📌 Key Features of the Tool:
Effortlessly handle large datasets in Houdini.
Solve gimbal lock issues using rotation matrices for accurate orientations.
Streamline your pipeline for VFX and game development projects.
🔧 Tools Used:
Houdini
Python
After Effects
1. Efficient Export of 3D Data to After Effects
Objective: Export camera and object data (e.g., nulls, geometry) from Houdini to After Effects while maintaining precision and performance.
Key Features:
Handles large datasets by using dynamic lists to store node paths and data for cameras and geometry.
Implements precise frame sampling by calculating keyframe times and positions without rounding errors.
Outputs orientation data formatted for After Effects, ensuring compatibility and ease of integration.
Uses a truncate function to reduce file size while maintaining precise numbers for accurate translation, rotation, and position.
2. Handling Gimbal Lock in Orientation Calculations
Problem: Orienting 3D objects (e.g., nulls) to match face normals of geometry, with consistent Z+ vector alignment, even under global transformations.
Solution:
Dynamically calculate rotation matrices based on face normals and tangent vectors.
Adjust axis order depending on face orientation to ensure stability under global transformations.
Tested with rotated cubes, verifying consistent alignment of normals and the rot attribute in both local and global contexts.
3. Big Data Solutions in Houdini
Challenge: Processing and exporting large-scale attribute data from Houdini.
Approach:
Leveraged Houdini’s geometry attributes to calculate and export position, rotation, and custom data.
Minimized file sizes with efficient formatting and the use of a truncate function for clean, compact output without sacrificing precision.
Multi-threaded Python scripts to reduce processing time for high-density datasets.
4. Tools for Debugging and Problem Solving
Examples:
A Houdini tool to visualize and debug orientation issues before exporting data.
Adjustments to positional data scaling (e.g., multiplying by 100) for better compatibility with external applications like After Effects.
Implemented precise data handling techniques, ensuring stability and reducing error margins across large datasets.
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