Very Cool! It's Fall 2024 and I'm taking your class right now ANGM2305 in the future!
@NelsonLim14 күн бұрын
Awesome to have you in class! ANGM4313 is the class to take if you are interested in FX in the future.
@Danis565628 күн бұрын
I remember when i start to learn Houdini in 2018 all this stuff i thought it was aliens language, one think to keep in mind is learning this stuff takes times years so don't be hard with your self and enjoy it will be easy after some time, i work with Houdini everyday and is not hard anymore.
@cyraxvisuals6203Ай бұрын
Can i get into tech art if i work in vfx in a tech related role?
@NelsonLim14 күн бұрын
Probably. There are different types of Tech Artists in different studios, but they all tend to have strengths in coding and a thorough understanding of computer graphics principles and the CG pipeline. So, if an individual finds themself spending lots of time gaining mastery in those areas, getting into Tech Art will probably be interesting.
@HARRIS507Ай бұрын
Love to see you again ! I have question I want to learn VFX like magic,Want to create movies like harry potter which software will be best to start with. I know how to use after effect and just start learning blender, can you share more information
@NelsonLim14 күн бұрын
Thanks Harris! The answer is simple: learn Houdini. It's the industry standard for film/animation FX - magic, sparks, explosions, fire, water, etc.
@bUildYTАй бұрын
good video!
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Thanks!
@siftycatАй бұрын
this actually made me feel so much better about my job. sometimes we just need external validation.
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Tech Artists are rare gems to find indeed.
@SahakSahakianАй бұрын
Thank you for sharing these! Is anyone working on LLM agent for HOU module or VEX code?
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Not that I am aware of at the moment. I am only just getting started in playing around with experiments in Langchain and RAG which would certainly be the right tolls for doing something like that.
@siftycatАй бұрын
i use LLMs primarily for code completion via tabnine, but their codestral implementation can now make a passing attempt at vex. it's supposed to know 80+ languages, and vex is indeed one of them, but it doesn't understand the snippet method, really. but it knows more than previous llms. it's not just guessing at code completion.
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
@@siftycat Are you using tabnine in an IDE like VSCode and just moving code between the wrangle nodes and your IDE?
@siftycatАй бұрын
@@NelsonLim I use vscode with the tabnine extension as my external editor in Houdini. :) anything that needs more than a couple of lines of vex is easier that way.
@siftycatАй бұрын
@@NelsonLim VS Code with the TabNine plugin as my Houdini external editor. :) Unfortunately it can't really understand your entire Houdini network. It doesn't understand contexts unless you specifically tell it in TabNine chat. Even then, I've deliberately asked it a question I knew, it's given me the wrong answer (wrong number of parameters, not understanding how a snippet iterates over elements), I've then given it the *right* answer and it's gone on to correct me again. I don't often ask it questions - it was just an experiment for stream! :) TabNine's best advantage with any model is being able to read the entire project and understand it, so when I use Codestral for the Python Unreal API in PyCharm, it does a pretty good job despite not being trained on the API. It does seem to have some training on the Unreal C++ API, and the Python API is direct access to that. But obviously if you don't have wider code for it to understand, all you have left is the code completion. Previously it did an okay job because of the C-like syntax of Vex, but now it knows at least *some* functions. But yeah. It also doesn't have the power to understand how we could use functions outside the given context and the amount of actual Vex code out there it can use to train on is slim. I don't have a lot of hope for it outside of code completion, to be honest. That's not just Vex or the stuff we use. That's for everything.
@tacoma87xАй бұрын
Peter is an incredible asset to the cg/vfx community.
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Agreed!
@pygmalion8952Ай бұрын
3:50 you have to understand how geometry works under the rug to use houdini efficiently. this makes it so that, once you jump to other softwares, you have deeper understanding of your "clay". but it IS overwhelming and it can ultimately discourage beginners. i am a 3d artist/generalist with 3 years of experience and even i am discouraged lol. will not quit learning of course but it is pretty hard to get the hang of it.
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Agreed with you. Houdini artists tend to need a stronger grasp of 3D concepts. You do have a great point, that even experienced 3D artists struggle with 3D concepts if the knowledge is not taught well when learning their 1st 3D package. There is a bit of a rush to quickly get to a pretty image and skip over strong fundamentals that tend to come back and bite in the back when we start to do more advance stuff.
@wayneheddАй бұрын
Do you play calssical guitar?... long fingernails?
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
😂 I just needed to trim my nails.
@ocdvfx2 ай бұрын
I really appreciated this video, hype to see you post again. I'm most excited to play with Copernicus as well as the new Solaris updates
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Thanks @ocdvfx!
@antoniopepe2 ай бұрын
one common mod to apply to the Megascan Material is to import the AO pass (from the downloaded folder) and multiply by the diffuse, and you get a more grounded material.
