Tearing & Deforming Metal (RBD Tools in Houdini)
Download Houdini File: RBD_Tools_Tutorial_Metal_Deform.hiplc
Updated HIP File: RBD_Tools_Tutorial_Metal Deform_v2 reduce jitter.hiplc
(There was some jittering in the RBD simulation that have been reduced in the new updated v2 HIP file. For a comparison of the parameters that I changed, please scroll down the page.)
Metal Tearing visual effect using RBD Deform Pieces in Houdini
Vellum Metal Cloth?
I always thought deforming geometry could be easily done with the Vellum nodes. Create a really stiff or tough Vellum cloth material in Houdini that could then be deformed by another object that is either animated or simulated with some sort of force. But I’m sure this Vellum approach towards geometry deformation is a lot harder than it sounds. For one thing, it’ll probably take awhile to get the desire parameters to make the Vellum cloth tough enough that it would look like metal.
Metal Tearing visual effect using RBD Deform Pieces in Houdini
RBD Tools to the Rescue!
I really like how the RBD Tools redefine the workflow and simplified how the physical attributes are created and how easily it is to create and customize constraints. Break and switch constraints is super awesome feature and all this power with a click of a mouse. It’s starting to feel like cheating.
Dopnet workflow
Dopnet
The old fashion way using the dopnet workflow required a sop solver to be plugged into a constraint network, which was then plugged into the main rbd simulation and all this was inside a dopnet. The simplicity of RBD Tools is unparalleled.
Dopnet RBD simulation
Too bad we only got Bullet Solver in the new RBD Tools update. I can’t wait until other solvers are converted over to this sop level workflow.
Tear & Deform Metal Part 2
The second video of the 2 part series in Tear & Deform Metal tutorials demonstrates how to tweak the Soft Constraint properties to get a metal tearing effect. And in order to get the geometry to deform and visually resemble metal denting the RBD Deform Pieces node is used.
Reduce Jitter Noise (Parameters Comparison)
Download HIP (reduced jitter): RBD_Tools_Tutorial_Metal Deform_v2 reduce jitter.hiplc
In the provided download HIP file, the RBD simulation generates a lot of jittering noise after the sphere tears up the grid and most of this noise is caused by the constraints of each blast piece trying to find their new positions after the collision. In order to reduce the noise, I increased the plasticity parameters to help stabilize the simulation.
I made several changes to some parameters in the RBD Constraints that I believe are causing the jitter noise in the RBD simulation. I also increased the substeps of the simulation to 5, but I’m not sure if that changed much.
