-> To the animation.
-> Apr. 2021-> Keywords: Procedural Animation, Generative Modeling, Houdini, 3D Animation, L-system
Alien Plants in the Nature is an animation project inspired by German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s book Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), where plants with fantastic shapes and textures are generated with computer algorithms. The animation was created and rendered with procedural animation software Houdini. The structures of these plant-like models are generated based on L-system (or Lindenmayer system).
An L-system consists of:
- a collection of production rules that expand each symbol into some larger string of symbols;
- an initial "axiom" string from which to begin construction;
- a mechanism for translating the generated strings into geometric structures.
The project started from some 2D implementations of L-systems with Javascript code. You can see more here.
variables : F G
constants : + −
start : F−G−G
rules :
(F → F−G+F+G−F),
(G → GG)
angle : 120°
Fractal Tree
variables : 0, 1
constants: [, ]
axiom : 0
rules :
(1 → 11),
(0 → 1[0]0)
constants: [, ]
axiom : 0
rules :
(1 → 11),
(0 → 1[0]0)
Dragon Curve
Variables : F G
constants : + −
start : F
rules : (F → F+G), (G → F-G)
angle : 90°
The L-systems were then introduced to a 3D environment, annotated with more complex syntax and grammars to produce organic plant-shape models. More detailed information about the built-in L-system functions in Houdini can be found here.
Keyframes, textures, materials, lights, cameras are then added to the scene. You can watch the full animation in half-HD here.
Screenshots of the project