We also offer the first section of the Training Series for $99 here which comes with additional content: bit.ly/3ZFoSAZ

Hey PhalHappy8612! Thanks for your interest and great question. General Houdini knowledge is good, but we approach every step initially as a Houdini beginner. There's lots of helpful UI, hotkey, navigation, foundational concepts discussed early on that we build upon over the course. I've been using Houdini for about 2 years now and have been using Maya for about 20 years- so we compare all of Houdini concepts we discuss to general 3d concepts and logic. You should be able to understand and master the course with very basic 3d knowledge. Hope this helps and look forward to seeing you in the course and what you produce with the knowledge!

Hey PhalHappy8612! Thanks for your interest and great question. General Houdini knowledge is good, but we approach every step initially as a Houdini beginner. There's lots of helpful UI, hotkey, navigation, foundational concepts listed early on that we build upon over the course. I've been using Houdini for about 2 years now and have been using Maya for about 20 years- so we compare all of Houdini concepts we discuss to general 3d concepts and logic. You should be able to understand and master the course with very basic 3d knowledge. Hope this helps and look forward to seeing you in the course and what you produce with the knowledge!

Behram, Thank you so much for your Support and Kind words! It truly means So Much every time I hear how these training series have helped Artists and their Teams with their projects. Excited to see what you create with your new muscle skills- You will be 10x happy with Houdini compared to Ziva. Happy Simulating my Friend!

Thanks Erich! I'm sure the large price tag deters a few Artists, but really happy you took the plunge and arose on the other side a Master of Muscles with a Vast Toolset to handle your projects. Really appreciate the kind words and hope to create more training series in the future for you. Noted about the beginning of the series, Will make that adjustment in future ones!

Hey BlackSpear217, All great questions. Happy to speak further on LinkedIn if you want- might be a faster turnaround- but I'm happy to answer your questions here for everyone. Thank you for the kind words! I understand with the high price point, it's only fair to have all the information before making a decision. Yes, the course is very in depth and we cover simple muscle systems (the tubes example) to understand how properties and constraints work before tackling a whole body. This helps with evaluation and simulation time for Artists that possibly do not own the studio level performance workstation. The course is broken into chapters focusing on different areas from reconforming muscles between assets, procedurally generating pre roll animation, simulation optimization, delegation, and automation. Application to Barebone Animations: This workflow will be applicable to any character with any body type whether we want to use a mesh skeletal muscle system underneath or simplify it with a unibodied skin simulation with material maps- ie the difference between Franken Muscle and Multimuscle. Franken muscle works best when we can generate the muscle material weights on the skin from proximity of muscle meshes underneath. However, We dont need to have these bones and muscles underneath and we could always paint the different muscles maps manually and still adjust per-muscle properties of how the skin would move. It's important to know there are certain body areas that require the skeletal-muscle structure underneath to look correct- example on a human - the chest/underarm/bicep area- the bicep/chest are connected and form a bridge when the arm flys/rotates forward. If this is not simulated under the skin we won't get this result on the skin. With that said, there are lots of skeletal muscle meshes systems available for purchasing on websites like turbosquid/etc and this Training Series will provide a method to drag and drop and do minimal tuning to transfer attributes and properties. A human biped skeleton/muscles mesh is provided with this Series for your projects. We do not cover creation of muscles but I provide links to other Training series that cover this. In all of the previous Studios I've worked at, The Character Art/Modeling department will always provide this for biped/creatures/etc and we will work with them to finess/help them sculpt to create. Compatibility with Fantasy Creatures and Complex Characters: To add to the details mentioned above, in this workflow you would probably need to do every type of system once (tail, hind leg, each limb type) and then you would be able to reuse and transfer attributes/maps/params between characters in a way of geometry compositing. It would be very hard to go from an arm to a tail, but you could go from a bear leg to a squirrel or mouse leg. Relevance for Freelancers: Great question! This is a flexible powerhouse pipeline that will allow for one click multistep simulations/logging on your personal computer as well as a render farm of machines. This is the technical level of optimization you would expect to see at Feature Film Studios, Commercial Firms, and Video Game companies all packaged up in a Houdini project you can use in your own commercial projects. This workflow will scale from one Freelancer at home to a studio with Rig/Cfx teams with 30+ people. ie. DNeg, MPC, Scanline Hope these responses answer your questions and look forward to seeing you in the series! When you decide to jump in, please support me by clicking this link to CGCircuit, it will help with the royalties and allow me to create even more awesome content for Everyone. bit.ly/3XzRuM3 FREE Lessons from the Training are also available here to help you make the decision- kzbin.info/aero/PLxnZzcW-q3vLwjyADpILUC3wBITs7Ibru&si=WZr2d4tRaf4vlO8Z

@@WilliamNoahSchnapp Thanks Noah, that's all I wanted to know and I am very appreciative of your in depth response. I've just purchased your course and very excited to dive in immediately . I agree, I don't want to spam your YT page with questions, I'd be happy to connect with you on LinkedIn for any possible follow ups or just to see any future course releases and updates. again, much appreciated and extremely looking forward to this! Cheers!

