Houdini Tutorial: Melting Things using FLIP

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Learn how to turn any object into molten lava by adapting one of Houdini's presets to liquify any geometry.
Ben Watt's tutorial that triggered Mo to look into this: vimeo.com/122217238
While we're not talking about shading & rendering in here, we provide a scene file that's been set up for rendering in Octane.
Download Project File (incl. render setup for Octane): www.entagma.com/downloads/FLI...
Alternative Download: drive.google.com/file/d/1Gbvz...
00:00 - Intro
00:48 - Loading our geometry
01:25 - FLIP melt shelf tool
03:19 - Customizing our setup - Points from volume
04:11 - Temperature using Pyro source spread
09:27 - Getting our data into our simulation
14:14 - Adjusting viscosity
16:00 - Tweaking temperature
17:13 - Meshing the fluid
18:58 - Color from temperature
20:05 - Recap
22:10 - Famous last words

[@AliJahadi]

great work! Entagma makes Houdini look easy.

[@uzaykisi1863]

I love the summary at the last part of the tutorials you've made

[@niclosporan4101]

You are my Houdini initiation mentors! Thank you so much

[@everydayfitness3004]

Finally an updated Ben Watts tutorial. Looking forward to the premium Vellum one too

[@TheLizardKing752]

Nice! I've been working on melting a candle and using temperature to drive translucency and SSS depth in Octane.

[@kickheavy8982]

Brilliant video. This inspired a lot of ideas for me. I'm a Cinema 4D and X-Particle user. I have no plans on learning Houdini anytime soon I just like to see what kind of effects Houdini is being used to create. I'll then go and see if I can create something with similar functionality using X-Particles. Now that I have a half decent understanding of X-Particles, it makes me realize that no matter what software you use, this stuff is created using the same techniques. Particles + meshers + volumes + dynamics algorithms + shaders. Once you wrap your head around that, everything doesn't seem so overwhelming and complex. It feels so good to be able to look at AMAZING effects like this and have a general idea of how to generate it. Learning this stuff is so fun man. I'm glad I wasn't born in the early 1900s otherwise I would have missed all this dope a** jiggy s**

[@filipvabrousek6900]

Thanks so much for this great tutorial! This is amazing!

[@utubeparpankaj]

Houdini's Bible is Entagma.Nothing else is required.Long live Entagma.The true legends of Procedural Era. 🔥

[@matybon1]

Well my Bible is missing a few pages bro, help a brother out!

[@keyframed6558]

Just what I needed, thank you so much!

[@orientaxis]

thank you soo much😍😍😍 I was waiting for this maybe for 2 years straight😳😳😳

[@EnriqueVenturaGames]

Awesome video! One of the things I've been struggling with, which could be the basis for a future tutorial, is combining multiple solvers in a single network (e.g.: throw RDB or POP objects at the FLIP sim to increase the temperature, instead of driving it via wrangle, or a vellum cloth sim holding a FLIP object). There is not a lot of tutorial content on this subject, in my own experience. Cheers!

[@jamaljamalwaziat1002]

i like the coding part simple and powerful. thanks

[@ohlssonster]

Would love to see a tutorial on how to create lattice structure in Houdini. Perhaps something along the lines of what nTopology can create would be interesting to see.

[@ahmadq9195]

I Love your tutorials !!!

[@diogoferreira6589]

Really nice!

[@brencaaa]

Hi Mo! Awesome tutorial, as always; I'm trying to recreate the effect but I'm encoutering a problem (that others seems to have too): It all works fine at low res (particle separation of 0.01) but if I want to get higher for the final resoult all the particles just sort of collapses... The melting still works, so the temperature is read correctly but the section with temp = 0 still slowly "melts" when they aren't supposed to. I've tried the "i@stopped method", preventing the particles with temp = 0 from moving, but doing so I lose the collapsing effect of the structure (like in your example, the head falling after the torso has melted). do you know how I can solve the issue? Thanks, Massimo

[@damagejacked]

Wow, thanks for the update on the very first Houdini tutorial I ever followed. But the thing I like here is that you regulate user expectations: the look of a sim nearly nearly always depends on resolution. There's rarely a way to sim low-res then up-res later expecting finer results of the same behavior. That's a lesson usually learned the hard way.

