This project is a clip made to music by Max Cooper on the release of his album *Emergence*. The animation is entirely procedural with a very graphical approach. Simple lines become alive and interact with their environment. Lines form cells, microbes, small creatures, and plants.
The track uses a binaural sample of rain hitting a window. The rain hits the window randomly, but Max Cooper then forces the hits towards a grid so that a pattern emerges from the raindrops based on their closest structure–it’s an emergent rhythm. The visuals mirror this emergence with an initially detailed and chaotic form that slowly develops into something with recognizable structure. This concept is applied to Darwinian evolution, with a sea of randomness spawning forms that replicate, compete, and mutate in an abstract way, so that ever more intricate and complex structures emerge from the initial chaos.
The main concept of the video was to play with simple rules and chaotic events in order to get beautiful and organized structures. In this clip, we can see some simple elements becoming complex, evolving into living creatures. It mimics life and evolution at a molecular level as an ecosystem.
The process of creation started with a lot of small experiments with dynamic systems around this main idea of living microorganisms. To visualize evolution from a basic and chaotic structure, the clip is inspired by life and living organisms such as very basic cells and microbes. There are three key ideas: abstract tests (about 0-0:50), emergence (0:50-2:44), and creatures (2:44-4). In the first part Abstract Tests, it starts with chaotic structures and moves towards complexity. The part Emergence shows the beginning of structure and life by focusing on cells that interact based on simple rules. In the last part of the clip, Creatures, elements try to learn how to walk and move, inspired in part by the work of Karl Sims, in a more simple way.
From a technical point of view, everything was made procedurally with Houdini. It starts with simple forces and behaviors. Creatures move dynamically with constraints and the animation is only controlled by initial conditions and rules. Then the camera is animated as in a documentary, filming interesting parts. Systems interact together according to very simple rules in order to bring about the emergence of complex results.


Links: https://vimeo.com/196269431

Director/animation: Maxime Causeret
Music: Max Cooper, album *Emergence*, 2016

Maxime Causeret (FR) is a Houdini FX artist, motion graphic artist, and director based in France. He studied Art and Technologies at the University of Paris 8 and wrote the PhD thesis *To paint with dynamic materials: procedural systems for creation and artistic experimentation*. During his PhD he had the opportunity to work with international artists like David Quayola and Memo Akten. He has worked on various projects for companies such as Fields, Volvoxlab, Digital Distric, Mac Guff Line, Mikros Image, and Cube Creative. He teaches about Houdini software at Les Gobelins in Paris and is working on his own projects like *Order From Chaos* for Max Cooper or *Ghost are Dancing* for “Home & Dry”.