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Get your hands on seven separate Houdini video training sets all at once and all for one incredible price! 3D Buzz is proud to offer you Houdini FastTrack, your all-in-one source for quickly getting up to speed with Houdini and ready to churn out some incredible work. This is the ONLY commercially available package that takes such an in-depth approach to making YOU proficient in Houdini, no matter your level of experience! With a grand total of over fifty hours of content, Houdini FastTrack is the first and greatest step in becoming a true Houdini master!
Included with FastTrack are seven separate training products (in-depth descriptions below):
- Houdini Fundamentals (High-Rez Edition)
- Houdini Fundamentals Extended*
- Houdini Technical Director Series - Volume I
- Houdini Technical Director Series - Volume II
- The Bridge Asset (High-Rez Edition)
- The Elevator Asset (High-Rez Edition)
- Complete first release of Houdini "How Do I" Series
*Content unavailable anywhere else!
Steve Twist & Jason Busby
50+ hrs
Houdini 9.x
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Learn from this amazing collection of Houdini training
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Note: These videos (except for the Extended Content) are already available for streamed viewing here on 3D Buzz.
This product includes the high-resolution version of the videos on solid media!
Welcome to the most thorough introduction to Houdini available anywhere, period! Houdini Fundamentals starts at the
true beginning of how one should properly learn Houdini: By teaching how to truly think procedurally!
You'll learn the concepts and theories that run under Houdini's hood before you even begin working with the user
interface. Once you get to start working with the software, you'll already be comfortable with what's going on
behind the scenes, making you a more capable user straight out of the gate!
Lessons include introductions to modeling, animation, shading, lighting, and rendering. You'll also get to delve
into all of Houdini's contexts including:
- Objects (OBJ)
- Surfaces (SOPs)
- Shading (SHOPs)
- Render Outputs (ROPs)
- Particles (POPs)
- Dynamics (DOPs)
- VEX Builder (VOPs)
- Motion and Audio (CHOPs)
- Compositing (CHOPs)
Plus, you'll get your hands on the Houdini Fundamentals Extended Content, including a special series of training
videos that take an in-depth look at several of the nodes that will be needed for the Houdini Technical Director
Series. These videos are available exclusively with Houdini FastTrack! You won't find this content anywhere
else!
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This first volume of the Technical Director Series focuses on the creation of the various digital assets that
will be used to create the Talented Ball animation project. Most every CG artist out there does a bouncing
ball project at some point in their career, but this is no ordinary bouncing ball! With a fully customized
artist UI to help animate the main character and a complex crowd simulation driving a procedural audience,
you'll find yourself creating high-end digital assets in no time!
Lesson highlights include the creation and rigging of our main character, with special emphasis on tracking
and transforming about a constantly moving center point. You'll also see how to use the Shading (SHOP)
context and the VEX Builder (VOP) context to create a wide variety of custom shaders ranging from simple
to complex.
One of the key projects of this first volume, however, is the generation of a completely procedural audience,
which is automatically placed along the seating of the arena. The simulator handles creation, scaling,
placement, animation, and even a customized shader system that allows for mixing and matching of several
modular texture components, allowing for tons of variation from one crowd agent to the next!
A unique benefit of the Technical Director Series is the extensive use of virtual whiteboarding. Using a
classroom-style approach, you'll hear lecture on how each part of the project will be performed, with live
whiteboard notes and drawings to help you understand the key concepts of each part. This means that once
you get to the creation phase, you'll already be familiar with the task at hand, and will have already truly
LEARNED the key concepts, rather than just mimicking a demonstrator!
Instructors: Steve Twist and Jason Busby
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Picking up where Volume I left off, this second volume makes use of our Talented Ball assets to create the
final animation, seeing it through to final composition. Along the way, you'll see the entire process of
animation, camera setup, lighting, rendering, compositing, and more!
The volume begins by utilizing the intuitive character rig created in Volume I, finalizing all character
animation as our star approaches and climbs a ladder, hops on a diving board, and then performs a somersault
into an empty pool, much to the glee of the surrounding audience. Once your character's motion is completely
finalized, you will see how to also set up and animate cameras in the scene including the use of camera
switchers to cut from one camera to the next.
After your animation and cameras are wrapped up, it's time to really start bringing the scene to life with
lighting! This project makes use of several important lighting techniques, including spotlights that track
the main character, secondary lights to assist in a realistic feel, and multiple light rigs which make sure
that the audience always sees the scene's illumination the way you want them to see it.
Once all of the lighting is done, it's time to begin the rendering process. We will start this by showing
you how you can cache out animated geometry to disk, which is a great way to speed up renders and maximize
rendering efficiency throughout the pipeline. You will also learn how to write a Python script that will
allow you to parse your own custom file type, containing a description of the various render layers and
passes in the scene. The upshot of this is that you now have a fast and easy way to split your render up
in to a large range of passes, thereby automating an otherwise tedious process.
