Traditional Japanese Painting Brought to Life With SideFX Houdini

FX Intern Sarah Hashem has recently showcased a magnificent use case for Houdini, employing SideFX's flagship procedural to animate a traditional Japanese painting, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Currently WIP, Sarah's project reimagines the 19th-century woodblock print as a FLIP (Fluid Implicit Particles) simulation, making the waves and the background move in a rather unrealistic yet incredibly mesmerizing way, resembling those eye-pleasing sand art toys. Additionally, the artist harnessed the power of Houdini's built-in renderer, Mantra, to render the simulation.

For context, here's what the original painting looks like:

We highly encourage you to follow Sarah on LinkedIn to stay updated on the project's status. And if you'd like to learn more about creating fluid simulations in Houdini, here are some great tutorials that will help you get started:

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