My second class for the month of November is that of Software Technologies (STE). For this post I am going to cover my research project that I did with one other individual, Chris Villareal. Our research project was to create a working marble machine which we got pretty close to doing it. We split the modeling up evenly. He did the upper ramp and funnel while I did the metal wire coil and the Plinko machine. We then compiled them in Maya and then imported them into Houdini. Once in Houdini the two of us decided to work on the same scene on separate computers so that we both could get the valuable learning experience. He focused more on the area I was unable to cover, the Plinko machine.
So once I had Houdini up and running I created a sphere that was to be my marble. I made it an RBD object and turned all of my geometry into Static objects. First came some issues with the upper ramp. My sphere penetrated through the wall and eventually I simply moved on when it was working almost perfect. It still tends to penetrate through the tunnel before it drops into the funnel but it is less obvious now.
I moved onto the funnel which simply allowed the ball to fall down to the metal coil. At first I wanted it to circle a few times but I just didn't have the time. After running into some more penetration issues I watched a few Houdini tutorials and then continued with my work.
My last part was the metal coil. I spent hours tweaking this to try and get the ball to ride down the path all the way but to no avail. I read from our manual that was provided for the class but did not find what I was hoping to. I tried things like glue, adjusting both the friction and the bounce and tried to add more gravity. I eventually decided to turn in. Sometimes we have to make the tough calls and turn in even if we are not happy with our end results.
Also just to show you here is an image of my Plinko machine. Even though this was lots of trouble it taught me a lot about Houdini and made me excited to learn more about it in the future. Thanks for reading and taking the time to journey with me as I tried to create a working marble machine.
Until I blog again.
Rebecca Luse
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