This breakdown will include separate render passes for diffuse color, specularity, shadows, and scene depth
for each of the separate layers, including the main character ball, the audience, and the surrounding set.
This is an invaluable and professional-level production technique, as it allows you vast control over the
look of your final composition in post production.
When finished, it's time to create the composition. You will learn how to do this by creating your own custom
set of Compositing (COP) context assets. With the various passes and layers set up earlier, you will have
complete control over the final look of your animation, all without ever having to leave Houdini!
As with the first volume of the Technical Director Series, this volume makes use of whiteboarding, allowing
you to view comprehensive lecture over everything you're about to accomplish, and helping to make sure that
what you see is what you have LEARNED.
Instructors: Steve Twist and Jason Busby
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Note: These videos are already available for streamed viewing here on 3D Buzz. This product includes the
high-resolution version of the videos on solid media!
This video training set covers the recreation of the winning entry of 3D Buzz's first Houdini Asset Creation
Contest. This first asset is a suspension bridge that includes artistic control over a variety of different
characteristics, including the overall dimensions and size, the number of towers along the bridge, the number
of sub-decks, the shape of the suspension cables and more!
You'll see the entire creative process behind this complex asset, with each portion carefully explained and
taught. You won't just see how it's done, you'll learn how to implement those techniques in your own
projects!
Original asset creation performed by Peter Claes. Analysis and technical breakdown performed by Steve Twist.
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Note: These videos are already available for streamed viewing here on 3D Buzz. This product includes the
high-resolution version of the videos on solid media!
As with the Bridge Asset, this is a recreation and breakdown of the winning entry of the second 3D Buzz Houdini
Asset Creation Contest. In this contest, the stakes were raised as contestants were required to create an
elevator that includes procedural control over the number of floors, size of the elevator shaft, the overall
look of the elevator cabin, and much more.
You'll also see how to use the Motion and Audio Context (CHOPs) to bring the elevator system to life, including
the vertical motion of the cabin itself, the motion of its corresponding pulleys and counterweight, the elevator
cage door, and the needle for the floor indicators, visible above each elevator door! We will show you how you
can create a simple yet highly efficient network for controlling the motion of the elevator system, allowing you
to work with animation data in ways unlike anything you've seen before. In effect, you will see how to create an
AI system to drive the elevator's motion!
Original asset creation performed by Tomas Slancik. Analysis and technical breakdown performed by Steve Twist.
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Object Context
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Surface Context
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- Add
- Attrib Create
- Box
- Circle
- Copy
- Curve
- Delete
- Edge Cusp
- Grid
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- Group
- Join
- Line
- Material
- Merge
- Point
- Rails
- Resample
- Revolve
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- SHOP Network
- Skin
- Sphere
- Sweep
- Switch
- Transform
- Tube
- Twist
- UVTexture
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Shading Context
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- Material
- VEX Gallery Marble
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VEX Builder Context
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- Add
- Ambient
- Composite
- Constant
- Float To Integer
- Float To Vector
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- Integer To Float
- Lambert Diffuse
- Lighting Model
- Mutliply
- Parameter
- Random
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- Specular Functions
- Switch
- Texture
- Vector To Float
- Vector4 To Vector
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Object Context
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Surface Context
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Render Outputs Context
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Render Outputs Context
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- Add
- Blur
- Color Correct
- Composite
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- Defocus
- Depth Darken
- Depth Of Field
- File
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- Layer
- Rename
- ROP File Output
- Screen
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Sounds Great! - but I still have questions...
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No knowledge of Houdini is assumed of the viewer; however, basic computer skills are a must.
The content was recorded using Houdini 9. With the major reworking of Houdini since the prior version, we cannot guarantee
that you will be able to follow along when using an older version of the application. You can, however, use any version of
Houdini 9 including the completely free Houdini Apprentice, which can be obtained from Side
Effects Software.
No, the content will not play on a regular DVD player, it is intended for use in a PC that has a DVD-ROM drive.
You may view the video files with the XviD codec, which can be downloaded for free from www.xvid.org.
In order to protect our content from illegal distribution and to safeguard
your investment, we have implemented a video watermark system. The
faint video watermark is on some of the videos, and will contain your
name and address. The information on the watermarks will be used as
evidence should the videos be illegally distributed.
Yes, we do, but only your account must be verified through PayPal and your shipping address must be confirmed.
The only forms of payment we accept are credit card and PayPal.
Your DVD's must be custom encoded at our facilities to include your personal watermark.
This process can take anywhere from 1 to 5 business days to complete, though most orders are shipped within 48 hours.
Shipping in the US is approximately $15. This as a production and shipping fee,
helping to cover not only the actual shipment, but also the process of encoding, burning, and printing.
We only ship to the verified billing address. If other arrangements for shipping are required, we will need to verify the new location.
This verification process is in place for your security, and for the security of our content.
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