[@raymondprendergast1084]

That's the tricky part about computationally heavy sims like FLIP. Art direction is a PITA.

[@ViralKiller]

I watched every single video on your channel

[@Entagma]

That is determination! :D Cheers!

[@ruben-dion]

I hope we can get FLIP tutorials on Patreon! That would be so awesome!

[@Entagma]

See 22:10 Cheers, Mo :D

[@r.o.g.e.r.m.a.c]

Amazing

[@felixkam3324]

THANK YOU

[@scottlee38]

Awesome!

[@izzie8840]

Thanks you bro. love you....

[@jhonhuaman9014]

thanks worked

[@user-ev3zv3tf3w]

float temp = point(1, "temperature", @ptnum); f@temperature = temp; float visc = fit(temp, 0, 3, 0, 1); visc = chramp("Temperature_To_Viscosity", visc)*chf("Viscosity_amp"); f@viscosity = visc;

[@JvOeditorR]

TKSSSSS

[@oliverpetersen7494]

Hey Nice tutorial, my first time using Houdini. I've have a question about the OBJ. Right now the OBJ is melting from the bottom + the ignition point. how do i make the OBJ only melt from the ignition point?

[@nima_asadi]

Just wow 😲

[@matthiasschnabel6419]

Hi. How would you keep all initial particles static and only start exposing them to gravity when the temperature starts rising? Is there a simple “static to active particle” approach someone might come up with? I am complete Houdini beginner and these steps are huge.

[@frenchy6117]

Hi! I would love to know how I can shade the lava emission in redshift, I have been trying things for ages but I just cant figure it out...

[@wouterdijkstra1657]

Great tutorial. How would I approach this for an animated object?

[@funkfz6312]

Would be awesome to have a tutorial on how to render this sim inside blender

[@whippet_boy8594]

This looks amazing. could you achieve similar results using a pop solver for greater control?

[@Entagma]

At the cost of performance and stable solutions for high viscosity, yes. So in essence no, I guess :) Cheers, Mo

[@blazdesigns8725]

To anyone struggling with their object sagging/melting even with the viscosity cranked up a ton. It seems it really depends on your object shape and truthfully I don't think there is a great solution if your object is not perfectly balanced. Something you can do is use a popforce instead of a gravity node. Then select "use Vex" and control the amount of gravity depending on the particle attributes. I also tried the i@stopped=1 method but didn't like that I was missing out on the collapsing effect. With the popforce setup the sim wont be physically accurate but it might be good enough in some cases. Important: input -9.8 into the popfoce Y-axis field // Vex code for the popforce: if (@temperature > 1) { force = force; } else { force = -1; } This will give the cold particles a lower gravity to help eliminate some of the sagging but still allow them to collapse onto the rest of the sim if they happen to be overhanging.

[@blazdesigns8725]

I have found that having a flat "base" at the bottom of your model does wonders for the ability to keep particles completely still at these high viscosity values. I suspect a sort of workaround would be adding this base to your model and then moving your ground plane higher to hide it. Yet to test but worth a try.

[@ricardoneri809]

I have a question I want to add an uv texture to the 3d scan and the parts that are melting have a lava texture, what can I do?

[@Saraiuni]

Amazing tutorial! Can anyone help me with an issue? I can't modify de viscosity. It's like de value can only be 1 or 0. I'm looking for something less fluid but i can figure out how to do it. Any help is more than welcome. ^^

[@PostolPost]

Hi. Thank you for this lesson! Can we achive same effect, but on moving objects? All lessons i found about melting, are examples with static object, also standing on the groud. But what if we need to apply this effect to charracter? Lets say for example - a flying bird. Like one wing starts to melt while bird is still in motion

[@s7tmbr]

Hi I would create a resting state (timeshift any still frame) create points from it and then use the "pointdeform" sop where input 1 is the points, input 2 the resting state (timeshift sop), input 3 your animated object and then apply the pyro source spread like shown in the video. Of course you could use the pyro source spread before the pointdeform sop.

[@Bullitain]

I'm facing a similar problem, did you find a solution?

[@felixbaker3160]

@@s7tmbr genius, thanks a lot!

