automatically trace it, creating a set of faces around areas using a brightness threshold. ” There are all sorts of applications for this technique that will help you in procedural modeling and simulation,” Tyler says. “and you can also pair this with instancing to help you create a lot of variety in a short amount of time.”