Houdini

Mix 06 - Houdini baking tools and Blender camera projections /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is one of those mix videos that I do once in a while.
We are going to explore two different topics.
The first one is new baking methods in Houdini 21, for both mesh and textures. Pretty useful for assets and environment work.

The second is all about camera projections in Blender. This is an introduction, because I'm planning to do a nice little project on this Patreon that involves a combination of camera projection techniques, matte painting and ComfyUI workflows. Hopefully I can ge into this pretty soon.

As a reminder, please get in touch with me to propose topics for my next videos.
Head over to my Patreon to access the training

Thanks,
Xuan.

Houdini biomes /  by Xuan Prada

Hello everyone,

This is the last post of the year.
I wanted to talk a little bit about Houdini biomes and a proper workflow for USD and Solaris.
Biomes are a very centric SOPs set of tools and I wanted first to explain how to use the tools and then what is the workflow that I'm using when it comes to export the scattering data to be used with USD published assets.

Head over to my Patreon to access the training.

Houdini rigging 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This video is about rigging in Houdini.

I will cover most of the features that I've been using for the past 4 years to create characters in Houdini.

We will build a rig using Kinefx from scratch. Then we will look into how to use any motion capture data from any rig and retarget it to our own custom rig.

We will then take a look at making modifications or fixes to the animation, mixing multiple mocap clips, and adding extra layers as props or cloth simulation.

This is the first part of an introductory rig series, where we will be covering other rig concepts in the future.

Head over my Patreon to access the training.

Thanks,
Xuan.

Grooming 03 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

This is grooming 03, I'll be talking mostly about lookdev and rendering hair in Solaris and Karma. We will build a hair layering shader that we can use with animals and creatures, something that is very common when working with complex VFX assets.

I'll be taking some time off starting next week, so I'll be seeing you after the summer break.

Head over to my Patreon to get access to the training.
Thanks,
Xuan.

Houdini Solaris - sequence lighting /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

In this video we are going to create a template in Houdini Solaris for handling multi shots, or sequence lighting.
This is the type of setup that allows you to drive an entire sequence from the same Houdini script, being able to create overrides per shot.

This is a very common practice in visual effects and animation studios.
In this video we will work with Solaris, Karma and USD.

Head over to my Patreon to access to the training.
Thanks,
Xuan.

Skin lookdev in Houdini Solaris Karma /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

In this video we are going to look into how to deal with skin shading in Houdini's Solaris and Karma. Unfortunately Karma doesn't have the best skin shader out there, but we will try to extract the best out of it to create realistic skin shaders.

There are a lot of things to cover, including.
- How to use vfaces as source textures.
- How to wrap your custom meshes to generic vfaces meshes using Houdini's topo transfer.
- How to transfer vfaces to your custom meshes using Houdini and Mari.
- How to create a callibrated lightrig for lookdev.
- How to use and callibrate properly multi channel displacement maps.
- How to use ISO masks to control different areas of the face.
- How to deal with roughness and specular.
- How to use albedos and SSS maps.
- Peach fuzz.
- How to create AOVs for extra control in Nuke.

All the info on my Patreon.

Megascans modules to full procedural buildings /  by Xuan Prada

 

Hello patrons,

In this video we will create a setup in Houdini to generate full procedural buildings using Megascan modules.
You can tweak this setup in any way you want to create a different style of buildings, either using other Megascan modules or your own 3D models.

At some point I would like to replicate this setup 100% inside of Unreal using PCG, this is something that I explain briefly in the video as well and it would be part of the Unreal PCG series that I started a while back.

All the info on my Patreon.

Thanks,
Xuan.

Grooming 02 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

I don't think I'll be able to publish anything next month, so I'm leaving this video this month (as well as the first video).

This is the second part of my grooming series (more to come) where we expand the knowledge and workflows explained in the first video.

This time we talk about cartoon female grooming, and we will spend quite a bit of time developing full procedural grooms. I will expand on this topic in the next grooming video, there are still plenty of things to cover.

All the info on my Patreon.

Thanks for your support!
Xuan.

Grooming 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is the first video of my grooming in Houdini series.
The video is a bit longer than I anticipated, 4:46 hours, but we need to start by covering the very basics of grooming before doing any real grooming work.

This is what I will be covering in the video.

- Grooming workflow in Houdini.
- Grooming tools.
- Cartoon style grooming.
- Full grooming of one character.
- Overview of grooming of another character.

In future videos I will be covering many more grooming related topics, I explain the whole plan in the introduction of this video.

All the info on my Patreon.

Stay tunned.
Thanks!
Xuan.

