Daily #5: Force Field

Once again inspired by something found over on Reddit, I tried to replicate an effect I saw where a ‘force field’ absorbs a collision with a projectile of some sort. Replicating it in Houdini involved creating a simple particle system to simulate the projectiles, detecting when they collided with the force field or sphere, and then generating the absorption effect in a custom shader. Peter Quint’s video on point clouds was immensely helpful, as was this post by Adrian Boeing on ripple effects (sombrero/sinc function). In retrospect, a Gaussian would probably do the job too, although the sombrero can produce aftershock ripples if desired.

The end result is this quick animation that showcases the effect: