Houdini Resources

Updated on June 26  2024


Wrangle Node Examples

Deborah R. Fowler



Wrangle Node Example - Phyllotaxis Fun

Posted on July 3  2018
Update July 7  2018


An example of editing an existing wrangle node in the Connect Adjacent Pieces node as well as using a wrangle node for selection of attributes

I have created several versions, one using the zoetrope method and one without the zoetrope animation. For references to the Phyllotactic pattern, see my page on this website here.

keywords:
glass, instanced lights, fog, connect adjacent, phyllotactic pattern, procedural animation

This was created with only one level of points using the pattern and then copied onto points of a sphere. Connect adjacent pieces sop was applied.
The point wrangle was adjusted in the connect adjacent pieces to add an attribute to keep track of the number of connections per point. This was used as a factor of brightness of the instanced lights.

Color and size of the spheres were selected at random


Fog was added to soften the effect. Below is a render with instanced lights and fog only (render times average 1.1 min)
I used a uniformsurface shader on a fog volume. There is some debate as to the efficiency of this method, however the "fake god ray" effect was difficult to achieve the results I wanted and for this render the fog volume method was not expensive.
see https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/god-rays-light-beams-through-volumes-updated-20170508/

Depending on the materials used, to render 4200 instanced lights with fog the average render times ranged from 1.7 minutes to 20 (the latter with both wire and sphere as glass). Below is a version that took 1.7 to 2 minutes per frame.
In this case the point wrangle values were changed - the size of the spheres as well as the light intensity are affected by the number of connections.

The pattern and connect node can be used with any object. Below are two examples without instanced lights.