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Simultaneous Music, Animation and
Sound Techniques with Houdini

Andrew Lowell
Technical ink drawings by Katherine Wilson

Special thanks to ..

Georg Duemlein, Hans Hoogenboom, Peter Robbinson, Aliza Sorotzkin, Garman Herigstad

© 2008 Andrew Lowell Productions

Email: andrew@andrew-lowell-productions.com
Preface ...

It’s always been my passion to work directly with both musical and graphical art. I never felt at home working
with either one exclusively. My early interests were primarily musical; through college and a few years
thereafter I focused on music engineering and production, but my visual interests eventually led me to the open
and organic nature of 3D graphics, and finally to Houdini.

Both visual and sonic media are essential in the creation of a motion picture, a video production, a flash web
page, you name it. There are even some more recent genres of media which blur the line between our senses
even further such as VJ performances, music video, sound tracks, club laser light shows, and many variations of
the above as well as fine art cinema and mixed media.

However, most artists working in these fields feel content or even happy to segregate themselves to their chosen
sensory organ; as if confined to a dungeon, these graphic artists are isolated from sound and music professionals
are isolated from light. If that’s the case now then this ebook is not for you.

However, if there’s an ounce of curiosity left about the mysterious sonic arts after a long day at the graphics
studio then read on …

spatial audio recording

These chapters are intended to promote and build interest in this unique area of Houdini software; and to
empower the graphics artist to creatively work with some of those nebulous gray areas where an understanding
of both types of communication (audio/visual) may be required.

If nothing else I hope these examples will prove to be a lot of fun, and also help explain larger topics concerning
procedural animation and various parts of Houdini that graphics artists might not have had the opportunity to
explore.

sound synthesis generated with Houdini

Houdini / Graphics / Sound / MIDI / WHAT?!*

One of the exciting and unique capabilities of Houdini is the ability to natively work with audio and MIDI data.
This sets it apart from all other mainstream 3D apps. Also, the procedural nature of Houdini allows you to take
these areas much farther than they could normally go in other apps, even with custom code and scripting. Once
the data is in Houdini, the possibilities are endless.

This unique feature-set allows you, the creative mind, to be an effects artist, an electronic music composer, a
character animator, a 3D spatial audio engineer, or all of the above! The Houdini artist can break free of the
graphics barrier and utilize the full scope and creative potential of audio-visual media.

For those who have never seen a waveform or a MIDI note before and are a little weary of diving into a
completely new area of art / humanity / media / and human perception don’t be too shy. I’m continually
amazed by how many similar aesthetics and concepts are shared between graphics and music/sound
professionals, usually just with different names for the same overall concepts and ideas. The more I work with
either area, the more similarities I find.

And besides, who knows, some of our greatest musical treasures have started off completely unaware of music
technology / theory / or even common sense (some still are), and great musical and sonic ideas can come from a
basement, garage or even a 3D graphics artist!

Advantages of Houdini in a World of existing Audio and MIDI software

Houdini can read, manipulate, generate or save MIDI (synthetic notes) and Audio (sound files) data directly just like
a dedicated audio and/or MIDI program. It can exchange common file formats with these programs as well.

For instance you could …

o Create a sound in Houdini and export it to an audio program to add an effect.

o Use musical notes to animate a 3D character
o Use particles to create musical notes based on which object they collide with
o Place sound effects of different volumes and timbres based on where something collides in a dynamics
simulation.
o Create a musical score entirely in Houdini
o Record a sound in 3D space with a virtual microphone
o Have a character automatically react to what it “hears” in 3D space
o Animate a procedural texture or compositing filter according to a particular sonic property of an audio
file.
o Have a character automatically produce facial expressions based on a voice recording
o Things that only you can think of …
Here’s the interface of a popular audio/MIDI mixing program exporting a MIDI file which could be read into
Houdini which I’ve used for this ebook (Nuendo shown below).

interface of common audio program

If you’re unfamiliar with these types of programs (which is understandable if you’re primarily into 3D graphics) here’s
some links.

http://www.steinberg.net/ (Nuendo, Cubase, others)

http://www.propellerheads.se/ (Reason)
http://www.cakewalk.com/ (Sonar, others)
http://www.motu.com/ (Performer, others)
http://ardour.org/ (Ardour)

These as well as many other professional applications, smaller applications, plugins, and shareware allow the
music composer or audio engineer to work directly with MIDI notes and audio tracks. Specialized computer
audio hardware and speakers are also commonly used.

That being said, very few if any mainstream music production programs even come close to what would be
considered procedural. I attribute this to a very performance-centric approach widely employed in main-stream
music production. So even when dealing solely with music and audio, Houdini does have some advantages
over most other audio/music programs (which is pretty good for a graphics program).
Advantages include a node based workflow, 3D spatial audio, and the ability to process sound and MIDI data
using an extremely low-level, mathematical approach.

The clear advantage Houdini has over all sound programs is of course the fact that we can use Houdini for
graphics too! (Is that an understatement?)

Music Man, our musically animated character we'll use throughout the various examples
Contents:

We’ll explore some aspects of music technology through the 100% procedural / node based nature of Houdini
in the following units:

Unit A: Working with Triggers

A CHOPs-centric explanation of some underlying techniques which will enhance your graphical-musical
workflow.

Unit B: MIDI and Loops

Some basic approaches to loop-based character animation driven by music

Unit C: MIDI and interpolation

A slightly more advanced approach to music-driven animation using interpolation instead of loops

Unit D: Audio and Animation

A very general overview of audio processing, recording and audio-animation techniques in Houdini

Unit E: Working with Synthesis

A few techniques for working directly with synthesis and math to produce unique sounds and virtual
instruments

Note: I would consider this learning resource intermediate level, in the sense that they assume basic Houdini
knowledge. This knowledge includes how to navigate a Houdini scene, and adjust parameters on nodes.

There are quite a few good basics resources which have been developed by the Houdini community. These
include books, and training DVDs. Check www.sidefx.com .. Learing for more information.

For basic information on the creation and workflow involved with viewing CHOPs (channel operators) refer to
the following introductory videos on the Side Effects website.

Introduction to CHOPs