Houdini FX : Creating a Building Explosion

Name: Houdini FX : Creating a Building Explosion
Rating: 4.7 (32 reviews)

Learn all the steps needed to blow up a building in Houdini from a real world photograph and create a VFX composition

Created byEric Ebling

Last updated 8/2025

English

What you'll learn

This course will show you all the steps involved in blowing up a real world building from a photographic image.
I will show you how to fracture the building geometry and create custom “chunks” to use as rbd objects.
We will see how to create different types of RBD objects representing concrete, glass, and window blinds.
We will use Vellum sims to create bending geometry that deforms from the explosion.
We will use the more modern sparse solving method to create an exploding fireball.
We will create all renders necessary to create a final comp.
I will show you how to use the explosion as a light source to illuminate the scene.
We will create a final comp using Natron.

Course content

6 sections • 46 lectures • 10h 57m total length

Finding the Right Building6:12
In this lecture, we will go over why I chose the building I decided to use for this course, and how to pick a good building for your own projects.
Creating a Clean Plate for our Building10:03
In this lecture I will discuss why we need to create a "Clean" plate of our building and the basic methodology used.
Review of the Building Geometry7:07
This lecture will briefly cover the methodology behind modelling this building based off an image map.
Importing our Camera and Building into our scene2:51
In this lecture we will import our Camera ABC file and our building geometry into a clean file. You can also just open the included hipnc file if you do not wish to do the importing manually.

Fracturing the Pillar Geometry15:41
In this lecture we will be starting the fracturing process of our building and creating the initial destruction on the pillar geometry.
Fracturing the Arch Geometry2:31
In this lecture we will be fracturing the arches of our building geometry.
Fracturing the Glass Geometry9:45
In this lecture we will be fracturing the glass windows of our building.
Fracturing the Wall and Window frame Geometry15:14
In this lecture we will be fracturing the walls and window frames of our building geometry.
Fixing the Edge Detail Problem Geometry3:33
This lecture is just to show you how to fix the edge detail problem in the video. Keep in mind, you may not have this problem if you built your own fracture, you will only have this problem if you copied all my values exactly as they are in the video.
Initial RBD setup of our Pillars21:33
In this lecture, we will get our first RBD objects setup and lay the groundwork for the rest of our RBD geometry.
Refining our RBD setup23:27
In this lecture we will be refining and modifying our RBD setup.
Setting up the Glass RBD's16:12
In this lecture, We will be setting up the Fractured Glass Geometry as RBD's
Setting up the Blinds RBD's10:46
In this lecture, we will setup the Window Blinds geometry to be RBD's
Setting up the Wall and Window Frame RBD's7:18
In this lecture we will be setting up the wall and window frames to become RBD's
Setting up the Collision Geometry8:29
This lecture will focus on setting up the collision geometry needed in our RBD sim.
Adding Fracture cracking to the Static Pillar Geometry10:14
In this lecture, we will create some interesting cracking on our non RBD pillar geometry to add more detail.
Adding Extra edge Fracture RBD sims - part 118:41
This lecture will focus on creating an edge fracturing RBD rig that will add more detail to our sim. This is an optional step in this building destruction setup.
Adding Extra edge Fracture RBD sims - part 211:57
We will finish with the edge fracturing RBD setup in the lecture.
Adding a Vellum Window Blinds setup - part 123:16
We will start setting up our Vellum Window Blinds sim in this lecture.
Adding a Vellum Window Blinds setup - part 215:06
We will continue setting up our Vellum Window Blinds sim in this lecture.
Adding a Vellum Window Blinds setup - part 315:31
We will finish setting up our Vellum Window Blinds sim in this lecture.
Organizing all our simulation Geometry - part 116:58
In this lecture we will focus on organizing all of our geometry to get ready for applying shaders.
Organizing all our simulation Geometry - part 25:16
We will finish organizing all of our geometry to prepare for the shading stage in this lecture.
Setting up shaders on our Hard Surface Geometry - part 127:02
In this lecture, we will start setting up all the necessary shading for our hard surface geometry.
Setting up shaders on our Hard Surface Geometry - part 219:40
We will continue setting up our shading on our hard surface geometry in this lecture.
Setting up shaders on our Hard Surface Geometry - part 39:31
We will finish all the hard surface shading in the lecture.

Comparing sparse and dense solver methods19:34
In this lecture we will be looking at some of the differences between the newer sparse solver compared to the older dense solver method. You can just watch the video, no need to re create this in Houdini and there will be no hip file for download for this one.
Setting up the sparse fireball simulation40:07
In this lecture we will be setting up our initial Sparse fireball explosion simulation.
Setting up the particle embers simulation - part 133:29
This lecture will focus on the initial creation of our Embers pass to add more interesting detail to our setup.
Setting up the particle embers simulation - part 211:38
We will finish setting up the embers pass in this lecture.