@NelsonLimАй бұрын
Good tip! It helps to emphasize the AO that is already present in most GI renderers.
@AncienRegimeStudios2 ай бұрын
With the importance of OpenCL and Vulkan in most of this it begs the obvious question; what is the best GPU for the new advances in Houdini 20.5 with Solaris, and Copernicus? A week ago I was planning on building a new rig with the RTX 5090, it's ray and path tracing hardware and Cuda cores but in light of what you're saying about OpenCL and Copernicus is AMD Radeon's next top of the line GPU going to actually perform better than the RTX 5090?
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
I believe NVidia GPUs support OpenCL. At the moment, I tend to stay with NVidia as some GPU-accelerated tools only use Cuda and not OpenCL.
@3D_TUTS2 ай бұрын
Good video! Man how old are you? You have so much experience and you look max 25-27?
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Thanks. Must be the youthful Asian genes. But I’m not that young. 🤫
@RIPxBlackHawk2 ай бұрын
If you haven't had 2h, here is 45 minutes
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
I still recommend people watch the keynote if they can. Personally, I felt my coverage and thoughts would appeal to someone who wanted to hear what a professional thought about the features besides the official marketing message.
@RussellFincher2 ай бұрын
75 minutes shorter plus valuable commentary
@RIPxBlackHawk2 ай бұрын
@NelsonLim And that's what I was looking for. But you targeted a time conscious viewer when you mentioned the time saving. I think those that can't free up 2h will also struggle to free up 45 minutes. This is why your statement is a bit comical to me. Now that you've suggested we should add 2h for the original, makes the time-saving comment stand completely out of place.
@disl40072 ай бұрын
What sort of hardware do those big studio artists use?
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Big studios of 200 and above head count will tend to use a HP/Dell workstations that often cost 10-20 grand each. Mostly for their corporate support. But most artist won’t need anywhere near that budget to do decent work.
@Copa207772 ай бұрын
Thanks bro, subd🎉
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
You’re welcome!
@MrLetsgojazz2 ай бұрын
Sweet!
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Thanks!
@dancingbetweenus3 ай бұрын
Really appreciate this Nelson. I resonated with what you said about following tutorials but don't know where to begin when working on your own, and finding ways to understand why behind doing certain things is important. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations on where to learn Houdini, would appreciate any guidnace. Much love
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
I would say that there is lots of good stuff on the Houdini website's learning paths. Personally, I think after going through a tutorial, you should try to implement similar techniques in your own project that is slightly different. Because the essence of Houdini is learning to problem solve. Tutorials are good at introducing concepts, but don't tend to build those problem-solving muscles.
@Marvin74083 ай бұрын
I started with Houdini because I wanted to make a city for my game project. I found a tutorial from Epic Games to make a procedural city. This was used for The Matrix demo from Unreal Engine. I have experience with Unreal Engine. I see a perfect combination with Unreal Engine and Houdi. I've been using Houdini for almost half a year and I love it. Nothing stopped me from learning it.
@PawełRzeszów4 ай бұрын
It does not do much more than blender in terms of modeling, blender has much much more to offer here.
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Indeed. Houdini doesn't have much of an edge as a traditional modelling tool. But that's also not where it is used. As a procedural modelling tool though, it is outstanding.
@artadecram_96244 ай бұрын
I think there is not enough video-material on karma - can I study mantra before karma? How manrta is comparable to karma?
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
If I were learning rendering in Houdini now, I would focus on Karma.
@BuffVFX6 ай бұрын
great tut..my only issue in 19.5 is that the textures dont load in for me. any solutions?
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Have you tried turning the viewport over karma perspective or whatever renderer you are using? The textures don't show up well in HoudiniGL mode.
@birdeternal8 ай бұрын
Thank you 🖤
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
You’re welcome 😊
@sajjadpirbodaghi17789 ай бұрын
thanks for creating these tuts, why dont you turn the music off!
@NelsonLim2 ай бұрын
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll consider it.
@XanderWhat10 ай бұрын
Well, if I could wave a magic wand, the one thing I'd change is to make myself smarter 😅 But for houdini, the one thing I've run up against that I haven't had with any other software I've learned, is how much Houdini changes. I could take a 10 year old Maya lesson and it would probably still be relevant, but I've watched 3 year old Houdini tutorials where there is a step that's outdated, or sometimes doesn't even exist in Houdini anymore.
@NelsonLim10 ай бұрын
That's so true. It may seem hard to keep up and that there is always something new to learn. I noticed over the years, I have kept to a few foundational nodes, focused on the principles/concepts more and I am more and more curating a set of HDAs/setups that I know won't just change with every new release. So whenever I find something new, I get to choose whether I want to add it to my workflow or not. This might be worth a video, because I can emphatize how much stress it can cause to have to "keep up" with the changes.
