Reaching Limits...

This week has proven difficult in terms of my ideas being restricted in their implementation, primarily by the software/technology I have available.

Scripting has made a reasonable amount of progress. I have added colour changes to my first data-set, as it was not clear when cells 'appeared'. New cells begin red, and fade to their regular colour over 25 frames (1 second), which is more informative, and better communicates the data visually. It is important to point out here, that this change was added to the MEL version of my script. A render taken from the Maya scene can be seen below;

I started developing skills in scripting using Python, as Houdini relies on this for data input. Python also crosses over with Maya as the shared 'language'. I began by trying to find the common links between MEL and Python, which accelerated my understanding of how to code effectively in Python and make things happen. The Maya-Python version of the script is now equivalent to the MEL script.

However, the Houdini-Python script currently only reads data, but does not yet generate or animate geometry - I am having difficulties finding useful information on the Houdini specific Python module (commands), so this part of scripting is on hold for now.

Due to these difficulties, I returned to Maya, and started work on trying to create an organic-looking cell surface - that is, a single surface which is created from all of the cells, and moves and acts as one (instead of 1067 individual cell 'spheres'). Initially, I wanted to generate a particle field in place of spheres, but, unfortunately, Maya does not allow transformation of individual particles within a particle object. There is no way around this, except by creating a separate particle object per cell - by doing this however, the particles can no longer merge together as one.

I started to consider other options to achieve this organic look, with RealFlow being top of my list. I generated a 'particle sphere' in Maya and exported this directy into RealFlow. After developing a complicated workflow of imports and exports, and a lot of experimentation, I was able to then use RealFlow to mesh this particle field. However, for one cell to be meshed fully, I required around 37,000 particles, generating approximately 110,000 faces for the mesh. With a scene containing 1067 cells, I realised that although giving a nice result, it was certainly not a viable option. A render of the style of cell-split can be seen below;

Beyond using RealFlow, my next efforts will involve using particles or metaballs in Houdini. Metaballs work very nicely (tested using 2-3 objects manually), and are 'clever' spheres which merge together when they are close to each other (without any configuration in Houdini, metaballs give a great looking result). Particles in Houdini will hopefully offer more flexibility than Maya, allowing me another technique to create the look that I want to achieve.

Although I have found this week frustrating, finding limitations in the software I am using, I am confident that I will be able to find a solution, allowing me to realise the full potential of the creative ideas I want to unleash...