Axiom Pyro Solver: Dissolving Letters

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In our tradition to being late to the party, we’re giving Matt Puchala’s Axiom solver (www.mattpuchala.com/axiom) a spin. It’s a lightweight and fast pyro solver for SideFX Houdini, enabling interactive workflows with smoke or fire simulations.
In this video we’re gonna use it together with Houdini’s pyro spread and POPnet to build a dissolving logo animation.
00:00 - Intro
00:20 - Logo Import & Preparation
01:55 - Setting Up Pyro Spread
06:00 - Sourcing
07:30 - Setting Up The Smoke Simulation In Axiom
12:05 - Advecting Particles
16:48 - Dissolving The Logo
20:14 - Scene Prep For Rendering
21:34 - Setting Up & Configuring Octane Render
27:47 - Recap
29:00 - Infamous Last Words
Download Project Files: www.entagma.com/downloads/Axi...

[@Josekrlos]

It's crazy how many tricks you teach in a short time, thank you so much for this amazing tutorial!

[@glmstudiogh]

Your your tutorials are one of the best to me, not only cause of what you show but how you explain what the tools do, that’s how personally I learn these tools, it was your Beginner series that made me realize how easy Houdini is.

[@nvav970]

Such quality explanation. Really great.

[@SamWelker]

"increase the f-stop to quite a grotesque value" that made my day. Haven't used octane in houdini in some time till today. Glad to see that's the method to handle it. I thought I was missing a disable DoF setting.

[@vladartiomav2473]

That is just mind exploding! 🤯 Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

[@fx-mayhem1081]

Great one! Big up from one German to another! Greetings from Hollywood! :)

[@Fakepilot]

Superb tutorial and yes, even when comparing to a tool like EmberGenFX, being able to have full control over geo, attributes and render engines from inside the same software - it's king.

[@testsubstance]

hi, guys! thanks a lot for such an awesome tut!

[@ArgoBeats]

So cool, thank you Moritz! And glad to see Octane as your rendering choice for this one.

[@3DDesigner_]

Wow I need this tutorial and you made it... 👍

[@ifaisalstudio]

Octane render on Entagma finally, thank you :)

[@raxlyy6416]

Sir, your Blender tutorial blew my mind. I know nothing about Houdini but I've subscribed to your channel hoping to see more Blender tuts in the future. Thank You!

[@Entagma]

Time to dip your toes into the wonderful Houdini land!

[@raxlyy6416]

@@Entagma haha. With instructors like you I feel I might jump into the Houdini bandwagon.

[@mk5nico]

Incroyable !

[@wydjeefx992]

Such a nice tutorial ! I really loved it. Just one thing, I would probably have done the same thing for the alpha, but it's not because I'm lazy, it's because I have no idea how to bake a map and use it to change the alpha. Is there an other tutorial where you did this ? I can't remember, even tho I watched a lot of them

[@BlenderRender3D]

amazing!

[@everydayfitness3004]

Awesome! Any plans on trying out Arnold Renderer in the future? They say GPU rendering has gotten better. Thanks

[@darkseidgaming8521]

This is a phenomenal tutorial. I just REALLY wish you didn’t use a specific third-party renderer which then makes it impossible for anyone without that renderer to follow along. I have Mantra, Karma, and Redshift but have NO idea how to apply these settings in the render portion of the video with those renderers. Very specific effects are used for this and it’s not as simple as slapping on a shader/material. Any help with setting this up in a different renderer would be GREATLY appreciated so that I can actually render out what I’ve made following this!

[@1NoNeim]

Need to use RS vertex atribute with attribute name Alpha.then it will turn out to get the same transparency as in octane

[@Davesplaining]

First, greeeeat great great tutorial, been wanting to look into axiom so thanks alot, second... had thought of looking into octane but this kinda turned me off, wow it looks quite fidgety and alot less user friendly than redshift. What are the main advantages of octane?

