Applied Houdini Volumes I version 2.0 - Fundamentals

An update to my free popular "Applied Houdini - Dynamics I - Introduction to volume simulation and rendering" video tutorial lesson!
Become an expert VFX artist with Applied Houdini at : www.appliedhoudini.com
In Volumes I, we will jump right in and tackle a simulation of a vaporizing pig's head. We start with simulation fundamentals such as generating initial volumes as well as what exactly vectors, and voxels, and volumes are. From there we set up a basic simulation, cache it, and render it. Tips and tricks including optimal UI organization and a simple workflow setup will also be discussed.
Applied Houdini is a production quality oriented series created by Steven Knipping (www.imdb.com/name/nm3725241/), currently a Senior Rigid Body Destruction / FX Technical Director at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Avengers: Infinity War, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). Benefit from production proven workflows while also getting an in depth explanation of why things works they way they do. Best of all - each video is crammed with actual information and footnotes instead of gratuitous talking and dead space!

[@kalubandali2241]

you are a legend, your name will be sung in Valhalla

[@volnovhuesos6267]

Wow. Best of the best - as always. The whole new generation of houdini artists growns up, learning from your videos. Thanks Man!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Thanks!

[@AshT8524]

Anyone who's using Houdini 19 and is getting error while caching in "HQ take" try adding "Load from disk" and "Base name" in HQ take. Thanks Steven because of you I'm finally making something and learning Houdini after 3 tries in past 2 yrs lol.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you're enjoying it! And yeah, the File Cache node changed a lot!

[@AshT8524]

@@nothingifnotcritical I'll definitely buy the advance courses once I get through the fundamentals 😊❤️

[@Kemer95]

I loved your little animations with vectors, particles and dencity clouds! You sure can be proud of 'em xD

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Thanks, that's one of the main reasons I wanted to redo these...

[@darmok072]

@@nothingifnotcritical Probably a stupid question, but in your animations it shows the clouds have a shape within each voxel square. Does each voxel block represent a portion of the cloud this way? Or in reality is it either all cloud or none per square?

[@mohydra]

I was watching your old series. was searching youtube for a more up-to-date tutorial. and I found this. You are my HERO!

[@flipnap2112]

You came as a recommendation from a friend. Im an animator in Maya for 20 plus years and have been all over the board with respect to comping in fusion and nuke, and every 3d package known to mankind, and everything else under the sun.. EXCEPT for Houdini. I have always been in love with what I see, but have been scared to death to learn. Last programming was in 1987 with BASIC, as in. < 20 GOTO 10>.. I've spent a long week looking through tutorials and am lost within 2 minutes because they all assume I know my way around. I don't. when you started explain what a polygon was, I was like "ok this is my guy" ha ha!! so far so good man, im a new fan. thanks for taking the time for us beginners. cheers

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you're enjoying it! If you ever get stuck, feel free to email me at [e-mail]!

[@flipnap2112]

@@nothingifnotcritical wow thank you man. honestly, people like you are the main reasons im still in this crazy industry ha ha. you're good people. thanks again for the great content. finished a few more last night and its the perfect style of teaching. time is rare and we all appreciate your dedication to this.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@flipnap2112 You're quite welcome!

[@cepwin]

This is the best explanation I’ve seen on voxels and volumes .....really nice job!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You're welcome, my pleasure!

[@FaddyVFX]

Interesting approach, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I learned a lot from it, thank you for your time.

[@rishabhgandhi6869]

best houdini lessons i've come across so far! thanks for making these :)

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You're welcome! Check out the rest at www.appliedhoudini.com, and know that you can reach me at [e-mail] if you have any questions!

[@rishabhgandhi6869]

@@nothingifnotcritical will do, thanks :)

[@OX_Tools]

Still works great with Houdini 19.5.

[@enotbert]

Holy moly, dude! You're awesome. A bit nerdy at the beginning, but it's kinda alright. Please keep going!

[@scotttolan230]

so good! "well that's something...." that quote alone compelled me to sub. Superb!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you're enjoying it! More to come soon!

[@MESHQuality]

Thank you! Always love to see something new from you!

[@midphase]

Thank you Steven, much appreciated and thorough as always!

[@FunkyPants3D]

This helped me a lot, as did the other classes I saw. Excited to take a look at the advanced stuff :D thanks for your work, I really appreciate it!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you liked it! "Applied Houdini Liquids II - Rapid Rivers" coming very soon too!

[@FunkyPants3D]

​@@nothingifnotcritical I have a question: Im tinkering around with the Particles V stuff and Id like to slow down the growth algorithm. Is there a way to maybe tell the SOP Solver to skip every other frame? Could I just set the SOP-Solver's timescale to a lower value? thx in advance :D

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@FunkyPants3D Hello, shoot me an email at [e-mail] and we can talk about it!

