Python for Houdini

These are tools built during my time in One Animation Pte ltd. I was involved in the R & D department as a Lighting Technical Director. The aim of the department was to use technology to hit an extremely high quality without any artists as a baseline for our outputs. The artists will then come in to further enhance the quality per shot. This mantra enables them to utilise minimal manpower to yield extremely high results.

Scene Light Rig

The aim of this light rig was to automate lighting. In Insectibles, other than the opening sequence, there was no manual shot lighting. All shots were merged and sent directly.

Description:

The scene light rig is used in the master location file's HDA.

It contains all lights used in the location for both location master lighting and character lighting.

Character and location lightings can be separated because of the use of categories. Any character containing the appropriate categories will be lit by the lights for characters. Categories for all objects are set in the master HDA.

Use:

The main light rig will create multiple light rigs.

Each light rig will create lights.

All of which are separate HDAs.

This light rig also has an auto rim system which allows lights to be linked to the selected camera.

Main Light Rig

Light Rig

Asset Light Rig

Description:

The asset light rig is used by shader artists, modellers, or anyone who needs a quick preview of the models in Houdini.

It has an auto framing system which will frame the attached asset and will automatically rescale to fit the size of the asset.

The aim of this asset light rig is to standardise all assets's visual output. This will allow the asset to be more accurately lit in the scene with the scene light rig.

Environment Map Generator

Description:

The environment map generator generates multiple different types of environment maps like Longitude Latitude maps, environment cube and diffuse lighting map. It can then be used in conjunction with the asset light rig.