Maya HDRI Studio for Redshift
A video documentation on how to use the tool.
A video documentation on how to use the tool.
It’s Episode 3! In this video, I’ll show you how to set up a simple RBD simulation in Houdini and this time, as you’ve asked for it, I’ll cover the Redshift rendering setup too! I planned to keep the videos short, but to include the rendering setup, I had to add 10 minutes to the video length. Let me know if you prefer for me to cover the rendering setup each time, or simply focus on the simulation and keep the video bite-sized. As always, if you don’t know the basics of Houdini, check out Houdini Isn’t Scary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsv8UGqDibc See you next Friday!
Welcome back to the series in Episode 2. In this video, I’ll show you how to create this classic particle disintegration effect in Houdini. I hear some of you will like a render setup portion to the video, but I wonder if it’ll make the video too long for you guys, let me know! In any case, I’ll try to incude that in Episode 3 and see how it goes ya? As always, if you don’t know the basics of Houdini, check out Houdini Isn’t Scary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsv8U… Otherwise, have fun and see you next Friday!
Here’s a 10-part mini tutorial series to serve as bite-sized introduction to Houdini’s simulation tools. Let’s start easy for Episode 1 – Particles. If you don’t know the basics of Houdini, check out Houdini Isn’t Scary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsv8U… Otherwise, have fun and see you next Friday!
Developed this iridescent glass shader in Maya / Redshift based on IG @odddough ‘s request at work.
Here’s a tool to add filecache and file nodes to your selected node in SOPs geometry context. At Masonry Studios, we base our Houdini geometry caches and its version on the file name (which contains the version number) and the node name, which is the default in Houdini’s file cache node.
However avoid using the file cache’s “Load from Disk” option to load the geometry back in, because:
# Author: Ronald Fong # Date: 29 Sep 2021 # Usage: Add this as a shelf tool. With a SOP node selected, use this tool to quickly create a filecache and a cache node. # Feature 1: Names the cache nodes based on your selected node # Feature 2: File node will automatically be the evaluated absolute path of your filecache node selected_node = hou.selectedNodes() geo_node = selected_node[0].parent() name = str(selected_node[0]) filecache_node = geo_node.createNode("filecache", ("filecache_" + name)) file_node = geo_node.createNode("file", ("file_" + name)) file_node.setInput(0, filecache_node) filecache_node.setInput(0, selected_node[0]) geo_node.layoutChildren() filecache_node.setDisplayFlag(1) filecache_node.setRenderFlag(1) filecache_node.setSelected(1) filename = filecache_node.parm("file").eval() file_node.parm("file").set(filename)
Vellum and RBD both have the newer packaged workflows, and while it’s nifty on their own, I haven’t found a way to set up such that they can mutually affect each other properly in a single simulation.
Usually, we’d set this up in a custom dopnet using the multi-solver, but because of the way the packaged node’s geometry and constraints are group together, there’s no straightforward set up setting this up.
So here’s a quick and dirty (but efficient) way to fake the interaction between RBD packed simulation and a Vellum simulation.
The idea is to first mimic the movement we’d want of the interaction using just the RBD bullet solver. We feed that output to serve as a collisions geometry for another temporary Vellum solve, feed this temporary Vellum output back to a new RBD bullet solver for the final RBD simulation, and once again feed it back to a new Vellum solve for the final vellum interaction.
This multi-phase simulation approach yields decently convincing results. While it’s not technically accurate, it’s artist-friendly to utilise the packaged simulation nodes.
This screenshot of the node tree shows how Vellum and RBD packaged SOP level nodes feed into each other to arrive at the illusion of interaction.
I’m a Animation director who specializes in 3D Animation and Motion FX Design for short films and CGI commercials.
Here, I share my work and my thoughts about the industry’s creative, technical and business developments.
So, have a look around and please reach out if you wish to discuss, have a chat, or potentially work together.
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ronald [at] ronald-fong.com
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