Beauty Approximations

More work on this. Tried different scenarios. Tried to make it wrap the collider more closely but dialed down the effect in the end. Next I need to focus on the path finding to create more gentle movements and also allow path crossings, they currently all trickle down the same path. 

Added a melting effect to the roots, needs to be worked on to match refs. Also further fixes on the topology, it now behaves fairly predictable, more about styling from now on.

Fixed worse offenders on meshing. Experimented a bit on conversing to volumes and back. 

First iteration on a root system. Next I need to make the topology a bit more sane as I get a lot of flipping but then I will work quite a lot of the behavior and pattern as I want this to produce good quality. Later I plan to make smaller branches to be modular for opting possibilities.  

Added function to auto pin adjacent wires. Orange curves is input. 

Added function for copying up many curves along input curve. Some shady selfintersection going on atm. 

Added features for user control. Now the curve is attracted towards the collision geometry before the simulation and the points that reach it will be locked there during simulation. Blue curve is input, orange is with attraction applied and spheres in the last image are points that was pinned in simulation.    

Started working on a rope tool. First version. Only working on the shape so far, geo comes from the ml_quickpipe asset on Orbolt. Blue shapes in second pictures shows input curve.

Quick test based on animatrix demo. 

Got an idea from a colleague for a procedural modeling tool. Had a quick go to check up on the current state of Houdini's cloth tools. Green points is the rest cloth, yellow it's target positions. Difference between pictures is that I've moved four yellow control points downwards resulting in a more tensed look for the cloth.

I've given some thoughts into starting a project on recreating a game effect in Houdini. Today I actually put some work into it and as I hope this could result in a longer effort I post this symbolical early post. Picture shows two stages of a gravel effect.