[@OX_Tools]

If Tony Hawk taught Houdini courses. Love the pace, the laid back and sometimes funny dialog, and more than anything the very helpful information about what each step is for.

[@check99999999999]

Ho boy ! I should have seen this video a long time ago ! Thanks so much !

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@lukex975]

Thank you Steven, a lot of aha moments for me!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You're welcome!

[@st.friendship]

the demos are great 👍🏻

[@SebastienProduction1]

Awesome tutorial ! Thank you :D

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You're welcome!

[@Max-zr7hr]

Great tutorial thank you

[@simo299]

That was a very useful 1:12 to spend on YT - a fun exercise combined with a thorough ground-up theory on Pyro in Houdini. Will check out the paid videos for sure ...

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@martinputine3514]

You are definitely a god !

[@mnoor8946]

looking forward to do some vellum tutorials

[@vinodsoni5435]

Thanks steven

[@KaosMaximo]

dude that part at 38:54 was gold hahaha thanks for the vid and super clear explanations! im learning houdini and this was great! full of really useful tips too and really well structured :) you have a like and new sub ma dude

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Glad you liked it! You can always reach me at [e-mail] if you ever have any questions.

[@BenniK88]

Awesome work thanks for updating this 🔥🔥🔥

[@resilientpicture]

Awesome. Thank you.

[@HeryFebrian]

thank you :D

[@Kagara]

when do you upload fluids?

[@S-I-T]

Hey Steven, love your tutorials. quick question, is there a way of sourcing the pig texture to colour the smoke in any way? would be great if you included this in a future lesson. Many thanks for your time.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You can certainly do this, but it will not be 100% represent the look of the polygon form, as the volume has much lower resolution... Email me at [e-mail] and we can discuss what you're trying to do.

[@jabiraidan]

*opens up the pig head to look at the node system * PERMISSION DENIED Thanks for providing the tutorials for Houdini, I will try to learn well from you.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

You're welcome! And yeah you have to right click on the pig head node and select "Allow Editing of Contents" if you want to mess around with the internals... good luck with the rest!

[@jabiraidan]

@@nothingifnotcritical Thanks for the reply, honestly didn't expect anything two years on lol. Thanks for the info, I was also tinkering with the golem template that had an animation feature which was nice to look at. See you in the next chapter.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@jabiraidan No problem! You can also reach me at [e-mail] if you have any more questions.

[@aireqi9]

THANK YOUUUUU!

[@GEORGE.M.M]

Is it possible to vary the vdb voxel size across an object, for example using another volume or object as a reference for a fall off, so I can have a controlled variation? I'm looking to achieve an aesthetic that has a variation in mesh thickness over a base mesh that has a uniform geometry?

[@TempyEdits]

11/10

[@denethvihara2259]

Thank you soo much🙌🙌❤️❤️❤️

[@sjm418]

For me turbulence in the pyro solver does not work when OpenCL is turned on

[@antons6146]

Great tutorials! I was wondering could you post the specs of your machine, RAM, CPU, GFX card(s)

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hey! 32 GB ram, GTX 1080 Ti, and Ryzen 2950X. A lesson like this does not need anywhere near these specs however - I would recommend minimum 16GB ram, any graphics card, any CPU within the last 4 years.

[@antons6146]

@@nothingifnotcritical Thank you for providing the specs

[@DatLump]

Hi Steven! I'm beginning my journey with Houdini and VFX. Your in-depth explanations make it a breeze to follow through and understand the lesson. The only problem I ran into was the updated Filecache node. When I try to save / render it, it crashes when I save it to my desktop. I understand the point of exporting it, but perhaps I can just save it without the filecache node? In addition, may I email you about how to follow your lessons as a beginner (Recommended pathway)? My goal is to work with video games and movies, but I want to make sure I'm taking the right steps with your lessons

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hello, glad you're enjoying the lessons! That's strange about it crashing, does it happen immediately or at some point during the simulation/caching? Feel free to send your file to me at [e-mail] and I'll take a look!

[@ankit_nandgave]

tutorial is very helpfull...... 13:33 😜 sounds funny🤣

[@JosefMaxwell]

@48:17 When I run my simulation I see a layer that smoke dissipates, but there's another smokey pig layer under it still. I can't seem to find a duplicate object though, any thoughts?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hello! I suspect you have your source volume still visible - try turning off the visiblity (blue rectangle) on your /obj/source Geometry node! If that doesn't work, feel free to send your file to [e-mail] Good luck!

[@JosefMaxwell]

@@nothingifnotcritical Nailed it! Thank you so much!!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@JosefMaxwell You're welcome!

[@DatLump]

Just starting my Houdini journey, but thank you for asking this haha

[@ale-pg3xb]

45:47 simulating at 300 res on a 1070 (8 gb) and only using 1.2 gb of vram. houdini probably got more efficient

[@yggrassildigital8483]

thank you bro!

