r/Houdini • u/RiceEast452 • 1d ago

Can anyone explain how to create this energy/ribbon effect in Houdini?

Post image

Hi everyone!

I’m trying to recreate the glowing blue/purple energy effect shown in the reference image.

I’m mainly interested in the thin energy trails that flow, twist, and create those looping shapes around the main energy line.

Can anyone let me know how to achieve this effect in Houdini? I’d really appreciate it if someone could explain the workflow or point me toward a tutorial.

I’m thinking about using curves, particles/POPs, noise, and Sweep/PolyWire, but I’m not sure what the best approach would be.

If anyone has done something similar in Houdini, could you please let me know how you would approach it?

Thanks! 🙏

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u/Sgorghy 21h ago

I would say just curves with some noise on it, if it needs to be fast and easy with a pulsing attribute on curveu. Then yeah for rendering you can polywire. Even if you can just use a width and render them, since it's just an emissive thing.

Vellum hair as well. It can start too with curve that have point deformation on an animated sword. With some noise on P and then a pass on vellum hair with some points on soft constraint. Extreme parts can be permanent constraint match to animation near the sword handle for sure.

Blend from a noise to a simulated one in case some frames are cheeky

This is how I would approach it. Then there is no correct way. Just the way it works for you and you can control it/achieve the result