[@nateatwell1126]

Oof I have to get into Houdini now... I've been trying to find a way to do this in blender, my work around doesn't look as good, yet.

[@mssanimation9383]

Is there any specific reason behind the selection of slot 2 as an input and also why we are using the point() function is it gives us the temperature attribute value on each point we created, isn't it?

[@starwarz8479]

Thanks for the video. Just wondering how does it work if I have an animated bounding object? Currently this method only works with the first frame of the input. What what Im trying to achieve: Having the tip of a tube dragging across the chest of this metal statue from left to right, to get a trail of barely melted surface, and leave an incandescence trail behind the touching point, and then slowly cool off. Thanks in advance!

[@wouterdijkstra1657]

Did you figure this out?

[@bhushankandalkar3104]

Hey, How can i change the viscosity of the melting fluid???

[@gggg-no2li]

love

[@thanhhainguyen3072]

I don't have Octane so I can't see your shader setup. I'd like to ask how to separate liquid and statue as 2 different materials? Thank you.

[@Visceral3D]

Im having an issue where the points from my group node at 5:11 is getting revered, no idea how this happend. But my beard has a blue color and the rest of the statue is red, any ideas?

[@ArgoBeats]

So nice, thanks Mo! My only doubt is: how do we properly flip melt textures UVs as well? (contorted question, but still...)

[@Entagma]

All those nodes that I so happily deleted in the meshing part - have a look at those, they are set up to take your original mesh's UVs. Cheers, Mo

[@ArgoBeats]

@@Entagma thanks!

[@cesaramaral7007]

My temperature doesn't show up when selecting the pyrosourcespread temperature tab like at 5:08. Any changes from Houdini 19 to 19.5 that would change that?

[@Andrew-ji9qc]

Is it possible to repeat this in a blender?

[@Mchllllll]

how do you set the minimum viscosity? I only see how to set the max viscosity

[@lemmonsinmyeyes]

Can we add a lava tut to the list?

[@lemonage]

Can this be moved to Blender to render?

[@alexanderibanez]

Thanks for your tutorials they are awesome!!! I'm having an issue that i can't figure out how to fix, my model ( a statue of a standing man) keeps falling and bending right on the legs, it doesn't matter how high I go in the viscosity or how low i set the density, it keeps bending and falling to the ground every time, any toughs on this? Once again thank you very much for your tutorials, thanks to you I am finally starting to understand Houdini!

[@Entagma]

Hi Alexander, You could try setting i@stopped =1; on the particles that are supposed to be completely stiff and setting it to i@stopped=0; once you want them to move. Cheers, Mo

[@brencaaa]

@@joeypearson9464 { i@stopped = 1; if (temp > 1) { i@stopped = 1; } else { i@stopped = 0; } }

[@brencaaa]

@@Entagma the problem by doing that is that I lose the "collapsing" effect (that is the main "wow" factor imho). I tryied stopping the particles based on the temperature, but if something burns from below we have a sort of "minecraft situation" where pieces of geometry stays suspended mid air... How can I fix this?

[@chanjonglee7708]

Yea, I am getting the same issue despite tweaking the Density and Viscosity values with a similar bust type model. Did you figure it out in the end? @Entagma Any help would be appreciated!

[@boldamigo]

Where can I learn these codes?

[@moimatthieu]

The thing I am more curious about are the final settings at every steps to get this level of details in the final animation. I am being overwhelmed by the poor quality of my final output whenever I try something ^^" I believe this is purely a matter of trial / error, empiric testing and mostly PATIENCE but if you could quickly share some details to get an idea, a "range", anything to keep the Faith intact, that would be awesome!

[@lernerourtruegod1331]

lower particle separation

[@mxgn0]

Plus tweak and experiment 🧪

[@rstudiosvfx]

As much as I try to transfer the uv attributes, that is not possible, since you skipped that step, it does not work for us mortals since the error appears in the vertexplit node ( Warning Couldn't find specified vertex or primitive attribute ) I've been trying to solve this for more than a month but there are only a few tutorials with fluids, and I try to apply them in the seutp and it doesn't work, could you help us with this, with a little tutorial.😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@Beeschurger0818]

How do I put a material on the simulation?

