Goal?

GOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL....wait....I think I got that wrong!

Well here is the final post for my Software Technology Class everyone. Before I really get into it I'd like to say how much I enjoyed this class, the teacher, and just the whole classroom scene all together. I learned a lot about the two software's we were introduced to this month; Soft Image XSI and Houdini. 

And to all of you who know what I'm talking about..it's called SOFT IMAGE! 

I know I'll be using Houdini in the future a lot if I plan to go into Visual Effects; but what's really cool about the software is I can do about anything and more in it. It may be my favorite software we learned about, but it was the most difficult one to really grasp the concept of. I still have some issues navigating because my hands are so used to the MAYA keyboard/shortcuts. Though the more I play with it I'll be able to navigate and do it a lot better. It just takes time and hard work. Soft Image XSI on the other hand was a lot easier, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was my favorite software automatically or easy to navigate. I think what really pushed me away from it was the fact that it's an old program that I'll probably not use in the future. Sure it was really fun and a lot easier than MAYA, but I'm not a modeler so it just wasn't my favorite. But enough about this why don't we get right into our Final Project!

Basketball Shot:

So as you can see this our set up for our Basketball Free Throw Final.

Our goal was to create a Basketball Free Throw without any key frames in Houdini.

We started by splitting up roles in what to do to get the whole scene set up; it's a very simple layout with the three assets; the basketball, hoop, and ground plane. It may be simple, but it sure was a lot of fun. I modeled the basketball and set up everything in Houdini, along with doing the simulation. My teammate, Sydney Shambo (check out her blog here --> http://sydneyshambo.blogspot.com/), created the basketball hoop along with doing the research for doing a proper free throw. Between the both of us we didn't have many problems at all. The ridges in the basketball were probably the most difficult part I had to deal with, hers on the other hand was doing the math for the proper grid units when simulating a proper basketball throw (mind that the ball has been lifted in the air {Translate Y = 5} to demonstrate the average height of a person).

If you look at the two images above you, you will find the settings for the ball and hoop. Along with the node set up within the AutoDopNetwork (the node that most of the settings were adjusted in when creating the throw simulation). We had to play with the Velocity settings for the basketball a lot in order to create a proper throw simulation; with different velocities we were able to create two different arcs and throws (a Goofy throw, along with a Serious throw; based upon the arc and speed the ball is thrown). The settings for the hoop was a lot different because it didn't have to move (Static Object) so we didn't have to deal with any of the velocity settings, but what we did have to mess with was the collision settings for the ball the properly hit the backboard and bounce within the hoop. When you first import the default settings for the hoop is Hull, which causes it to have a bounding box around the asset so it causes the ball to bounce off the backboard improperly and to the viewer it looks like it didn't even touch the backboard. By going to the Bullet settings you are able to make it Concave, which gets rid of that ridiculous bounding box! So in all the ball goes in properly!

So as you can see by the two videos you can tell which one is Goofy and the other one being taken Seriously. This project in all was a lot of fun; and not as hard as we were thinking it would be. I'm really happy with the outcome and what this class has taught us!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did! Remember to please join us on this journey of ours throughout our experience with the CG world! FOLLOW!