@@blackspear217 Oh wonderful! Looking forward to see what you produce with it. Feel free to reach out on linkedin to chat more! www.linkedin.com/in/wnschnapp/

Thanks Mikkel! Hope to see you in the Course and see what You create with it!

Thanks Jack!

Thanks Jack!

advanced skeleton for maya can do it

Hey Piston, Appreciate your interest and support! Yes It will reposition metahuman skeletons. I have not seen the DNA Calibration tools, but I will certainly look into them! If you have an existing metahuman character, these are two other tutorials that are pretty useful for migrating BlendShapes and also incredibly fast loading/saving of data and deformer weights- Automatic BlendShape Transfer to Different Topology- bit.ly/3k7WTFK The Fastest SkinCluster IO You Will Ever Write: The Art of Compression bit.ly/34XdI1X

Yes Sir, It will! Apologies for missing this comment before!

Hey Ananda, thanks for your Support! Happy to answer your questions. When you say "set it up for MetaHuman" -- do you mean you are trying to place another skeleton in the position/orientation of the existing metaHuman joint skeleton? In that case, I would suggest to use a mapping dictionary and constrain joints to joints. We have a lesson for joint orientations, but each rigging solution (Metahuman, mixamo, etc) all have their own orientations so its pretty tough unless we have a universal skeleton. The polevector/cross product lesson is meant to give the tools to orient the entire skeleton, but it is still very much a per-case basis for each different skeleton used. I appreciate the offer to pay for a solution but time/bandwidth is fairly tight with current projects. If you reach out to me on LinkedIn, we can discuss more as I will see those messages easier, Best!

Thanks for your interest and support Heesang. All of the tutorials come with the completed code files as well as the empty python files that we fill in during the training series. Intermediate Maya is recommended and a healthy amount of python is also recommended. I would suggest to start with the blendshape one and then go to auto place skeleton, and then faster skincluster. If you are interested in cfx, the ziva course is great too. Thanks!

@@WilliamNoahSchnapp Thank you for your reply:) Can you tell me more about what is "intermediate level" to you?😁 I know it's hard to explain :) And I really need to learn cfx and saw your ziva course, Could you tell me why you use ziva over houdini? Like one is easier or more professional etc. I'm preparing everything to be ready to understand your courses before I buy them🥹 Thank you:)

@@heesang1989 ziva or Houdini are great options, they are really just preference depending on if you like Maya or Houdini. The knowledge is pretty advanced in the series, but we fill in everything during the lessons and go over what it means

Luizzzzzzz!! Thanks :)

@@WilliamNoahSchnapp Hi Mr. Noah It needs rig? can you send please the download link? Thanks

The $10,000 ones? I do not think so. But with a little editing and sculpting, the Ziva mr ink is pretty solid for studio production. I have not worked at a studio where they have used those assets over Mr Ink or zeke the lion.

@@ohSchnapp It's actually $100 for academic purposes and $1000 for indies. But you're right. Zeke and Mr. Ink are very scalable assets and hence pretty solid for studio work.

@@AKThem06 yes you are correct for those price ranges, it is $10,000 for commercial studio use. Although Mr ink has a few bugs in it, every studio I've been at use that as it's go to biped. Would suggest giving it a try before going with the beefy other assets :)

Hey Kaique, Thanks for the comment! This course goes over the basics of Ziva in the early chapters which would be great information for you if you have to handle a Ziva Rig in the scene or build one. It does however get fairly complex with the scripting, however all of the files are available and we type every line and test it on video. All of the scripts are include in Finished form as well for use. Even if the really complicated scripting topics were too much, I bet you'd greatly benefit from the broad knowledge of the plugin.

I do not, but feel free to pm me or email me at [email protected] :)

Thanks Dude! Are you rigging in maya too? At RPI?

I just make the 3D models in Maya hehe :) I rig in Cinema 4D. Hope we can team up sometime and do some crazy things!

***** Still at it! :) More so on the professional side so I can't post too much material. Hoping to have a few goodies soon, but currently pursuing hobbies like DJ'ing and QuadRacing :D! Thanks for the post!