Rendering the static clean frame of our building13:51
In this lecture we will be rendering the static clean frame of the non dynamic building geometry.
Fixing our Missing Cap Geometry before we render2:42
This lecture shows how to fix the missing cap geometry issue before we set off the dynamic renders. We fix this in the course a few lectures ahead, but wanted to show you now how to fix it before submitting any sequence renders.
Rendering the Dynamic Building Data14:52
This lecture will focus on setting up everything needed to render our Dynamic building geometry.
Setting up the Shadow Pass Render10:37
In this lecture we will see how to setup a shadow pass for our Dynamic geometry.
Rendering the Fireball Explosion29:27
In this lecture we will set up our fireball for the final render and make adjustments to improve the sim and overall look of our explosion.
Rendering the Fireball Interactive Light19:23
This lecture will focus on using the fireball as a light source and generating an interactive lighting pass.
Rendering the Fireball Reflection11:53
In this lecture, we will setup an explosion reflection pass for our glass.
Rendering the Embers9:12
This lecture will show how to setup our final render pass, the embers.
Note about the next lecture0:14
Reviewing our Renders9:42
In this lecture we will be reviewing all of the data we have rendered for our building explosion.

A note about Natron0:04
Creating our Comp - Part 142:38
In this lecture we will start setting up our comp using all of our rendered images in the software Natron.
Creating our Comp - Part 221:11
In this lecture we will add the final touches to the comp and write out a quicktime.
Wrapping up the Course6:58
In this final lecture, we will just have a quick wrap up of what we achieved in this course. There is a final comp you can download to see the finished output.

Requirements

A working knowledge of Houdini is strongly recommended before starting this course.
A recent release of Houdini(18+) with Sparse solving tools.
A computer with enough power to run Houdini and a decent internet connection for HD streaming.
This course will be using Houdini 18.5.499 on a windows 10 based system throughout the videos.

Description

Hello potential students.! This course is going to cover everything you need to know in order to destroy and blow up a building from a real photograph.
There are over 10.5 hours of lecture videos going over the process of destroying a building.
You should have working knowledge of Houdini before enrolling in this course. If you have done my previous Houdini course “Master Houdini FX”, you will have no problem following this course since I build on a lot of the initial principles of rig creation that were presented in the first course.
This is a “Fast paced” course, meaning I will not be explaining every function of every node I use. I will explain where necessary, but basic nodes will not be explained in detail, this is to try keeping this total course time to a minimum, and another reason you should have basic Houdini knowledge prior to enrolling into this mid level course.
All lectures will have Houdini hip files for you to download and any other necessary assets. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I encourage you to watch the intro video and watch some of the “free” videos so you can get a sense of what the course is like.

The basic breakdown of the course goes like this:

We will start with an overview of how and why I chose the building I did to use as our subject.

I will include the model file and briefly go over what I did to model the building, but will not be showing the creation process step by step. It took around 4.5 hours of Boolean modelling to finish and would be unnecessarily boring to make you watch the model process.!

We will then start selectively fracturing the building model section by section until we have all geometry fractured.

We then start doing RBD sims and even throw a little vellum into the mix to make our sim more interesting.

Once we have our RBD’s and vellum finished, we go into simulating our fireball explosion using the more modern “Sparse” simulation tools.

We will then create an embers pass to give our sim a little something extra.

We will be creating and assigning any and all shaders that are needed as we go.

We will then go into rendering and I will show how to create all the renders necessary for a full comp.

This course will be using Mantra as our render engine to keep things “off the shelf Houdini” and not rely on plugins.

Once all the renders are done, we will assemble a full comp including camera shake to add some more realism to the end result.

This course will teach you everything you need to know to be able to go out and photograph your own building and create all the custom destruction you wish. Once you finish this course using the included image and building geometry, you will be ready to find your own building in your own town to photograph and recreate this setup on a building of your choice. I will be presenting a very straight forward and “easy” method to creating an FX shot like this.

If you have been using Houdini for a little while, you should have no problems following this course. If you need a refresher or are just starting to use Houdini, I recommend doing my first Houdini course “Master Houdini FX” as a primer to this course.

Who this course is for:

Anyone that is interested in seeing the steps involved to blow up and destroy any type of building inside Houdini from an FX artist with 20+ years experience in post production.
Aspiring FX artists and working professionals looking to learn new skills or see one method in creating building destruction FX.

Houdini FX : Creating a Building Explosion

What you'll learn

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Course content

Introduction4 lectures • 26min

Fracturing our Building Geometry22 lectures • 5hr 8min

Setting up the Fireball and Embers Simulations4 lectures • 1hr 45min

Rendering all of our simulation data10 lectures • 2hr 2min

Compositing our Renders and wrapping up the course4 lectures • 1hr 11min

"EXTRA" Lectures2 lectures • 26min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: