Houdini Essential Training

While known for its VFX strengths, Houdini has powerful tools for end-to-end 3D production for projects ranging from photorealistic visual effects to stylized motion graphics. In this course, Scott Pagano starts from the ground up to provide you with a solid foundation in Houdini. First, he takes you through the interface, covering topics such as global animation options, nomenclature, and viewport and display nodes. Next, he covers core geometry and animation concepts, followed by lighting, shading, and rendering techniques using the Houdini Mantra renderer. Once you have those primary 3D skills under your belt, Scott moves on to particles and volumes—some of the package's most lauded strengths. He wraps up with an overview of the package's compositing context, where you can create procedural imagery useful for processes across all contexts.

Topics include:

• Global animation options
• Viewing standard attributes
• Copying SOP with template attributes and stamping
• Caching geometry
• Exporting and importing Alembic
• Applying copy stamp channels
• Importing animation into CHOPs
• Caching animation data
• Rendering, shading, and lighting
• Setting up rigid body dynamics
• Collision geometry fundamentals
• Emitting particles from objects and attributes
• Rendering particles
• Emitting smoke from an object
• Refining smoke simulation
• Compositing layers