[@Rick_Sanchez_1337]

Great Video, I just tried Axiom out on my RTX 2070 and it's stupidly fast even for really small voxel sizes. Can you maybe explain the other Sops from Axiom? I couldn't find real explanation how to use them

[@shingoeverard6744]

Moritz, do you think you could make a breakdown between Octane and Redshift in Houdini? Is Octane easier to set up? Is Redshift quicker? Which is more stable in Houdini? If you could only use one, which would you choose? I'm trying to decide which way to go, and I'd really love some guidance.

[@jaigrant-williams7736]

Redshift is much more stable, with more integration and is better for larger production. Octane looks better out of the box, is much more simple with its settings, they're both really fast if you optimize them for the scene properly.

[@Entagma]

Heyhey, I've not planned recording any comparative render engine videos as I personally find them not really helpful. Render engine selection hugely depends on project scope and personal preference. That's why I recommend downloading a trial or rent an engine for a month and test it thoroughly, so you can form your own opinion. That being said in my very personal experience, Redshift has been a bit more stable than Octane while Octane made for quicker lookdev. I personally like both engines (as well as 3Delight...) Cheers, Mo

[@berkutovich]

Cool!

[@devmishra18]

What's the main reason for advecting particles from volume when you could have directly rendered the volume? Great tutorial btw!

[@Luijeee]

probably because rendering volumes in octane for houdini is harder than it should be

[@Entagma]

In this case just a stylistic decision as I frankly got bored of rendering volumes yet again (covered it on multiple occasions by now), so I opted for particles this time. Cheers, Mo

[@baldoski]

@@Entagma Sphere particles look awesome!

[@youngk2495]

不错的教程

[@remofritzsche]

Many thanks for your beautiful tutorial! I have a quick question: My geometry is not entirely connected and consists of individual elements. So the PyroSourceSpread only picks up the main element, even when setting the "Search Radius" to a ridiculously high value. My approach was to set the temperature in some points not connected to the main shape to 1 using a point wrangle ($Frame > 10). It correctly sets the attribute, but the PyroSourceSpread does not appear to pick up this change in temperature. Is there a clean way to achieve this? Cheers from your Patreon :)

[@chokichoka]

Hi! Were you able to find a solution ?

[@andrejpavlov333]

Would love to find a solution too...

[@aptech9896]

Thank you for your tutorial @Entagma ! I'm trying to follow it in Houdini 19.5 and latest Axiom and Octane and everything renders except from the particles itself, they are just not there in the render.... I can see the pyro volume and the particles in the viewport though. Is there anything obvious I'm missing somehow? Thank you! :)

[@aptech9896]

ok, nevermind, i found it out. it was stupid as i didn't checked the display/render toggle on the OUT Null ;)

[@haneiter7106]

Hi, thank you for sharing. Looks great like always :) I wonder what the best way is to export this so I can render in C4D? Much more used to it. An Alembic plus an Octane Render Tag in C4D set to Particles does not work for me. If anyone has some pointers let me know :)

[@edmungbean]

Use a file output node to record a vdb sequence. But I don't remember if this is allowed on an Apprentice version.

[@NCJ-ie6zx]

Great tutorial! thx very.... i can make this fx(and did it!)... but i want to render in C4D with arnold so how can i export VDB or abc? *i use google translate.. so I'm sorry that I didn't deliver it properly using a translator.

[@glmstudiogh]

A quick question please. First of all, thank you. My question is; how do you know what number to use for the substeps?

[@Antarttix]

Hi. Just testing and learning H19 but i cant get AI file visible in scene. Is it because i gor aprentice version? Anyway very good job explaining all. Anyway not a big problem to finnish tut, I just created my own text with font node. Thnx

[@anitha_kiran]

Hi there. When I replicated this tutorial in my pc, I encountered an error message stating invalid source on the Pyro source spread node . How could I resolve this issue?

[@markgacos8645]

Is it possible to make it reverse? than using another software such as after effects to reverse the animation?

[@selimsaidi378]

nice tutorial , i would like to export sim to another software with vdb , can you tell us how to export it thanks

[@totallyrandname]

so, how would axiom compare against pyro minimal solver?

