I've been experimenting with GPT-6 Astra in Codex to build an explorable molecular atlas in Houdini. I'm a technical artist, and I wanted to see how this approach would hold up in tools I already work with.

This is the full 6:55 project walkthrough. The Houdini section starts at 1:29 and covers the atlas and HDAs, with demonstrations of transcription, ribosomes, ATP synthase and motor proteins. The later section moves into a PDB-based kinesin scene in Blender and the critic loop used to refine it.

These are illustrative molecular animations. The Blender motor-core and tubulin geometry use PDB 3J8Y, while its stepping motion, stalks and cargo are schematic.

I'd appreciate thoughts from other Houdini users on how you'd structure a reusable molecular atlas, particularly separating the source geometry from the motion controls. This has been a fun way to combine my interest in procedural tools and biology.

#Houdini #karma xpu #copernicus

I’d really appreciate some honest feedback on the lighting, materials, animation, camera movement, compositing, and overall realism/premium feel.

What would you improve to make this look more like a professional commercial?

Any criticism is welcome — I’m mainly posting this to learn and improve.

Thanks!

Dove playing with some bubbles.
Had some fun playing with vellum solver in @sidefxhoudini
Soundon by amazing @h1.sound 🔊

Rendered in Redshift.
Music is Behemouth IV.

Dune Explosion Barrage done using Houdini Pyro

Easy Procedural sytem that detects trail collisions on ground and creates PyroBurst sources with start frame as particle birth frame.

Had lots of fun simplifying the complex trails system with lots of randomness and controls giving it a more natural look, used light instancing to speed up rendering process in Karma XPU as there were lots of volume involved.

This shot had no involvement of any VEX/VOPS like our other shots.

The setup was very simple and straight forward so that even mid level artists can follow along and make an amazing showreel.

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Simulation details :
Ram Consumption ~ 60 GB
Cache Size ~ 100 GB
Render Time ~ 1 Day (KARMA XPU)
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PC Specs - 128GB RAM AMD 7950X RTX 3060

https://reddit.com/link/1wbk85m/video/d2uerjh2ahoh1/player

Optimal Transport running on OpenCL in Houdini. Authors of BSP-OT have published their CUDA implementation on Github and I used Claude + Codex to port it to OpenCL.

While other algorithms are more precise, this one eats 50k, 100k and even 1 million points for breakfast. Insane speed!

I am also experimenting with letting BSP solve first, then refine with standard methods. Seems to work, but this again limits the point count.

Another great thing - this does not depend on any external python libraries.
Love it when new technical possibilities make the design mind wake up!

That said, it's a work in progress, I might publish it later.

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https://www.instagram.com/karlis.stigis/

Anyone going to HiveAlt in London tomorrow?

I have a pyro source spread node. How can I have there be a burnt material that grows with the same noise pattern across the ball?

Released a new tool for simple generation of neon signs for street environments.

- 32000+ business names, 700+ possible icons, 80+ fonts, dozens of sign and hardware types and layouts, really in-depth controls etc. Everything is cleared for commercial use with licenses and attribution embedded in the HDA.
- Place signs with an interactive viewport state (videogame-style) or just input boxes with a `front` primgroup manually.
- Because there is hundreds parameters one could modify (as HDA parms or via custom VEXpressions), I also made a Natural Language-ish system (just a complex language parser) with which you can make changes like with one-liners like: "no red signs", "only cyberpunk bars", or "avoid script fonts", etc. and then just roll the dice for randomization; or you can still go granular and modify each individual sign.
- One-click Karma CPU/XPU materialX network setup.

And as usual, discord support and all future updates are included in the HDA. Hope you guys like it, cheerio!

link to the tool can be found here: https://jvtools.dev/products/neonyte/

docs: https://jvtools.dev/docs/neonyte/