[@vectorhunter4659]

nice tutorial, i think when the high temp melting part was touching the chest part, the temp could be transfered to those parts, that would be more logic

[@Entagma]

Yes, that can be done - e.g. by using an attribblur inside a SOP-Solver in your DOPnet. Cheers, Mo

[@karimoh3154]

@@Entagma could you elaborate a little more on that? That would be so awsome :)

[@omyviktor4458]

Hello. How can I setup two ignition areas, where 1st area will ignite at frame 1, and 2nd area will ignate much later? I tried to set "start frame" of pyro source at any frame and to move 2nd ignition area group at exectly frame that I need, but it didn't work out(

[@Tygenja]

Could you animate a contact point of the source geometry? Did you figure it out?

[@jeansimoulin6264]

(complete Houdini noob here) I'm trying to export this so I can import it in C4D. So far the tutorials I see tell me to add a rop alambic, but when I connect it to out_temp, and click on "save to disk", nothing happens. Heeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!!

[@kylesullivan9378]

Your tutorials are an amazing resource. My one constructive suggestion is to get a better pop filter or run your audio through a noise removal plugin like Izotope RX9. You've got a clicky mouth and all the sounds are a bit distracting.

[@danylovehera3639]

(7:40) Guys! In color node . Attribute says "no enties". But I connected it with nodes! Help plz

[@Entagma]

Hi Danylo, it's a bit hard to diagnose what might have gone wrong there by this description, so my advice would be to compare your setup with the provided files and see where there might be differences. Hope that helps :) Cheers, Mo

[@danylovehera3639]

@@Entagma opened your project and there is the same thing. Apparently the problem is in my version. I'm updating)

[@DirtyHarry230]

I've been following this tutorial exactly but at 5:06 when he clicks visualise for the temperature, and I do the same, mine looks different and I don't know why? My points go purple but I don't get the orange, green, blue etc temperature visualisation. Is anyone able to help please? My visualisation icon to the right of the viewport is turned on too.

[@Tyler-zb6ec]

Check that you're setting a group in your attribute create node

[@andysills]

I had "temperature" spelled incorrectly on my attribute create node, I changed it to correct spelling and it worked.

[@ObscureHedgehog]

Imagine being able to do this in Blender. Please Ton, please give us a new node based physics/fluid engine! 😭😭😭

[@matthewmitchell9778]

Hey fellas, how do I get it lookin' like that at the start of the video? Do I need to add textures and such? Mine looks like yellow goop. I am new to Houdini and it's a lot to wrangle

[@caelanchicas7663]

maybe try googling it

[@matybon1]

Yeah I am also having trouble with this. Mr Entagma please help :|

[@caelanchicas7663]

YEAH i'm having issues adding textures as well, @Entagma another tutorial please??

[@havvehogan955]

I'd love a texture tutorial mr Entagma! PLEASE teach me how! you stop the video before the best part!!

[@zanesaavedra]

how thats such an incredible coincidence! ive been in the industry for over 25 years now however i do not know the answer to this question. i too would like to be impregnated with the fertile seed of knowledge that Entagma holds. great video btw

[@alexandel987]

As I undestood the octane render does not uet support houdini 19. How can I render using your files please?

[@Entagma]

Octane Supports H19. Just install the respective build :) Cheers, Mo

[@MrJmal95]

Hey, i cant find the solution for 5:06. i attached the group to the attribute node, but i cant see any temperature colors.... Everything is alright on my setup. Please help!

[@prushlas]

I have this same problem! :( Did you manage to solve it?

[@andysills]

@@prushlas I had "temperature" spelled incorrectly on my attribute create node, I changed it to correct spelling and it worked.

[@cesaramaral7007]

Any solution? I still haven't figured it out

[@tieudunghuynh1820]

I could fix tNice tutorials?

[@nownezz]

so you like acqua di parma? ;)

[@nicksushkevich8660]

[@mithunkrishna3567]

Nah I'm good with XP

[@valentinaalmanza3255]

anyone reading tNice tutorials, taking care of your ntal health should always be your first priority in any case. your happiness matters before

[@juancarlosgzrz]

Too fast, needs bezier animation on the hardening effect