Monochromatic Dotted Tool

Since my goal with this toolkit is to recreate a stippling effect like the beautiful style of Soman, I want to express just how much I love his work. Personally, I believe that computers could never truly replace the hand-made craft and soul of an artist. However, I wanted to challenge myself for my very first tool in Houdini, and his stunning artwork deeply inspired me to create a procedural version of his style for other artists to explore. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not condone plagiarism, and I am in no way trying to replace his amazing artistry. This project is purely a technical study inspired by his work and an exploration of what is possible within stylized 3D pipelines

Original Artwork by Soman

Toolkit Results

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About the Toolkit

Inspired primally from the piece of art of Soman named "Twinkling and Moving", I created a tool kit that recreates this stippling effect on 3D objects inside of Houdini that renders them as a 2D hand made effect.

The toolkit is divided in two different nodes the first ones name is "Point Generator" scatters points to an area of the input geometry, this mask is created inside the tool by the user through a series of parameters that gives the user full control over it. The second node "Mono Dots COP" translated that 3D information and turns it into 2D through a series of networks and layering done inside of Houdinis COPs network which gives it the hand made effect.

Toolkit Breakdown

The toolkit I created is broken down into 2 separate nodes to avoid overwhelming the user with too many parameters to adjust. The first one, "Point Generator," operates inside the SOP network, and the second one, "Mono Dots COP" operates inside the COP network of Houdini. They can be added to your scene individually by typing each tool's name.

IMPORTANT: These nodes should NEVER be RENAMED because it will break the connection between them.

Point Generator node

Step 1: The Main Mask & Ray Placement

The "Point Generator" tool has 5 main sections in the main menu. The first one, "Main Mask," lets you view and edit the main geometry mask that determines where most points will be placed.

To determine the placement of the mask, you can adjust the vector parameter x, y, z to set the location of the rays. Alternatively, you can select "point cloud" in the menu, which opens up 4 object options: sphere, cube, light, camera.

These options let you connect your camera or light so that its placement in the scene determines where the rays are cast onto the geometry. The cube and sphere give you a visual representation of the object placement in the scene. They also determine how many points are scattered, which directly affects the mask resolution and area covered since the tool uses points as the source of the rays.

Step 2: Main Points & Scattering

Once the placement of the mask is ready, go to the main menu and press on "Main Points" to view the scatter points and adjust the values on the scatter tab to get the desired effect.

You can also adjust the shape and rotation of the geometry in the Point Deform tab. If you scale it in a single direction, you can get your points to turn into lines.

Step 3: Edge Setup & VDB Output

After the main points are set up, apply the same exact steps inside the Edge Mask and Edge Points menus to isolate your outlines.

The last step is to go to the VDB section of the main menu and adjust the parameters to fit your specific geometry.

Mono Dots COP node

IMPORTANT NOTE: This node network runs inside Houdini's COPs, which take a lot of computing power and time to process. To avoid crashing when not using or adjusting this node, press the "Clear Cache" button before moving on to other nodes in your scene.

Step 1: COPs Setup and Camera

On top of the nodes under a collapsible menu are the COPs settings. In here you can adjust some base settings, and the most important one is defining the resolution. It is better to make the resolution high since it is going to be running over small details, otherwise the dots might get lost in the process.

Underneath the COPs settings, you must add your render camera. COPs will only take in the information found in the camera's view. If your assets are disappearing, try moving them closer or farther from the camera.

Step 2: Base Setup

Underneath the Clear Cache button, you will find the Layer Editing Viewer menu. There are 3 options: Base Setup, Layer Editing, and Final.

To start, click on the Base Setup. Two new menus will appear: "Layer Viewer" and "Mask Viewer." Under the "Layer Viewer" you will see 4 options: VDB Setup, Geo Setup, Point Setup, and Outer Edge Setup. When you press on each one, a new menu will appear under the Mask Viewer.

Each of these sections features different base layers to edit according to your geometry, which will then be used in "Layer Editing" (found in the Layer Editing Viewer menu) to layer together and create the final look.

VDB Setup

Geo Setup

Point Setup

Step 3: Layer Editing

Once you are done setting up your base layers in the Base Setup, go back to the Layer Editing Viewer menu and select "Layer Editing." This area functions like a digital compositing tool. In total, 10 layers are blended one by one to create the final result, and the top slider determines which layer you are currently adjusting.

Because each layer processes on top of the previous combination using blend modes like multiply, divide, or overlay, it can be tricky to see your changes. A great trick to see exactly what your current layer looks like before tweaking its settings is to set the blend mode parameter to "OVER" and turn the Mask parameter to 1. This places the current image directly on top of the stack so you can see it clearly.

The Mask parameter acts as your mix slider; a value of 1 provides full opacity for that layer, while a value of 0 completely bypasses it. You can further refine each layer using the built-in blur, brightness, contrast, and sharpness controls to achieve your desired effect.

Once you finish mixing your layers and the "Individual Layer Viewer" slider is set to 9, go back to the main "Layer Editing Viewer" menu and select "Final."

Step 3: Final

When you are done refining your effect, go to the Layer Editing Viewer, select "Final." This will take you to the rendering section. Before rendering, there is a parameter under the Rendering title called "Remove Black Areas." This section lets you add additional transparency by removing the darker areas of the image; the higher the value, the more dark areas are removed.

Since rendering takes a long time to process due to how the COP network works, I added two options for rendering: traditional rendering done directly inside COPs, or file caching, which can be "rendered" by creating a flipbook with the highest settings possible.

Render to Disk: In this tab, you can adjust basic rendering settings like the resolution, frame range, and file name. Rendering directly to disk gives you the best resolution (which is suggested) but can take longer.
Cache to Disk: In this second tab, you will find the regular settings for caching to disk. This method can be a bit faster, and it allows you to layer different sequences to see your final look while still editing other areas of your scene.

REMEMBER TO PRESS THE CLEAR CACHE BUTTON WHEN YOU'RE NOT USING THE NODE OR AFTER RENDERING

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