Houdini 101: Your First Steps In Procedural Fx

A step-by-step guide to mastering Houdini’s essential tools and techniques

What you'll learn

Basic Navigation & Houdini Contexts – Understanding the interface and different work areas

Scene Building – Importing geometry, applying materials, lighting, and rendering

SOPs & Geometry Manipulation – Working with attributes, grouping, copying, and instancing

VEX & VOPs – Writing custom scripts, understanding data types, and working with procedural logic

Volume Simulations – Creating procedural skies, clouds, smoke, fire, and explosion effects

Particles & POP Grains – Simulating particle motion and granular effects like sand and snow

RBD & Vellum Simulations – Rigid body destruction, fracturing, and soft body simulations

Flip Fluids & Rendering – Large and small-scale fluid simulations, rendering with Karma XPU and ACES color space

You Will Learn Houdini procedural workflow

You Will Learn Geometry Attributes

You Will Learn Houdini Dynamics

You Will Learn Rendering In Houdini

Requirements

Houdini 20.5 And Above

No Prior Knowledge of Houdini is Required

Description

We will start this course of from very basics how to navigate in the scene around and then we will take a brief tour of Houdini all of different contexts what they are and why they are here and in the process we will build entire scene from importing geometry assigning materials lighting and rendering our scene. Once we have established our foundation then we will take a deep dive into the Houdini SOP context and in here we will take a look at different geometry grouping techniques geometry attributes transferring the attributes driving extrusion from attributes. And then we will take a look at copying and instancing how to orient instance geometry instance attributes copying multiple geometry. And then we will learn about VEX and VOPs and how to work with VOPs and then we will take a look at writing vex code and we will learn about different data types and how to create parameters and channels.And then we will learn about working with volumes in Houdini how to create procedural skyscape and hero clouds working with smoke solver and pyro solver for creating smoke, fire, and explosion simulations rendering fire and explosions working with ACES and rendering with ACES Color space.And then we will dive into particles how to create particle simulation working with particle forces creating our own particle forces. And then we will take a look at POP Grains for creating sand and snow simulation.And then we will learn about Houdini RBD Bullet solver for creating rigid body simulation, creating destruction simulation, fracturing the geometry.And then we learn about vellum solver for creating soft body simulation. And we will finish this course off with flip fluids how to create both large and small scale fluid simulations. We will learn about flip viscosity to create viscous fluids. We will learn how to import geometry in Solaris for rendering and we will learn about Karma XPU for rendering. Some key topics we’ll cover include:Introduction & BasicsNavigating the sceneOverview of Houdini contextsBuilding a SceneImporting geometryAssigning materialsLighting and renderingHoudini SOP ContextGeometry grouping techniquesGeometry attributes & transferringDriving extrusion from attributesCopying & InstancingOrienting instance geometryInstance attributesCopying multiple geometriesVEX & VOPsWorking with VOPsWriting VEX codeUnderstanding data types, parameters, and channelsVolumes & SimulationsCreating procedural skyscape & hero cloudsSmoke & pyro solver for fire/explosion simulationsRendering with ACES color spaceParticles & POP GrainsParticle simulation & forcesCreating sand and snow simulationsRigid Body Dynamics (RBD) & Vellum SolverBullet solver for rigid body/destruction simulationsFracturing geometrySoft body simulations with VellumFlip Fluids & RenderingLarge and small-scale fluid simulationsFlip viscosity for viscous fluidsImporting geometry in Solaris for renderingRendering with Karma XPU

Overview

Section 1: Introduction To Houdini

Lecture 1 Course Trailer

Lecture 2 Download Project Files

Lecture 3 Get Started With UI

Lecture 4 Overview Of Houdini Contexts

Lecture 5 Import Geometry

Lecture 6 Assign Textures

Lecture 7 Materials And Rendering

Section 2: Deep Dive Into SOPs

Lecture 8 Geometry Grouping

Lecture 9 Geometry Attributes

Lecture 10 Attribute Based Extrusion

Lecture 11 Attributes Transfer

Lecture 12 Copying Geometry

Lecture 13 Copying Multiple Geometry

Lecture 14 Packed Primitives

Lecture 15 Copies Orientation

Lecture 16 Scatter And Align

Section 3: VEX And VOPs In Houdini

Lecture 17 Intro to VEX And VOPS

Lecture 18 When To Use VEX Over VOP

Lecture 19 Parameters And Channels

Lecture 20 Remap Values In VOPs

Lecture 21 Remap And Ramps

Lecture 22 Ramps In VEX

Section 4: Smoke And Pyro Simulation In Houdini

Lecture 23 Volumes And Voxels

Lecture 24 Houdini Volumes Vs VDB Volumes

Lecture 25 SDF Volume Vs Fog Volume

Lecture 26 Clouds Creation Workflow

Lecture 27 Smoke Simulation

Lecture 28 Pyro Solver

Lecture 29 Fire Simulation

Lecture 30 Pyro Solver Forces

Lecture 31 Writing Simulation Cache

Lecture 32 Rendering Smoke

Lecture 33 Pyro Burst Source

Lecture 34 Explosion Simulation

Lecture 35 Rendering Explosion

Lecture 36 Rendering In ACES

Section 5: Houdini Particles Dynamics

Lecture 37 Intro To POP Solver

Lecture 38 Particles Forces

Lecture 39 POP Axis Force

Lecture 40 POP Curve Force

Lecture 41 POP Curve Incompressible Flow

Lecture 42 POP Custom Velocity Field

Lecture 43 Custom Curve Force

Lecture 44 Particles Advection

Lecture 45 Rendering Particles

Section 6: Houdini POP Grains

Lecture 46 POP Grains Introduction

Lecture 47 Dry Sand Wet Sand

Lecture 48 Activating Grains

Lecture 49 Collision Based Activation

Lecture 50 Rendering Grains

Lecture 51 Grains Soft Body

Section 7: Houdini RBD Bullet Solver

Lecture 52 RBD Dynamics Introduction

Lecture 53 RBD Bullet Sop Solver

Lecture 54 Animated Vs Deforming

Lecture 55 Fracturing Geometry

Lecture 56 RBD Constraints

Lecture 57 RBD Activation

Section 8: Houdini Vellum Solver

Lecture 58 Vellum Basics

Lecture 59 Vellum Soft Body

Lecture 60 Vellum Constraints

Lecture 61 Vellum Hair

Lecture 62 Vellum Grains

Section 9: Houdini Flip Fluids Simulation

Lecture 63 Flip Fluids Simulation

Lecture 64 Particle Fluid Tank

Lecture 65 Flip SOP Solver

Lecture 66 Writing Cache And Meshing

Section 10: Conclusion

Lecture 67 Thank You

Section 11: Project Files

Lecture 68 Download Project Files

Beginner 3D Artists Who Wants To Learn Houdini