The Gnomon Workshop – Creating Creature Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini

Learn to efficiently groom characters and creatures in Houdini using advanced techniques by ILM Grooming Artist, Kristin Farrensteiner. In this in-depth guide for Houdini, Kristin focuses on a photorealistic cat model to share her collection of grooming techniques for various short, medium, and long hair/fur styles. The workflows demonstrated can be applied to any character or creature and are optimized for an interactive workflow, keeping high-paced professional production environments and tight deadlines in mind.


This 19-chapter workshop begins by tackling the basics of a non-destructive and procedural grooming workflow in Houdini 18. Kristin focuses on setting up a mesh from scratch and how to separate specific fur regions based on different artistic compositions. With the foundations covered, she then dives deeper into the technical aspects of Houdini and provides detailed insights into how to troubleshoot potential issues such as memory lines, clump patterns, and mesh transfers. She reveals how to harness the power of Houdini to create a convincing groom package, shares her look-dev techniques, and reveals her approach to setting up grooms in Houdini’s rendering engine, Mantra.


Throughout the workshop, Kristin discusses various workflows for creating guides to empower you with knowledge for your future grooming projects and how to approach them. By completing the workshop, you will be confident grooming characters and creatures using various advanced techniques in Houdini.