That Was The Week That Was — 5th January 2020

Every now and then I like to go back and revisit an experiment I've been playing with, to see if I can dig down further, to see what might reveal itself from the process of having left a concept for a time and seeing it again with fresh eyes. That seemed to be the theme this week.

Firstly I took some Processing code I done based on work that is in John Whitney's book, Digital Harmony and had a go at porting it over to Houdini. A few hours later I had something on the go that I was quite pleased with. The advantage with it being in Houdini was the use of materials, depth of field and the overall render quality.

Talking of depth of field, I wrote a quick blog post about the technique I discovered on a forum which allows me to visually set the focus target for a camera in Houdini. I now use it all the time.

I was looking through some of my old Houdini experiments and decided to look again at the Curl Noise Shape Advection stuff I done earlier in the year. Over the next few days I worked on crafting the technique a lot more, inspired in part by the titles for The Crown. Adding little bulbous ends to the streams really made it feel more organic. I think watching the remake of The Thing earlier in the week had an effect too.

When away from the screen I was geeking out over these very practical A4 boxes I got from the Box Man. January is always a time for a studio tidy-up and admin so having these nice boxes to use actually makes the process more enjoyable. Or maybe I need to get out more.