How I Made This EPIC Cinematic Shot In (mostly) Houdini | Eternal Ascent (Top 100)

I participated in Pwnisher Eternal Ascent Render Challenge and spent a few weeks assembling a cinematic underwater shot in the land of the dead. This Video breaks down my process in Houdini Solaris Arnold and the rest of the tools that I used.

[@tright6]

To be honest, as long as AI isn't usd as the final product, it might actually be a great tool for artists.

[@bbrother92]

what do you mean sir? usd ?

[@blackfrostdigital]

Wow! Incredible work. So detailed. ❤

[@DimaShishkov]

Amazing work. Thank you for sharing the process.

[@Thies_Gruenewald]

Great Submission! Pretty sure one of the top5 this time ✌️

[@disvy1936]

this is actually incredible

[@THE_CNCPT]

Inspiring work!

[@allendomantay6657]

damn yo the technical breakdown, just awesome

[@Cuteshh]

This work man is awesome

[@lukayz1363]

this was Amazing!

[@Vuntershtoff]

so, so good!

[@TheAaronGerenShow]

Man I feel this 😂🤣 Who needs their starting ideas amirite?? Also this looks AMAZING!! Good job!

[@Chillfolio]

Wow this is so sick!

[@cynstili]

I need to learn Houdini next, this stuff looks insane dude

[@crafthive]

It's absolutely worth the time invested!

[@ammonn9930]

Dude, godlike skills

[@kristianivanov2049]

amazing.

[@chillsoft]

Awesome use of all tools available! :) Would love a deeper breakdown of the Solaris setup!

[@crafthive]

Thanks! I'll definitely be delving deeper into my Solaris scenes in upcoming videos

[@lhagun]

looks amazing

[@crafthive]

Thank you!

[@ThePyramid21]

dope work

[@ionutlungu7900]

All I see is fire brother. This is beautiful. I hope that one day I can create something similar to what you have created here.

[@crafthive]

Much appreciated! I believe in you

[@sakibkhondaker]

That's a lot of work. Congrats!!

[@crafthive]

Thank you!

[@yamamsuliman4674]

that's sick .. WOW !

[@crafthive]

Thanks!

[@rishikinesis]

Speechless! One day mate, I have started on my Houdini journey but I really hope to catch up. Absolutely love Solaris. ❤

[@crafthive]

Keep at it, Houdini is a ton of fun!

[@matpond]

really interesting to hear your thoughts on scene optimization near the end there. was thinking through-out how pooched my computer would be trying to render all of that as one scene lol

[@PedroScherz]

yeah top 5 for sure brother

[@guillaumewalle]

wtf this is amazing !

[@mxgn0]

woooow what a handcraft

[@bram_gunst]

Well done!

[@crafthive]

Thank you!

[@jeffjohn911]

This is so amazing, the Houdini stuff is so complicated lol it doesn't do my submission justice coming after yours in the judgment stream hahaha

[@motionsam]

epic mof, thank you!

[@Hackerb0b]

Lmaoo god damn right ss im finally getting invested in blender i see all this awesome Houdini stuff 😂. Gonna have to learn it for the quality of simulations alone

[@EMNM66]

bro i got tired listeting to all of it. great work on the art

[@avtpro]

Hou, Maya, MarvyD? Shock Face Emoji Here. I mean, I understood everything you said because I've those app but to do it is another thing. Kudos.

[@GameDevLounge]

very cool

[@crafthive]

Thanks!

[@user-bq1vx7eq9e]

Daaaaamn

[@Farazulous]

Bro is the guy she tells you not to worry about

[@Just_A_Simple_Time_Traveller]

Nice

[@Arcki_Plage]

Wow wow, I participated in this challenge, and if I am the one to judge, hands down I give you the first prize

[@crafthive]

Appreciate it!

[@pulsevfx]

This is amazing! did u use a render farm or render it by yourself?

[@crafthive]

Thanks! I rendered this one all in one pass on a single computer at a reasonable sample rate, and denoised it.

[@pFx811]

may I ask how much experience you have with all of the softwares you used, just curious btw the render is awesome !

[@crafthive]

I couldn't tell you exactly, but I've been doing this stuff for about 10 years

[@ohnimation]

Firstly, this is ridiculous. So so so so good. Secondly, you briefly mentioned that unlike your boss fight video, you didn't break this shot into various passes. I was wondering if breaking down shots is typically how complex shots are handled? My experience is from a mograph perspective, so not typically as complex as this, but I figured you'd be a good person to ask. Would it just be a case of analysing your scene and going from there? I often see shots with massive background environments and assume they're probably separate renders, but definitely curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

[@crafthive]

Hey, thank you! So this depends on what kind of work you're doing, but if we're talking about vfx/cgi movies then usually every single shot is always rendered with passes. Usually, you'll setup many passes to isolate parts of the render (i.e: Hero Characters, Background Environment, BG Characters, Atmospherics, FX elements, etc...) And you'd have multiple AOVs (Render Layers like Diffuse/Spec/Normal/Light Selects/etc..) And you'd composite that all back together in Nuke. I'm going to be releasing a video covering how CGI is composited in movies/tv shows soon that will address this exact topic. Stay tuned!

[@moh1t]

woah

[@cg_machine]

oh my god!

[@jiji140spk]

genius

[@user-licahare]

Great work! May I ask why you simulate the clothes in Houdini instead of marvelous design?

[@crafthive]

Thanks! I have another video briefly explaining cloth workflows and the difference between the two. Houdini gives us more control and in this case most of my simulations were already in Houdini so it made sense to keep things there. It could've definitely been done in Marvelous too

[@user-licahare]

@@crafthive I see, thank you for the response. I will definitely check out the video!