Solaris backplates and live compositing /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

I'm planning to realease two more videos before the end of the year, and most lilkely I will stop posting on this Patreon in 2025 let's see.

For now, this is the first video that I'm releasing in December.
Solaris backplates and live compositing. Houdini has re-designed COPs and now you can do much more without leaving the software when it comes to compositing, specially for slap comps.

We will take a look at the new tools and we will do a simple slap comp similar to the ones we do in production.

All the info on my Patreon.

Crowds part 03 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This is the final video for my Crowds series.
In this video we are going to talk about using ragdolls in crowds systems.

Of course, there are many other topics that we could discuss when it comes to crowds, but for now, let's end this series here. Please let me know if you would like to see more crowds content in the future. Otherwise, please feel free to suggest other topics as well.

Al the info on my Patreon.

Thanks!

Crowds part 02 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

As promised, this is the second part of the crowds series.
In this very long video, almost 3.30 hours, I will cover creating agents from scratch. We will start by building the rigs bone by bone. Then retargetting mocap from different sources, creating collision layers, etc, and finally creating the crowd simulations.

We will be adding cloth and hair layers for simulation.
This is a more advanced crowd setup, so I encourage you to take a look at the first video.

I will conclude this series with Crowds part 03 - ragdolls, hopefully next month.

Thanks!
Xuan.

Crowds part 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This is the first of two parts of my Houdini crowds training.
The first video is an introduction to the system. I will cover everything from agent creation, motion capture clips, props attachment, configuring contraints for feet contact, transition clips, and rendering in Solaris with Karma.

I will also explain in the video what are the plans for the second video, which will be a bit more advanced and it will touch on some important topics not covered in the first video.

I hope you like it.
Head to my Patreon to get all of this.

Thanks,
Xuan.

Snow piles in Houdini /  by Xuan Prada

In this video I will show you my process of building snow piles for your environments.
This might be a bit overkilling but it is a nice way of getting super detailed props for close up shots.
I basically use vellum grains to get a decent looking sim. Once the setup is done, you can get variations quickly and export single frames to build multiple props efficently.

All the info on my Patreon.

Intro to VEX for artists 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

I start the new year with an introduction to VEX for artists.
VEX is a crucial tool for any Houdini artists, it doesn't matter if you use Houdini for procedural modelling, environment creation, scene assembly and rendering or FX, you will have to use some VEX at some point.

This video covers the basics of VEX from scratch, there is no need to know any coding at all, and I will be making some basic examples along the way. From something very simple to more complicated setups.

My idea is to record 2 or 3 videos about VEX over the next few months,
This is the time to take your Houdini skills to the next level by understanding the most common uses of VEX.

Thanks!

Info on my Patreon.

Intro to TOPs /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This month I bring you an introductory video about TOPs.
TOPs is Houdini network that allows you to automate processes (amon other things).
I use it quite a lot for creating variations or wedges, specially when building procedural assets, scattering systems or environments. I also use it a lot to create different variations for simulations, and I use it specially for wedging lighting when designing sequences. But you can really use it for anything in Houdini.

This is a two hours introduction to the TOPs workflow, I hope you find it useful.
All the info on my Patreon.

Houdini's window box /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

I just published on my Patreon a video about Houdini’s window box.
This video is about how to use the new window box system in Houdini. One of those tools that I've been using for many years at different VFX studios, but now it works out of the box with Houdini and Karma. I hope you find it useful and you can start using it soon in your projects!

All the info on my Patreon site.

Solaris Katana interoperability part 2/2 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

In this video we will finish this mini series about Solaris and Katana interoperability.
I'll be covering the topics that I didn't have time to cover in the first video, including.

- Manual set dressing from Solaris to Katana.
- Hero instancing from Solaris to Katana.
- background instancing and custom attributes from Solaris to Katana.
- Dummy crowds from Solaris to Katana.
- Everything using USD of course.

There are many more things that could be covered when it comes to Solaris and Katana interoperability, I'm pretty sure that I'll be covering some of them in future USD videos.

All the info on my Patreon.

Solaris Katana interoperability part 1/2 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is small trailer for the video Houdini Solaris / Katana interoperability part 1/2.
The full video is published only for Patrons.
The whole thing is divided in two videos, the first one is around 2.5 hours and hopefully next month I can publish the second video covering the rest of the topics.

In this first video we are covering.

- Working template in Solaris.
- Working template in Katana.
- Full assets from Solaris to Katana.
- Modifying/overriding looks in Katana.
- Geometry assets from Solaris to Katana.
- Publishing looks as KLF.
- Publishing looks as USD files.
- Full assembly USD files.

All the information on my Patreon.

Thanks!
Xuan.