bloom
HOUDINI · KARMA · NUKE
As part of my graduation project, an animated music video, I created this scene, which represents hope through a flower breaking its way through asphalt.
The entire scene was created procedurally in Houdini and rendered with Karma, followed by a small amount of compositing in Nuke. Both the flower and the cracking asphalt were built as procedural systems, allowing for fast iterations and easy artistic adjustments throughout production.
The flower was created entirely in Houdini using a procedural curve-based setup. Each petal is generated from curves, making it easy to adjust the overall shape, size, and number of petals. To give the flower a more natural appearance, the blossom was simulated using Vellum, adding subtle secondary motion and organic deformation.
For the petal textures, I wanted to experiment with Houdini's Copernicus. I created a subtle vein pattern that originates from the base of each petal, along with a color gradient that gives the flower a more natural look while keeping the entire texturing process procedural.
The cracking asphalt was built as a fully procedural system in Houdini. The process begins with a user-drawn guide curve that defines the overall shape of the crack. This curve is then used to split the asphalt geometry, after which an RBD simulation adds secondary fractures and natural breakup to the surrounding pieces.
Additional debris is generated automatically from the fractured geometry to enhance the impact of the simulation, while smoke is simulated separately using Axiom to add atmosphere and reinforce the effect of the flower breaking through the asphalt.