[@knowledgeistreasure]

Wow amazing work. You know how to use many industry standard tools. Do you work in the industry? How long did it take you to get to the level you are now with all of these softwares?

[@crafthive]

Thank you! I've been working in the industry for around a decade now. I like to dabble in lots of different software. It's hard to say how long it takes exactly, I've just been picking things up along the way.

[@knowledgeistreasure]

Amazing stuff.@@crafthive

[@TripleeVFX]

@@crafthiveI mean if you can master Houdini you can pretty much master anything 🤣

[@playerkiller10]

Do you think in 10 years from now when ai softwares like sora will get much better, the animators will still be part of the modeling, texturing, shading and lighting process or they will focus more on guiding the ai and reviewing its results?

[@crafthive]

This is a big question, and I'm hoping to make a video covering that topic too soon. I think ai is definitely trying to go the route of cutting out the middle man but from the trends we currently see out there I think it'll probably be a good while before it's fully art directable and really replacing us entirely. I'll go more in depth in a video on the topic, but let's say I'm hoping for the best...

[@thelifeofpita]

This is absolutely incredible, do you have an instagram or an artstation or something ?? I want to see more of your stuff pleaaaaase

[@crafthive]

Thank you! I have an instagram under @crafthivedesign, It's pretty inactive, but I'll try to post more of my work both here on youtube and on instagram. I have an artstation too, but I'm keeping that somewhat private for my professional work for now.

[@DannyNetwirk]

sick... how long have you been a 3d designer for?

[@crafthive]

Thanks! About 10 years

[@azamagfx]

it's amazing, can you show Houdini's knots and the beginning in more detail, as a beginner it's very interesting to me, or share the project? it's just that on the Pwnisher channel, everyone is disassembling unreal, C4d or blender, I'd like to see how it's done in Houdini

[@crafthive]

Thanks! I'll be adding some of the project files and behind the scenes stuff on Pateron sometime soon

[@azamagfx]

@@crafthive when???

[@crafthive]

@@azamagfx I've been on vacation in vietnam for the past few weeks. Let me wrap up a few things and I'd hope to have some scene files start trickling in within the next month or so

[@user-wt1mh9vc3m]

Could u tell us the specs of your pc ? thats amazing bro !! nice job

[@crafthive]

For sure, I'm running an RTX 3090, 128 gigs of RAM and an AMD Threadripper Pro with 32 Cores

[@robertsweeney9808]

Great work! How hard is it to learn houdini?

[@crafthive]

Thank you! It depends what you want to learn. Houdini is a massive software with a lot to offer. Getting started is easy and learning to create some cool sim setups, or lighting/rendering is also fairly straight forward. It only starts getting complex once you start diving deep into some complex setups

[@robertsweeney9808]

Cool, thanks for the reply!

[@zacksterxenres8589]

Can You Make Tutorial Of Making Environment Or You Can Breakdown This Project In Tutorials And Start From Scratch , The Way You Teach Houdini It Was Very Easy To Follow The Way You Explained And Lighting Tutorials In Houdini! It Will Be Amazing Series! Please Make Actually And Really Need Houdini Too Boost My Portfolio!

[@crafthive]

Yeah I'll definitely be making more step by step stuff. A lot of that I'll probably be posting on our patreon

[@user-bs6ws6xk7h]

Technology and art exist at the same time, and it would be shocking if it wasn't top5！

[@mado5650]

What is your pc specs with u rendered in solaris

[@crafthive]

I'm running a thread ripper, rtx 3090 and 128gigs of ram

[@mado5650]

@@crafthive huh, it would be expensive right?

[@sebo1799]

bro you need to work for weta or some shit this is so fire

[@renderpeach]

HOLLLYYY MOLLLLYYY BRO you better prep your butt for top 5!!!!

[@crafthive]

haha not sure, there are some incredible submissions already, but I appreciate the love!

[@renderpeach]

@@crafthive, we both made it! Congratulations. I was so pumped to see my render pop up on the react stream!

[@crafthive]

@@renderpeach Awesome! Congrats! Looking forward to seeing your breakdown!

[@emirifranklin2871]

Wish i know houdini

[@TripleeVFX]

How much time do you think you invested into this project?

[@crafthive]

Oh man hard to say, I wasn't really tracking so anything I say is really just a wild guess, but maybe somewhere around 50 hours?

[@TripleeVFX]

@@crafthive nice I think I spent maybe 30 or so hours on mine with 20 of those being on submission day 😭

[@crafthive]

Nice! that's a hell of a crunch :)

[@bicey8939]

How did you learn all this stuff

[@crafthive]

By just diving in and doing it. Learned some of it on the job, and spent a lot of time at home learning and working on projects

[@PiginaCage]

this made me feel so useless and untalented 💀

[@crafthive]

I get it, I often feel like that too watching other's work, but please don't let that be the case! Keep at it

[@xsarbeats326]

A Houdini animator😱😅

[@kubolor1234]

What are the specs of your setup?

[@crafthive]

Threadripper cpu, rtx 3090 and 128g of RAM

[@kubolor1234]

@@crafthive 5000 series? and how many cores?

[@nicolassanchez5550]

why the doudoune ?

[@crafthive]

Parce que on aime les doudounes :)

[@arjanhasani8822]

bro is rich😅

[@laeternaml]

Basically what haven’t you done ? It would have been a shorter video 😂

[@yesdadbut960]

That looks so ugly for the time you wasted on it