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1/14/2026
Today I really wanted to focus on getting more accurate bubble behavior down. I did research looking at bubble behavior(specifically at smaller scale) and what I noticed is that bubbles naturally drift towards each other, similar to bird flocking.
So with this discovery I began using Houdini's "Flock" node in the DOP level to get a ton of iterations in order to replicate this behavior
Flipbook
Flock Node Settings
As bubbles grow while rising, I wanted to implement that into my simulation. Not only would it give me a more realistic result, but it would help hide the bubbles that are emitting from the ring. To do this my solution was to simply multiply the age attribute from my bubble sim by the pscale attribute. I used a ramp parameter so I could fully control the speed at which the bubbles grew when they spawn.
VOP Network
Before Age Scale
After Age Scale
While the difference doesn't look that absurd, this small addition helps the bubbles look less like they are spawning out of nowhere.
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1/13/2026
Today we presented our product pitch to the NYC mentors. Despite obviously being a little nervous, it went extremely well! The mentors provided some fantastic critic which my team and I will be implementing in these coming weeks.
Pitch edited by Wren Pellant
Mentor Comments
Beck:
-Good job keeping effects contained
-Pay attention to refraction on bubbles and the physics of it
-Be careful for scale- vellum can also be used for small scale fluid sim
-Maybe go macro in the flower scene as well since the other shots are also macro
Billy:
-Good shots with intention
Kyle:
-Flower scene– keep the environment simple, don’t make it overly detail
-Find elegant ways to transition into each shot
-Lay out color palette together and make sure they follow a color script and are cohesive
Stephan:
-Macro photography with shallow DOF
Molly:
-Figure out timing of the camera moves and make sure the speed of all the shots make sense
Pheya:
-Find similarities in the shots and see what connects them together to help with transitions
(droplet falls from flower transition to water scene for ex.)