Create Music With 3D Objects and Simulations in Houdini

Andrew Lowell’s Houdini Music Toolset turns Houdini into a MIDI sequencer.

A new toolkit from Andrew Lowell takes Houdini’s geometry and simulation processing capabilities and transposes them into somethings specifically designed for music. The Houdini Music Toolset lets you derive music from 3D objects, simulations, and animation. The toolkit makes use of point clouds and attributes within Houdini’s 3D environment to produce sequencing tasks, much like music composition packages and DAW’s.

Houdini Music Toolkit (HMT).

The system uses CHOPs as a back-end to import or export MIDI file data to the midi file format, or directly to a MIDI port. It allows artists and composers to make use of powerful simulation tools and Houdini’s open node-based architecture typically used for producing photorealistic simulations and applying the same means to manipulate or generate patterns of notes. Download the HMT and learn more here.

The HMT isn’t the first time 3D and music have mixed. A while back London based Motion Design & Animation Director Simon Russell experimented with Houdini and music. Simon’s 3d/music experiments used geometry to trigger audio.

About Andrew Lowell.

Andrew Lowell’s career started in music recording/mixing and branched into video editing, compositing, and 3D FX; Eventually breaking into the VFX industry in Los Angeles. His career has spanned several countries and major studios such as Rhythm and Hues, CIS Vancouver, Animal Logic, and Digital Domain. Movie credits/studios include Mummy 3, Aliens in the Attic, Invictus, Thor, Sucker Punch, Transformers 3, Jack the Giant Slayer, Ender’s Game.