Soft Ground Destruction VFX using Houdini 20

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Yet another ground destruction thing... This time we tackle some grassy grounds. Making multiple fractures, combination of hard and soft contraints. Using the point deform to make it look all soft and shit.
Not really a render tutorial but we do some rendering to...

[@babyave]

thank you so much. been looking for a tutorial like this

[@frigbychilwether]

Hi, amazing tutorial. At first looking at the movie at the start I assumed it was some kind of cloth simulation, not seen rbd used this way before, so much great information. Thanks.

[@johannestiner]

This could also be a job for Vellum, although not sure how Vellum would perform on a much larger scale.

[@spiderbrr]

Thanks very much!

[@ibrahimsojiv88]

Great

[@RicardoMejiaCaicedo]

Great!

[@99joshmo]

I have an issue where after I set up the point deform node tree the simulation stretches when the ground breaks!! I've looked through seemingly everything but I can't tell what I did wrong!

[@Victor-tn4yk]

Hello, first of all, really great tutorial, really intuitive and easy to follow, with an incredible final render! I'm wondering: do you think I can achieve the same exact result as you if I'm using Houdini 19.5, or are you using Houdini 20.0 specific tools? Thank you

[@johannestiner]

Thanks, yeah you can do this with older versions without a problem.

[@shubhamthakur3321]

This tutorial is really helpful, may I know how your scrolling moments are so smooth and also rotating?

[@johannestiner]

I'm using a 3dconnexion spacemouse to move in the viewport

[@shubhamthakur3321]

@@johannestiner Ohh okay. Btw have one more question after creating name attribute in boolean fracture you got only two names, ground_0 and ground _1 for two pieces but for some reasons it gave me total 6 names for two pieces, ground_(0 to 5). Do you know why?

[@johannestiner]

@shubhamthakur3321 Maybe the noise is too strong on your cutting plane, and therefore, you get some overlapping faces creating more pieces? I assume if you don't noise the plane, you only get 2 pieces?

[@shubhamthakur3321]

@@johannestiner Ohh yeah thanks, infact it was too low in my case I gave some extra twisties to the line, so maybe that's why it needed little extra noise.

[@user-fc6ni8pw3r]

How does your viewport move this way? Great tutorial btw

[@johannestiner]

Im using a 3dconnexion spacemouse. Thanks 😄

[@cabbshills5732]

As a compositor and 3D generalist I have to say you really need to learn python in and out to truly get through anything and make sense of this software. Kudos to all the Technical Directors and you sir. I'll stick to compositing in Nuke and blender plugins when in a pinch. Coding is something not everyone can grasp unfortunately.

[@johannestiner]

What makes you think you need to learn Python to get anything out of Houdini?

[@cabbshills5732]

It really seems 99% of the cool stuff requires scripting.

[@melchiorwarntjes1701]

Great tutorail!! I have a problem where the uv map is moving on the ground, it's like it is still constantly being projected from the top when the geo is moving. Any solution?

[@johannestiner]

Can't remember if I did this but if uv's are set before sim it shouldn't move. But you can use a rest node to freeze the uv's

[@melchiorwarntjes1701]

@@johannestiner I tried making the uv before the sim and it seemed to fix my problem. Thanks for the replay!!

[@iamincompleteperson6794]

Brother put more videos ❤❤❤❤ mostly flip and vellum. Gore explosion still tutorials are very less if you can put it will lot helpful for us

[@johannestiner]

Rohan Dalvi have a series on this, Flippy Murders it's called 😄

[@iamincompleteperson6794]

I am trying to get that course. But we need to apply using case study like sisu movie reference

[@ibrahimsojiv88]

If rubber toy as a collider how to get directions how to substract please help me

[@johannestiner]

Not really sure what you mean, you want the direction of your animated rubber toy? For that you could add a trail sop and set it to calculate velocity. Then, just invert the velocity and set that to a random dir attribute.

[@ibrahimsojiv88]

@@johannestiner instead of line of I put rubber toy as a collider if any pieces collide with rubber toy then pieces will go same direction which one you show

[@johannestiner]

You can join the Discord (in the description) and post your hip file in the help channel.

[@ibrahimsojiv88]

@@johannestiner thanks Johann

[@ihatefallout]

I'm trying to decide if I should invest time in Blender with RDBlabs plugin or Houdini SideFX... Do you think it's worth trying Houdini with a 14 core 5.3ghz CPU if I upgrade my DDR4 Ram from 32gb to 64gb? My goal is to make small to medium sized rigid body destruction sims ideally at 1440p resolution, any advice that can save me time is much appreciated.

[@johannestiner]

Of course you can do Houdini stuff with those specs, add more ram when you need it, so don't go out wasting money right away. There is no other program/plugin that beats Houdini for VFX type of things ( it's all there, built-in, and no plugins required ). That's not to say you can't do it in other softwares, but houdini makes it "easy" to scale and modify your setup ( as long as you had it in mind when starting the project ) because of how procedural everything can be. If the end goal is to work in a studio I would assume Houdini is the way to go. I'd say the only reason to pick blender for VFX heavy stuff (currently) is if you want to be a KZbinr 😄 way more potential viewers.

[@ihatefallout]

Thanks appreciate the response, my only issue is that I've been spoilt with real time fluid sims in EmberGen. So now I'm looking for other GPU powered or at least GPU accelerated tools. After I messages you I started reading about Tyflow for 3DS Max which sounds promising. Last time I tried Houdini it was very difficult and time consuming having to cache sims to the HDD before rendering and I game up. But if the software runs in real time you can learn it much faster. But until we get real time GPU calculated destruction physics I am looking for the fastest solution possible! @@johannestiner