@robsonhenrique434611 ай бұрын
Houdini fx is heavy on my rtx 3060ti😔
@NelsonLim10 ай бұрын
Depends on what you are doing. But memory and CPU also play a big part to the Houdini experience. At the end of the day, I've not seen DCC application that can handle as much data and calculations as Houdini and still work so fast.
@robsonhenrique434610 ай бұрын
@@NelsonLimOn my RTX 3060ti with Ryzen 9 5950x the simulations were simple and slow because I only have 16 GB of RAM 😢
@NelsonLim10 ай бұрын
@@robsonhenrique4346 Ah! That explains. Although I’ll say I still pleasantly surprised what my 16GB RAM laptop can do when I have to use it to teach and demo. Unfortunately, it isn’t realistic to expect everyone to have 64 or even 32 GB of RAM. Try joining our Effective Discord channel and perhaps there are ways to optimize your scene to still work reasonably well on 16GB. www.nelsonlim.com/discord
@TalimaPictures11 ай бұрын
Great tutorial. The volume is super low though. ❤
@NelsonLim10 ай бұрын
Noted!
@disl4007 Жыл бұрын
Hey, I'm curious to know what sort of hardware big studios like ILM use, specifically the hardware provided for VFX artists. Thanks is advance!
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
It depends. But most are going to be HP/Dell PCs with Data center level CPUs like Epics or Xeons, 256 GB of RAM and an nVidia Quadro graphics card.
@kecibalouakal Жыл бұрын
thanks a Lot Houdini 2023
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
You're welcome!
@AlexSvanArt Жыл бұрын
One month into learning Houdini full time, I would describe my path so far like this: 1. What is going on? It is so so so different from anything I've used before! (first days) 2. Aha, that's why.... 3. OMG it's basically visual programming, I love it! (second week) 4. I can understand tutorials and do my own stuff, tons of objects, huge landscapes filed with random parametric objects, let's break things, set it all on fire, clouds, water, more water! (3rd and 4th weeks) 5. Ok, chill now, it's been a month, you broke through first gates, you understand what's going on and you love it, the long and entertaining journey starts now, get ready. (I'm here now)
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Yes, it is pretty addictive! Many people I speak with agree that once they get it, it's hard to look back.
@RonnieMirands Жыл бұрын
Which camera did you used for record this video? Looks so cinematic!
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Thanks. It was a point and shoot Sony EV1.
@HoudiniGameArtist Жыл бұрын
I had to unlearn 3d modeling. 10+ years of modeling in Maya helped. But it also gave me misconceptions or hid certain areas of CG from me for the sake of user experience. Knowing other tools taught me what a good model is. And that's about it. So learning Houdini, I knew where my finish line was. Other than that, the skills didn't really transfer. I'd recommend Houdini to all new users. Houdini is like a blank canvas and a brush. Other programs are like a coloring book. While you may think you are making progress with the other tools, you really aren't learning the true craft. But you can stay in the other platforms and be very successful. So it isn't necessary if you don't want to really push your skillet in that way.
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Agreed.
@tlabd9582 Жыл бұрын
I have HP 24m & LG MP59G. Are any of these good for VFX and can they be color callibrated? Thanks!
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Almost any monitor can be calibrated. But you'll want to make sure that at the very least you get a monitor that can represent 100% sRGB spectrum.
@jonosvlog9913 Жыл бұрын
There is something wrong with your mic in this episode. Seems like you talked away from your mic from time to time. Cheers
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Early days of youtubing...
@jonosvlog9913 Жыл бұрын
Just want to say thank you for your hard work and contents you been creating for everyone. Really appreciate it.
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
I appreciate that!
@GusKesaranond Жыл бұрын
why does houdini scale the model up?
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Houdini technically does not scale the model up. A unit is a unit regardless of 3d application, but 1 unit is Houdini is 1 meter, while 1 unit in Maya is 1 cm by default. Hence the difference.
@ericdigiovanni7540 Жыл бұрын
This video was eye opening thank youuu ❤
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Thanks Eric!
@MDA_01 Жыл бұрын
Nelson - is there any way to reset an SOP 'edit' node? I'm assuming not, given it's special 'accumulating' nature. When I revert it as per your suggestion I'm still left with the 'edit moves' I made. Currently I'm just deleting it and getting a new one...
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
If there isn't anything you want to keep in the changes of the node (like in the case of the Edit SOP), deleting and putting a new one is probably easiest.
@MDA_01 Жыл бұрын
@@NelsonLim What's curious is that the UVedit SOP does have a 'Reset All Changes' parameter button. Maybe I'll file an RFE for the same on the standard Edit SOP : )
@abhijiths.m4389 Жыл бұрын
Thank you for your kind Information ❤. It makes me to motivate to learn Houdini. I subbed you my brother ..Than kyouuuuu
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Thanks Abhijith!
@felixxia3604 Жыл бұрын
nope, i disagree with houdini is better to learn when you just start computer graphics. Look. computer graphics people can be divided into two categories. the artist, and the technician. right brain vs left brain. you give them houdini, means you have to use both side of the brain all at once. i am not a newbie in computer graphics, but a newbie in houdini. as of this writing, i have been with houdini for 2 plus weeks. i learn it 10 hours + a day, everyday except saturday. it is my full time activity! i have never learned anything this intense without feeling any advancement. i have to take things slowly, because - not every tutorial ( paid or free ) is taught by people who knows how to teach - the concept of proceduralism via visual or written programming needs a ton of basic knowledge. you just cannot learn it as fast as, say, learning 3d polygon modeling in blender. - there are a lot of things in houdini you cant just "see" with your eyes. If you forgot something, it is either you need to see your notes, or go to the cryptic help pages at sidefx website. you cant just find that button to press. or sometimes you just need to visualize a geometry problem in your brain because as a beginner you may not know how to ask houdini to show it to you, there fore you dont even understand what you are doing wrong. - the name of the nodes may not reflect their functionality - one node can have tons of buttons to press with arbritrary label, very not intuitive. - the concept of attributes and how to manipulate them... will give you instant death if you are not ready houdini is for the courageous ones who can use both side of the brain. saying it is easy to learn is just you trying to make good feeling content for people to see on youtube : easy money. i see it as toxic positivity.
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Hey Felix, thanks for your thoughts. I can feel your frustration. I'm sure plenty of people feel the way you do. Hence, I wanted to provide some of my thoughts on this. Indeed, for folks who came from a software that black-boxed many things from the user, suddenly, they do have to learn many of the CG concepts that was taken for granted. While your experiences are valid, there are also plenty of people who find learning Houdini isn't as hard as others make it out to be. Mainly because they didn't have to unlearn/re-learn CG concepts. They don't feel the same frustration. Houdini is a powerful tool that makes artist develop a better grasp of CG. Some see that as a hindrance while others see it as being liberating. Beginners like me didn't know any better years ago when I started and dove right in and ate it up. I've trained plenty of beginner CG artists in Houdini and I've noticed the same pattern. Their beginner's mindset just allowed them to soak and learn and get good at it quickly. I agree with you that it requires the artist to use both sides of the brain. That is what is truly exciting about Houdini. But no software is for everybody and we do need an eco-system of CG software to help us do our best work. That said, I've also found that the mindset that Houdini creates is one of problem-solving. Something that studios working on the cutting edge of CG look for. Years ago, before Pixar even used Houdini, they started asking for Houdini knowledge in their job description because they knew that the type of problem-solving artists they needed could be found amongst Houdini users. When I was at ILM, the software they used encouraged artists to solve hard and interesting problems to achieve novel looks and visuals in shots that have never been done before. There wasn't always a plugin that would do it for them. Hence, traditional VFX artists are really tinkerers and more like Da Vinci - using their left and right brains simultaneously. I'm glad you are giving it a go because you see the advantages of it. But you do have to approach it with a beginner's mindset. Kind of like learning a different form of martial arts. I don't assume that because I have a taekwondo black belt that I would get my jiu jitsu black belt easily/quickly. It's uncomfortable at first to someone schooled in a different system, but truly liberating when you get good at it and figure out how to use each system to their strengths. I wish you all the best on your CG journey!
@Mati_Motion Жыл бұрын
Thanks for good lesson, Can you tell me how to assign different material to each copy ? im using redshift
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't use redshift. But you can use the shop_materialpath attribute to assign different materials.
@birdboxvisaulz Жыл бұрын
Thax for your advise always keep it up
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Always welcome
@birdboxvisaulz Жыл бұрын
Woow thax
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Welcome.
@bazund Жыл бұрын
Great video !
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Thanks!
@ivanraimi5524 Жыл бұрын
Damn, there's not enough vop tutorials out there. Maybe that's because most houdini pro's use vex
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
We use both. Just whichever is most convenient. Anecdotally, I generally see more VOP networks then VEX code when looking at Houdini scenes, mainly because noise functions are more intuitive via VOPs.
@ivanraimi5524 Жыл бұрын
The true is, Houdini is not for everyone, so it might be better for you to learn Cinema4d or Blender
@NelsonLim Жыл бұрын
Yes, Houdini isn't the only tool around. Better to know what you want to create or jobs you want to apply for and learn the right tool(s) for it.