xREL.v3

Water Effects in Houdini 11 (c) FxpHD

2017-11-17

.: I N F O :.

This intermediate (pushing advanced) level course discusses fluid
effects in Houdini. Profs Jonathan Gilbert and John Moncrief will help
members become familiar with Houdini's Dynamics Operators (DOPs) and
the different fluid types: SPH, Voxel-Based and FLIP fluids. With this
knowledge you will endeavor in a production oriented project to
integrate a cg water fountain into a live action background plate. We
will explore Houdini's Rigid Body Dynamics (RBD) for collision
detection, FLIP fluids for the bulk of the water effects, DOPs Forces
for wind, foam and spray using some built in shelf tools (whitecaps)
and lastly, lighting, shading, rendering and compositing the final
image.

Gilbert is a freelance VFX artist with over six years of Houdini
experience. He graduated with his MFA in 3D Animation and Visual
Effects with a concentration in fluid dynamics from the Academy of Art
University in San Francisco. He then worked at Side Effects Software
Inc. building and teaching a series of basic and intermediate Pyro
Effects classes in Santa Monica. More recently, Jonathan finished
working on the last Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as a
Technical Director at Gradient Effects. He also is currently a
Professor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, building
and teaching Advanced Houdini.

Moncrief started working in VFX over ten years ago and has experience
in Houdini, Maya, 3ds Max, After Effects, Shake, and just about every
NLE you can think of. John just wrapped up 6 months working at Side
Effects Software Inc. in Santa Monica where he created a library of
Houdini training courses on FLIP fluids, DOPs and VOPs for industry
professionals from various studios including Blizzard, Sony
Entertainment and DreamWorks. He has one insane long-haired cat,
horrible allergies, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Art
degree in Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design in
Atlanta.
course syllabus

Class 1
Mainly theory and lecture. It lays down the foundation for
understanding the more advanced properties of fluid simulations. We
discuss the three types of fluid simulations available in Houdini,
Voxel Based, SPH (particle), and FLIP. There is a complete breakdown of
all three simulation methods including example scenes.

Class 2
You will build upon your fundamental theories and concepts that you
learned already by learning how to set up volume, sph and FLIP fluid
simulations. Also, you will explore the most common and useful
parameters of each and gain some insight as to why FLIP is so powerful
and the reason we'll be using it extensively in our project.

Class 3
Begin customizing the FLIP fluid simulation by first discussing
different methods of emission, setting up clipping limits for
efficiency and creating effective collision geometry. Discuss getting
data in and out of DOPs and common work flows such as caching methods,
writing out .sim data and/or .bgeos and where to find information about
distributed simulation.

Class 4
Discuss some of the scene optimizations such as the .bgeo file format
and only using one single piece of geometry for our fountain. Explore
in detail different techniques and strategies for working with
different scene scales in a fluid simulation by adjusting important
parameters and using specific DOPs while analyzing the advantages and
disadvantages for each of the setups. Cover methods to export .sim data
and using an initial state. Quickly go over a couple simple VOP SOPs
such as animated noisy volume and a velocity visualization tool.

Class 5
Explore a variety of ways to fill up our water fountain bowls by first
using the particle fluid object's initial data option to turn geometry
into particles as well as converting the geometry into our own set of
points and using the particle field type for the initial data. Look at
working inside the popsolver to source particles from our geometry, the
sculpted particle fluid shelf tool to take an initial reference surface
and a terrain object to create a field of particles with it's own flip
solver and fluid object and the method used in the first pass of the
simulation, using another particle fluid emitter to emit particles from
custom geometry. Take a quick tour of the ripple solver and how it
could be used to simulate the base water surface of the water fountain
as an option to possibly save time by not having to simulate as many
particles with flip.

Class 6
We cover some basic secondary effects for our fountain simulation. We
float leaves on the water surface. First we show this on the ripple
surface, and then demonstrate the technique using the mesh generated by
the particle fluid surface. Instead of using shelf tools, we build our
on set of custom DOPs nodes in order to push the leaves around in the
water using the velocity field from the FLIP solver.

Class 7
We take a closer look at secondary effects for fluid simulations.
First, a review of some reference footage so that we may get a better
idea of what types of secondary effects we might need. Next we cover
advanced DOPs techniques and build our own solver for calculating
turbulence. We look at certain SOPs solutions for creating spray on a
wave based on the curvature of the surface. We also check out the
performance monitor and look at ways of optimizing the fountain scene
to get a faster more efficient simulation.

Class 8
Briefly talk about the new simulation and the meshing parameters used
to get our fluid mesh. Cover how to set up an environment light with an
HDR that has been modified in COPs. Set up an area light for nicer
lighting and shadows. Discuss the Mantra ROP and some of the important
parameters to look at when rendering liquids and setting up
Micropolygon Physically Based Rendering. Talk about Caustics and Photon
Map generation. Then set up takes to separate out individual render
passes and bring them into COPs where we composite them together. Look
at some quick tricks to fake some shadows and lighting changes in our
composite.

Class 9
We address the final touches to our fountain project. We take a closer
look at the individual elements of a rendered fluid simulation. We
discuss how to export out custom foam attribute as a separate image
plane by creating custom renderable parameters inside the basic fluid
shader. After that the footage is brought into Nuke for the final
composite.

Class 10
A variety of methods for artistically controlling the motion of a fluid
in Houdini are. These include creating custom velocity fields to use
with the field force dop and gas particle to field dop, using a sop
vector field with the gas calculate dop and using POPs attractors along
with the ballistic attribute. With all of these different tools for
controlling the motion of fluid simulations, pretty much any type of
fluid effect can be achieved now.

.: M E T A :.

Type .... : Instructional Video
Genre ... : Bookware
Disks ... : 55
URL ..... : https://www.fxphd.com

.: I N S T A L L :.

A) Unpack this release using your favorite RAR unpacker.
B) Load up the tutorial, and expand your knowledge.
C) Sit back, and enjoy!

.: J O I N :.

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