Introduction to Houdini For FX Weeks 1 – 6

Week 01 | HOUDINI

• Introduction to Houdini 18.
• Workflow And Tools.
• Wedging and iteration.
• Hardware & Software.
• Crafting FX workflow.

Students should have a foundational understanding of Houdini before taking this course. As a result, we recommend the following course as a prerequisite:

• Houdini Fundamentals

If you are unsure if you are qualified for this course, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Users should have an introductory knowledge of proceduralism and Houdini’s interface. You should know the difference between Maya, 3DS Max, and Houdini. You should have an introductory knowledge of VEX and PointVOPs

Week 02 | ALL ABOUT POPS

• Intro to pops
• An introduction to Designing FX
• Timing & Layering
• Create a simple procedural system that uses path finding to create various particles streams
• Create various FX elements using POPs
• Particles Caching and optimization
• NEW: FX Energy design and prototyping the look
• NEW: Simulation setup
• NEW: Guiding particles and creating intelligent paths and Colliders
• NEW: Shockwave design, approach and execution

Rebelway Intro to Fx H-18 Week03

Week 03 | VOLUMES

• Intro to Houdini volumes and vdb manipulation.
• Intro to Dops and smoke solver
• Create various smoke elements to enhance all the particles FX created week 2
• Volume caching and optimization
• NEW: Creating magical explosion
• NEW: Adding more FX layers to the shockwave
• NEW: Using smoke simulation to enhance particle simulation

Rebelway Intro to Fx H-18

Week 04 | RENDERING

*Intro to mantra
*Intro to shading in mantra
*Shading all the particles FX previously created
*Rendering the environment and setting up all the passes need to render our particles FX
*Intro to cops in Houdini
*NEW: Buildings, streets and environment rendering
*NEW: Initial particle rendering
*NEW: Introduction To Compositing

Week 05 | RBD

• Intro to Bullets and constraints
• Fracturing using voronoi and boolean
• What is convex decomposition
• Edge displacement and high-res interior
• Create the constraint
• Simulate the rbd
• Caching the rbd and optimisation
• Setup a workflow for using lowres/higer geometry for simulation vs rendering
• NEW: Houdini 16/17 and 18 and how to transition
• NEW: When to use sop level solvers vs dop level solvers
• NEW: Creating the building destruction setup