How VELLUM Works in Houdini & Useful Production Tricks!

advanced vellum is available now at gumroad.com/tokyomegaplex
www.houdininerd.com
the clips in this video are from:
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[@chr1st0pher]

hi everyone, there are two major differences in houdini to be aware of when following this tutorial on a more recent version: 1. you can't just go straight from vdbfrompolygons to a remesh node, you need to convert to polys FIRST, before the remesh. you can do this with a convert vdb node, set to polygons. 2. the paint node has been replaced with a few nodes including "attribute paint" which is what i would recommend using to paint your stretchstiffness attribute or any other arbirary attribs. have fun making floppy characters!

[@ras3193]

Thank you so much dude. Awesome tutorial and now giving updating about the new nodes, absolute legend. Love your content.

[@g_rant_]

this was a great one. looking forward to the next one too!

[@the-astropath]

Nice dude! Excited for more houdini tuts from you.

[@davidschonwald7782]

thanks for sharing! keep up with the good work !

[@vanyakapetanovic4018]

This is by far one of the best Vellum (and Houdini in general) lessons I have ever seen. Thank you so much for this. You have a gift of clarity of presentation. I will be getting your course for sure.

[@chr1st0pher]

Wow! Thank you Vanya! That is super encouraging!

[@vanyakapetanovic4018]

@@chr1st0pher Seriously I wish I had learned about every solver (and Houdini in general) from someone like you rather than fragmented KZbin searches and different sources. Great stuff. Thank you so much for this.

[@incj12]

this is so good man wish you have your next tutos out !

[@ol1175]

thank you so much and waiting for tut which you showed at the end!!!

[@everydayhero3610]

Absolutely stellar! Thanks!

[@gt_kenny]

Great stuff man! Subscribed and hoping for more Houdini content 😉 👍

[@mjparent222]

This is very fun ! Thank you for sharing.

[@magdalenacichocka6297]

That's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a lot :)

[@megakukis]

really nice sharing, looking forward for more tutorials on vellum!

[@TheRubyc]

Awesome tutorial! Thank youu so much.

[@poppingZizzy]

Incredible! I'm glad I found your channel!

[@rickedeckard2006]

That was excellent. Thanks!

[@andvfx]

Very cool and useful tutorial. Thanks!

[@temazosIA2023]

what an amazing tutorial !!! Thank you

[@alirezaershadi]

Awesome! I can count so many useful tips in this 30min tutorial! Great job!

[@seeressjera]

This is exactly what i needed, Thank you!!

[@mrheydu]

Great tutorial man, everything made sense! I think i've gotten to understand houdini more after this than anything else I've done in the past. Thank you

[@theoracle666]

Bring on more refined and advanced tuts on this subject. Loooove it.

[@SiccodeVries]

Very helpfull..thanks man.

[@bboyhafan]

coool, it wil be nice to see more tutoraials lik this for vellum

[@nealcoghlan1256]

Can't believe it took me this long to find this tut - really nicely laid out and explained!

[@humayan91]

Thank you so much for the tutorial :) It was really helpful

[@rathoquarter]

Great tutorial. Thanks, mate. M

[@CarsonVisuals]

This is wonderful

[@cwhiticar1]

Love it!

[@danielmonsalve6283]

Amazing video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@FaddyVFX]

Good to know, thanx gor taking the time to explain and demonstrate the process.

[@angadsingh3817]

very nicely explained. thank you!

[@umbravirtus2]

thanks really helpfull need the advanced vellum video . Have nice day

[@MikeFlex]

Damn, dude. Thank you for this!

[@philiprafferty849]

Been avoiding vellum in my learning process, after getting going a bit with other vids, this one really pulls together so many good learnings, great delivery and some belly laughs to boot. Mighty

[@sonnyobrien]

Hey Chris! Thank you :)

[@alexanderantoniades6092]

Super useful thank you for this

[@alexanderibanez]

GREAT! TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!! i learned a lot, thx for sharing!

[@asger1572]

great video bro

[@MagnusMllerart]

Yeah!!! Love this! Thanks for sharing, looking forward to the next one!

[@chr1st0pher]

Magnus Mller woah hey! Thanks so much magnus, super glad to hear that this is helpful for you!

[@ChosenWan]

wow awesome!You explain everything so clearly ,it's perfect for anyone like me who just trying so hard to understand Houdini. Thanks man,a big fan from Shanghai takes hat off to you.

[@chr1st0pher]

@@ChosenWan wow thanks! super glad to hear you and others are getting a lot out of this. i love making them so definitely expect more as soon as i get the chance.

[@ChosenWan]

@@chr1st0pher that's great. keep doing this man,you are the best!

[@resilientpicture]

Awesome, thanks

[@sulwyn8003]

great tutorial

[@xXSpaceCowsXx]

ye boi awesome stuff man !

[@ulceriumdnb2272]

Thanks a lot!!

[@vazelevz]

Thanks for this guide ! Cool technique and easy for beginners (which I am)

[@wemcatt]

Thank you very much !

[@JustJoshingvfx]

Man I've had a headache all day trying to do something similar to this but this tutorial just Fixed all the problems and saved me! Thank you so much man!

