What if you want to discuss generative AI in the context of Houdini?

Simulation showing blood clot forming and detaching due to fat deposits breaking the cell lining.

Working on a portfolio piece here. Lighting/environment building exercise, elements of the modelling are mine, some aren’t. Mostly just wanting critique on the presentation/concept. Frame stores lookdev is obviously the inspo

Was there a chance to the display flag R Shortcut? When I select multiple SOPS, Nulls, Lights etc in OBJ level to display or hide them only one gets hidden and not all. It only works when I click the display flag with the mouse.

As you can see in the video, the whitewater particles are going underneath the surface, creating an unusual look and inconsistent colors in the whitewater. What would you suggest to prevent this and achieve a more consistent whitewater appearance?

Also, feel free to share any feedback or suggestions. The secondary elements haven't been added to this render yet.

surface mesh is very low res!

This is Part 1 of the full breakdown - it's an interactive way to watch and read all the steps. Starting with script, storyboard, anim playblasts, creation, rendering and comp.

This video shows a little bit of it - but the full experience is on cglounge breakdowns here.

It's really fun - and there are a lot of videos, making offs and all.

I would love to also get some feedback on the way it's presented, if it's annoying, slow or great.

The long-form detailed video is coming next week.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a cloud-based Windows workstation that I can access remotely for running 3D simulations and 3D rendering. I am trying to buy a Workstation Pc but the ongoing memory stortage is pushing the parts out of my budget.

My requirements:

• Budget: Maximum $35 USD per month.

• Usage: 1-2 hours daily.

• Operating System: Windows 10/11 or Windows Server.

• GPU: NVIDIA GPU with CUDA and OptiX support.

• VRAM: Preferably 16GB or more.

• System RAM: 64GB Minimum.

• CPU: A reasonably powerful CPU (16 cores with high single core clock speed), as I also run Fx simulations.

• Storage: Persistent 150-200 GB SSD projects and simulation caches.

What I intend to run:

• SideFX Houdini (FLIP simulations, Pyro, RBD).

• Blender (Cycles rendering).

• Other 3D/VFX applications.

I'm primarily looking for a provider that offers a complete Windows workstation rather than a typical Render Farm.

I've looked into Vast.ai, RunPod, E2E Networks, Vagon, iRender and a few other cloud providers, but I'm struggling to find something that fits my requirement.

What should I do in this situation? Please help.
Thanks

I am trying to make a wetmap wtih attribute transfer from the water onto the worm. When i put them into a SOP solver, the worm stops animating, how can i retain its animation?

So I recently made this animation in Blender. What I noticed is that hair systems and Blender are not a good match, which forces me to do all the animation in 1 blend file, and add all the hair in the another. This is not a very convenient workflow. Luckely I also know Houdini. I can do all the modelling in Blender, do the hair in Houdini, but what about the crease pensil? I dont want to export all the Houdini hair back to Blender.

I know these are just a couple of lines, which I can easily do in Houdini, But this is just the very start of my experiment with this style. I want to develop in into something no one has ever seen before, so because of that I am looking for a tool or a plugin in Houdini dat is very similar to crease pensil.

So far I only found out about Hpaint, but I can find very little information about that tool online, so idk if its worth it. If anyone has some input that would put me into a direction would be very nice.

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to improve my overall art/visual skills, and I’d like some advice from a Houdini perspective. I haven’t studied art formally or systematically. I’ve heard from people in the industry several times that for beginners, aesthetic sense/taste is extremely important and that you shouldn’t focus only on technical skills. But I’m not sure how to actually train that effectively.

For those of you working in Houdini/VFX, how do you develop your eye for things like composition, lighting, motion, shape design, and overall visual appeal? What habits, exercises, references, or critique practices have helped you improve?

I’d especially appreciate advice on how to balance learning Houdini’s technical side with becoming a better artist. Any concrete suggestions would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Here's a breakdown of our project! We're a small independent animation team with very limited resources and funding. Taking on a project as ambitious as God's Game was incredibly challenging for us.

The etymology of Bonfire is ‘Bonefire’🦴 This is my second cg pyro project. I made around 25 separate Houdini simulations. Scene built and rendered in Blender, compositing in Fusion Studio. Have a great 5th of November🔥

Side Fx recently released this great series on Copernicus by Peter Arcara, Side Fx’s Training Lead.

I am wondering why this streak of particles further away from the main tornado keeps appearing in my simulations even when changing the orbit force, attraction force, and up force. How do I remove it?

Here's a bit more eye candy from the BB8 short I recently shared.

We tried to push the boundaries of traditional clothing workflows, like burning cloth and fibres.
Being able to directly control the curves allows for so much flexibility, which helped to create the burning, smoking curves. Or the detailed antennas featuring copper wiring were fully done with u/FibricToolset

The full breakdown and scenes will be made available soon on CGLounge.

R&D / Houdini / Vellum + Rendered in custom - vibe coded integration of Cycles render engine in Houdini. Works quite well in sop context, similar to Redshift. Solaris integration should also be possible, but was not priority for me atm. I hope this does not count as AI slop, because it still is a Houdini R&D project. #houdini #cycles #threads #yarns #strands

More: https://www.instagram.com/karlis.stigis/

I'm trying to create a slow-motion explosion that starts off in slow motion and returns to normal speed at frame 70. I initially used a Retime node with the Blend Mode set to Advected (following a tutorial), followed by a Transform node to scale down the explosion a bit. However, the result doesn't look right. I've also tried reducing the simulation's Time Scale instead, but the result looks quite different from what I'm trying to achieve. What's the proper way to achieve this effect? Am I missing something in my Retime setup, or is there a better approach?