[@Eph3mme]

Hi! what kind of file you are using in the .ai file? is it a curve o plain text? mine is not showing up :C please help, thanks!

[@rossisbudda]

Think you can use the thicken sop instead of extrude

[@Entagma]

Take a peek inside the thicken-SOP and see what it's using internally... ;)

[@miko3350]

Instead of using a letter and extruding it, is it possible to use an .abc file of an object? Is the process the same?

[@sashimimusashi3536]

Newbie Question : How to add Octane tab where choose solid in Obj?

[@User-pq2yn]

i'm looking for the same in c4d

[@sndosc]

aaaaaa, was expecting a blender tut :P

[@lordmanglar3719]

how add the axiom node??

[@ThanhLe-qm8oj]

anyone know how axiom solve smoke collision with static objects?

[@M_Lopez_3D_Artist]

Hey can nayone point me to a tutorial on how to use like Karma to render this simulation I'm very new to houdini and I don't remember how to set it up because I don't have money to own octane

[@elpresidentealejandro1923]

Im wondering the same, and since im on the Houdini apprentice license it says i cant use 3rd party renderers and octane wont work?

[@reaverofhearts7657]

...how do you install the axiom file?

[@vytasrauckis6703]

I was never able to get a filecache completed with my GTX 1070. Nor did I get any farther than frame 213 using cpu and after 5 crashes.

[@AndreiChifan]

Change particle separation to something bigger, like 0.2 or higher if needed. When the VRAM gets fully used, axiom switches from GPU to CPU/RAM and solves the remaining much slower. Cheers!

[@jhanvikathpalia6239]

we can use the text node instead right?

[@Entagma]

Absolutely. Or any other geo that you pipe into the pointsfromvolumes node. Cheers, Mo

[@jhanvikathpalia6239]

@@Entagma thanks

[@user-hl5cp8ky8j]

Can anyone teach me cause I'm using Karma and I got 2 problems. 1.How to adjust particle scale in render ? 2.How to apply that attribute 'Alpha' to N in render?

[@tweetbleat487]

Can this be rendered in Mantra or Karma?

[@Entagma]

Yes, definitely - just slower. Cheers, Mo

[@UdjinUdjin]

Could you please make something similar in Blender?

[@pierreseaumaire6988]

i want it in blender

[@emilywroe5614]

Newbie Question: How do I install the Axiom Solver? Warm Wishes, Emily66

[@Davesplaining]

Click the link to get the plugin, on that page there's both written and video-instructions.

[@MattPuchala]

I love you guys for the video, but I resent the butchering of my last name :D

[@Entagma]

Apologies. Phonetic transcription plz!

[@fx-mayhem1081]

@@Entagma I asked him to record an audio snippet before doing my tutorials cause I would have made the same mistake :)

[@darkarps]

@@Entagma im gonna go with "puh-ka-la"

[@chulalachannel]

Probably pronounced poo-hala . I loled at the resent note part

[@MattPuchala]

"poo - cha - la" or if you want to go full Polish "poo - ha - wa"

[@timelschner8451]

thank god it is houdini and not blender again ;)

[@BKdefr]

ok

[@Rick_Sanchez_1337]

Update: DO NOT update nvidia drivers to 465.89. I can't select my cuda devices in axiom anymore.

[@andreyflat3871]

coming soon in nft))))))))))))

[@alqalaateamwork4026]

thank you I have a big problem with your lessons , Why don't you use the basic program nodes??? I would like to see lessons without external programs or external nudes :(

[@forton615]

I think since this is not really a beginners tutorial they assume you know how you can just replace the axiom node with a normal smoke simulation node (they have also good smoke tutorials). If you know mantra or karma, rendering should not be a problem too.

[@lendltimm9966]

@@forton615 Can you render this using mantra, if you can please tell me how ?

[@panosdimi4713]

make a tutorial how to create explosion

[@Entagma]

Yes, sir!

[@vladyslavlavrenov9167]

@@Entagma Haha XD

[@kyrylosamoilenko5394]

first! haha

[@hyunsulee1212]

You can't see anything even if you add ai file