Houdini
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HScript Expressions Understanding how to massage data in Houdini is key to giving yourself the creative edge and allowing you to unleash mind-blowing visual effects. In this 18 part tutorial series, we cover a variey of simple yet essential weapons in your arsenal including Global, Standard and Custom Variables to Math and String Modification functions. |
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Intro to Houdini 10.0's PyroFX One of Houdini 10's most exciting new features is Pyro FX, a tool designed for high-quality Fire and Smoke. This tutorial uses one of the PyroFX presets to get you started. You then learn how to navigate the network, cache out a low-res sim, up-res to get more detail, then use IPR and the VEX Pyro shader to complete your effect. |
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Image Viewer: Compare Images option MPlay has an often overlooked feature called "Compare Images" which can be used to simplify the process of comparing frames during the set-up stages of your renders. A simple feature which can make your workflow a bit more convenient. |
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Wedge ROP This tutorial covers a new feature in Houdini 9.5: The Wedge ROP. Wedging renders a specified render output driver multiple times, each time varying some parameters in the .hip file. This is useful for exploring how parameters will affect the final product in things such as simulations. |
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Normal Maps This is another tutorial that takes the form of a usable file, with commented nodes. The file contains two simple materials which make use of Normal Maps generated in Z Brush and show how they can be applied to affect the lighting in your own materials. |
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Wireframe Renders This video tutorial takes a quick look at one method that can be used to create a wireframe render of any type of surface which may then be composited over the lighting passes. |
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Introduction to Fluid Dynamics in Houdini 9.5 This crash course series focuses on the concept of fluid dynamics and how they work within Houdini. This 2 hour 48 minute long collection of 15 Fluid Dynamics Video Tutorials contains both the basics on working with Voxels, and working with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics that should help even the neophyte get up and running. |
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Smoke Bomb When the Houdini 9.5 beta was released in June of 2008 Side Effects Software Inc. required a few new demo videos. This link is to the file that the smoke bomb animation was created with. There's some other cool nuggest of information in there to including how to create colored smoke (something that was left out of the original demo). This is a Houdini 9.5 file that has comments on all the nodes. |
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Baking Ambient Occlusion Similar to the last tutorial I posted, I decided to revisit Ambient Occlusion, but this time in Houdini. One thing that I love about Houdini is the ability to write comments on each node, so I can effectively deliver a tutorial with a working file. Click the link to grab the file and a more indepth description on the process. |
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L-System Trees During the last two weeks of my SESI internship in summer of 2006, I created the lsystems used in these example files. Lots of great info to be found in the files' notes. For those not in the know, lystems are a great way to recursively generate branching patterns. |
Maya
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Ambient Occlusion It was kind of fun being thought of as one of the "tech guys" at Sheridan. It's not my job anymore, but I was asked for help with Ambient Occlusion, and so I decided to make a pdf to help explain it. Pardon the resolution... if there's enough interest, I can certainly make a 300dpi version. |
Other
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Preparing Classical Animation in Photoshop and Coloring in Flipbook This was one of the tutorials I wrote while learning classical animation and covers how to treat cleaned-up classical animation in Adobe Photoshop and then color in Digicel Flipbook. Because it was one of the first tutorials I wrote, there are no images contained inside the pdf; however I tried to be both humourous and descriptive. After finding out that it's still being passed around at Sheridan, I've decided to add it here permanantly. |