[@vipergx]

9 months later.... You're famous!!! :D

[@guitarboy2828]

This is SOO useful and helpful! Can't wait for the more advanced tutorials!!

[@ShawarmaBaby]

You are amazing for doing this tutorial. Its a complex thing and you explained it perfectly. Thank you

[@chr1st0pher]

thank you! so glad it was helpful :)

[@ShawarmaBaby]

@@chr1st0pher Hey I was minding if I could do this exact thing using a FBX from mixamo, and I dont know what it doesnt work when I connect the pointdeform :/ Have you ever done that?

[@chr1st0pher]

@@ShawarmaBaby yeah i do that all the time, hit me up on discord (link at houdininerd.com) and ill help

[@yulongace8701]

Thank you!

[@matteoforghieri]

Great stuff! I wonder if there is a node similar to photoshop level to remap the stiffness map

[@AlexeyLysenkoBam]

ITS SOOO USEFULL!!! Thank you a lot Q_Q

[@ShawarmaBaby]

Gracias te amo

[@ThomasKlyhnChristensen]

Just FYI the remesh right after the vdb from polygon does not work in H18, it just stays as a VDB. Not sure if its a bug or a "feature" / something that was never intended.

[@chr1st0pher]

damn! that's too bad. i suppose just throw down a convert vdb node and set it to convert to polygons before you remesh then. watch out for this one guys, I'll look into that. thanks for bringing that up!

[@ThomasKlyhnChristensen]

@@chr1st0pher sort of, you can get there but it takes more steps, mainly because the remesh node has been completely reworked, so yes first you need to vdbconvert to poly, then remesh, but in the remesh you need to turn the iterations back 1 (default is now 2), turn off the smoothing (also on by default), and then realize that the value is no longer edge length, but target size, defaults to 0.1, but if you put it to 0.01 you end up with something really close to the default node in 17.5 :) I assume the new remesh is much faster when things gets scaled up but yeah, took me a minute to figure what the... was going on ;)

[@ArgoBeats]

@@ThomasKlyhnChristensen Thanks, SBM!

[@alexvangils]

@@ThomasKlyhnChristensen you are a legend thank you. exactly the answer i was looking for

[@rossiylee6364]

Thank you so much, I happend the same problem, Im using the 18.0.5,

[@piercecaldwell6819]

another way besides painting your influence would be just to use a group create node, and set it to a bounding box. of course paint by attrib works probably better for more dynamic animations, ie not just a straight path. didnt know about the point deform node!!! gonna be using that a LOT, thanks man!

[@ArgoBeats]

Christopher, you are the man! Is this technique applicable to fracturing FEM instead than Vellum as well, therefore FEM+MoCap altogether? (we do not have Pin to Target in FEM, though...)

[@vipergx]

28:34 - I rofled XD Thanks for the tut.

[@patrickwhite1116]

Bless u

[@eduardorodriguez9277]

Great tutorial! still waiting for the advance version.

[@chr1st0pher]

just posted it on gumroad and uploaded the trailer to youtube. cheers :)

[@eduardorodriguez9277]

@@chr1st0pher amazing! had to get it!

[@MBSJQ]

Hey dude, when are those tutorials you mentioned at the end of the video coming out, they look epic!

[@chr1st0pher]

thanks! JUST posted it on my gumroad page and posted a trailer on my youtube page. Cheers :)

[@MegaFrederike]

great tutorial thanks in Houdini 18.5 there is no paint note anymore only attribute paint mask it works differently I dont understand how to select with vellum constraint / pin to target

[@chr1st0pher]

it should be about the same, just change the name of the attribute from "mask" to "constraintstiffness" or whatever, just as in this tutorial

[@ModelWhatYouSee]

@christopher - anyway you could drop some tips on doing those inflatable flamingos? I've tried doing this with VellumConstraintProperties in the vel solv but I can't get that much bounce. Thanks for the great tuts!

[@chr1st0pher]

the bounce isnt entirely from playing with the rest length for the pressure constraints, i also sorta faked it-- its following loosely with a soft pin constraints of input animation where the flamingo is moving up and down!

[@marijnkarsten7323]

This is great! I have your setup but in combination with a DOP network which works great except for the last step ..to get the simulated mesh to deform the original mesh..when using the point deform after the vellum IO and vellum post process or with cached out balloon sim it kinda works but nearly not as accurate as in your setup. Could you point me in the right direction?

[@nealcoghlan1256]

Hey Marijn - a late reply as you've probably found by now - but for anyone else that may stumble across this, I found that caching the Vellum sim first before the point deform allowed accurate results like the ones in the vid.

[@MyLanista]

Very nice! How can you pin the paint attribute without pin to target animation? I want to inflate the guy from the feet up. edit: Ah I just found out the paint operator is also different in Houdini 18. Not sure how to do the override color part.