[@fidofx2189]

when do you upload Fluids?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Very soon, probably within the next couple of weeks...

[@fidofx2189]

@@nothingifnotcritical thanks

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@fidofx2189 Just the first one, but the next 2 are basically done too so they'll follow quickly.

[@diegoperafan2768]

56:55 Mine is still not loading from disk :c, I have to wait for the blue line to fill. Edit: Im just dumb, i didnt click the render flag on the filecache. Awesome tutorial :D Edit 2: I have a question xd, if you do some changes and cache again, does the files overwrite or makes another sequence?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hello! Glad you were able to figure it out! As for your other question, your Filecache will always write to the exact file path you have there, which means that yes it will overwrite files that are already there...

[@diegoperafan2768]

@@nothingifnotcritical Thank you!! :D

[@rishabhgandhi6869]

how do i export the final sim for c4d octane? after the dop import node i added a convertvdb node followed by a file. thanks!

[@rishabhgandhi6869]

is there way to export the entire simulation as a vdb?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@rishabhgandhi6869 Hello! We can talk more via [e-mail], but yes, you can use the File Cache SOP, or the Geometry ROP to export per-frame .vdb files that you should be able to read into any package (such as C4D) at this point. So yes, after the Dop Import SOP, you can convert to a VDB, and then use a File Cache SOP that writes to a vdb path like c:\volumes\volume.$F.vdb

[@hiraljoraval6708]

Awesome

[@louisseet]

Hi Steven, I really appreciate the graphical explanation and i've tried my best to understand the theories. However i followed step by step until i reach pyrosolver's turbulence, i ticked and changed density field's "temperature" to "density". But no vel no turbulance was present UNLESS i tick "visualize turbulence" checkbox OR I apply gas-turbulence node onto the solver. Any idea why anyone?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Not sure! Please send your file to [e-mail] and I'll take a look!

[@louisseet]

@@nothingifnotcritical omg hi, thank you for replying. So I thoroughly went through each of the settings and careful watched through your video and turns out OpenGL is the culprit and you mentioned GPU calculates sims differently or something 🙂 so yes I uncheck OpenGL and the sim was okay!

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@louisseet Great, glad you got it to work!

[@kartikay9130]

hey i am complete beginner and is this the right course to start from can anyone guide me ?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

This is a good one, or Particles I. Good luck!

[@ntpowertools9199]

2 second result must spend 1 hour hard working. that 's crazy! lol.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Ha yes, and when working in film it's usually 2 weeks of work for a 1 second result!

[@klarnorbert]

@@nothingifnotcritical But sure as hell it's worth it!

[@Jaredvic]

I haven't watched it yet, but what made you make a 2.0? Have there been updates to the tools so the old way is obsolete?

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hey! Everything in that video actually still works the same, but I felt that I could convey the lesson more effectively now after three years of doing these tutorials! Mostly better descriptions and demonstrations of some concepts I always wanted to improve...

[@Ceonsamea]

@@nothingifnotcritical And this is why your tutorials are the best available; true passion for quality. Great stuff, keep it up! I will be continuing to buy your content for as long as I can afford to do so :P

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@Ceonsamea Thanks, I love creating them!

[@BenniK88]

@nothingifnotcritical Did you made the whole volumes course new or just the first entry lesson? Would love to see the rest of the volume lessen with Houdini 17 to buy them again. Thank you for that awesome effort.

[@nothingifnotcritical]

@@BenniK88 So far just the first one, but I plan on doing the rest over time. For now, people can go to www.appliedhoudini.com/houdini-17-updates to see how sourcing has changed in Pyro.

[@josephstalin4788]

Is this free

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Yes!

[@milad_savar]

after flip Course .. start new Production Shot tutorial lol :))))

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Indeed!

[@houseofvultures582]

was great until the rendering, even though my simulation has disappeared, there is just a ghost of the smoke hanging around in the renders

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hello, I'm not quite sure what you mean - email me at [e-mail] and we can figure it out!

[@brightgarinson3099]

Aw shucks Steven, you shouldn't have!

[@wallacesousuke1433]

Houdini looks cool but it's alien tech, no way someone like me can learn it lol Blender it is

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Try watching my free lessons first (including this one) before you decide! www.appliedhoudini.com/faq

[@wallacesousuke1433]

@@nothingifnotcritical does it require programming and math knowledge to be properly used or can Houdini be used in a "dumb" way like Blender can, with nodes and regular 3D techniques?

[@wallacesousuke1433]

@@nothingifnotcritical nevermind my questions, your links answered them all lol cheers

[@arakul9615]

Is this course no longer relevant? because a new solver came out SPARSE SOLVER

[@nothingifnotcritical]

Hello! The original Pyro solver is still in Houdini, and should still be used by those learning how volume simulations work (it's a lot more straightforward to use!).