Houdini for every Artist

Mesh vellum fluids using a particle fluid surface, adjust particle separation and voxel size, apply smoothing, and preview with a flipbook, then add physics next.

Explore mixing grain and fluid simulations in Houdini with vellum, including grain constraints, stopped attributes, and awakening on collision to create interacting, breakable grain and water simulations.

In Houdini for every artist, this lesson teaches meshing fluids by isolating water particles from sand, increasing point count with point generate and jitter, and adjusting visualization to preserve volume.

Build a continuous water spill with vellum fluids, using a collider environment, a vellum solver, and an emitter, then refine velocity and wind for realistic flow.

Explore modeling a leaf with the trace node in Houdini, scatter leaves, trace a leaf texture, convert to vellum cloth, and simulate with vellum solver for realistic leaf dynamics.

Set up snow attributes to make grains move only after collisions, using the stopped attribute, volume awakening, and VDB collider, then optimize with sleeping and real-time playback.

Learn to tune friction and attraction weight in Houdini by adjusting the solver's attraction, using attribute adjust for attraction weight, and adding drag, friction, and noise to control particle clumping.

Set up vellum glue constraints with cluster attributes to create connected snow-like patches, tune stiffness and break thresholds, and manage multi-cluster simulations for flexible, breakable surfaces.

Improve the Houdini simulation by adjusting large and small cluster constraints, break thresholds, and collider interactions, then test with varying cluster counts and wake logic.

Simulate snow by tuning drag and awake parameters, shape plow with mirror colliders, then export to blender via vdb from particles, convert to mesh, and render with a principle shader.

Learn to set up RBD bullet simulations in Houdini by creating geometry, colliders, ground, and multiple balls; use scatter points and visualizers to control collisions and active objects.

Define and visualize the name attribute to separate mesh islands, unpack packed geometry, and name objects for accurate rigid body simulations and collisions.

Explore emitting RBD objects in Houdini using switch and expressions to control frame intervals, pack/unpack RBD for constraints, and adjust glue strength for stable fractures.

Model a table procedurally in Houdini by shaping a grid with bevel and extrusion, creating legs with copy to points, and preparing uvs and a collider for ball simulations.

Learn how to optimize Houdini simulations by packing geometry into points with the assemble node and packed primitives, then configure with RBD config to avoid name duplication and improve performance.

Explore vellum cloth simulation in Houdini by setting up a complete scene, from curve creation and mesh fusion to cloth constraints, point velocity, and test area for emission and rendering.

Create a heart in Houdini by drawing and resampling a curve, mirroring and fusing points, fill with polyfill, remesh, clean normals, UV flatten, and output to null for cloth testing.

Create a test cloth simulation by merging objects, applying vellum cloth config constraints, and using the vellum solver to observe the cloth dropping and ground collisions.

Apply vellum post-process to add subdivisions and thickness, refine the cloth mesh, and create two final streams—balloons and lines—for clean rendering.

Build and assign materials in Karma using the material library, cloth, background, and strings. Adjust colors, roughness with image textures and ramps, add sheen, and set up frame-based renders.