[@chr1st0pher]

use the balloon setup to inflate him, bump up the rest length of the pressure constraints. you dont want him animated? uncheck "match animation", or just timeshift node set to frame 1 before the guy going into the vellum constraints so he isnt animated. you can also paint an attribute to have the "pressure stiffness" scale by, so parts of him inflate while others dont, just set the pressure constraint's stiffness to scale by whatever attribute you want. to make him inflate slowly over time rather than immediately puff up is a bit more advanced, but that is what i will be covering in my next tutorial asap :)

[@MyLanista]

So I achieved override color by setting attribute name to stretchstiffness and type to color.

[@MyLanista]

@@chr1st0pher Sounds great! I'll keep going at it but looking forward to the next tut!

[@rossiylee6364]

i happend same issue, when i clicked "pin to target"--> match animation--soft , then click solver, all stick together, and so headache about it.

[@bhushankandalkar3104]

@@MyLanista hey man! Did your vellum ballon setup worked ? I m facing issue....the vellum ballon setup is not working after adding the vellum constraints and then pinning the animation :(

[@mregfx4713]

Does anyone know how to do this with an alembic animation?

[@keyaha]

Hey it's a great tutorial! Thank you :) I tried to do it with animated fbx file from mixamo. But for some reason the object starts to wiggle after I put point deform to get the animation from the deformed obj. Do you know how can I fitx it? :/

[@chr1st0pher]

its probably packed geo. try unpacking it?

[@tetsuooshima832]

I really love the part where only the legs are animated, the rest of the body is all soft and following along on the ground, this is hilarious xDD

[@i20010]

Great tutorial! But 30:15 The final Point Deform in my setup totally distorts the original mesh, while your is perfect....I followed you exactly...

[@chr1st0pher]

if you followed me exactly, see my pinned comment. some things have changed which would cause an issue.

[@user-sj8bt1js9g]

How do you get textures on vellum simulations?

[@everydayhero3610]

Click on geo the node where the simulation is, go to Render, and choose Material from mocapbiped1 - MATERIALS - clothing.

[@junzheshen3343]

Great tutorial! But why don't you just use @stretchstiffness = 1 - relbbox(@P).y instead of that.

[@nicscholz8685]

Tokyo megagoat

[@umbravirtus2]

how to animate stiffness beacause solver take only the initial value

[@chr1st0pher]

this is what the next tutorial will be on :)

[@CannabisTechLife]

For the life of me I can't figure out why the remesh from vdbfrompolygons node doesn't work. It stays a vbd when I middle mouse over the remesh node.

[@chr1st0pher]

you need to convert the vdb to a polygon before remeshing, they changed it in houdini 18 so that you cant just so straight from vdb to remesh anymore. use a convert vdb node after the vdb from polygons and set it to polygons, then remesh. sorry! if i had known they would change this shortly after releasing this tutorial I would have not taken that shortcut!

[@CannabisTechLife]

@@chr1st0pher Forgot to reply thank you! Very helpful explanation of the issue. Cheers!

[@edis671games]

how to do it with alembic?

[@edis671games]

you need to use CONVERT node after ur mesh

[@chr1st0pher]

Hi everyone! Part 2 is on my gumroad page now! gumroad.com/l/WWMWYx enjoy :)

[@DynamicPhil84]

Thank you Chris, this is an amazing tutorial! I'm having trouble with the painting and VEX section however. It seems the Paint node no longer exists in Houdini 18 and has been replaced with the Paint Attribute node, but I can't seem to get that node to work in a similar way to what you are doing here with the Paint node. Also VEX seems to not be reading the "stretchfitness" variable. I assume that code can't work without the Paint node before it which defines the "stretchfitness" attribute. I'm new to Houdini so this part is fairly confusing for me, so do you have any alternative options for the new nodes in Houdini 18? Is it possible to place the Point Wrangle node after the Vellum Solver where the "stretchfitness" attribute has been created?

[@DynamicPhil84]

Actually might have solved it! Seems like an Attribute Wrangle node will work instead of a Point Wrangle node.

[@krystiangrzywacz1530]

Hey, thank You for the tuts. Super helpfull stuff. I have one question about the pressure attribute. If i want to export the simulated blob as an alembic and render it in another soft, how can i transfer the pressure attribute to a vertex map that would be exported with the .abc? Thanks again! greetings

[@zoeychen8487]

Hi @chr1st0pher , thank you so much for this amaizing tutorial, much appreciated for the detailed elaboration!! But I am having issue after I added the vellum constrain, the object does move as the animation path, but the object shape went completely crazy, it does not look like a human anymore, I have try so many time but it still did not work, do you know why would this happen?? I am using Houdini FX 19.5

[@chr1st0pher]

hey! it's hard to say without seeing your file, id recommend hopping in the houdininerd.com discord and posting some screenshots, we should be able to help! off the top of my head i might consider trying a few things: on the solver maybe try turning off collisions. this might help diagnose the issue. do you have any other constraints besides the pin to target? you might be missing some you need.

[@zoeychen8487]

@@chr1st0pher Thanks Chris, I will try ask in. the channel~~😊

[@chr1st0pher]

you should chime in the same on discord, we can help. exploding geo is a common issue when vellum isnt set up properly, so it could be anything which id why id love to look on there and see some screenshots or something! @@patheticbutharmless