OK,

So I'm working on an RBD simulation that I'm going to be adding some smoke and debris to and eventually, I'm going to want to render this out.

I come from Cinema 4D where I'd just set up a specific render engine and export out my various passes, etc.

But in Houdini, there are MANY ways to do things.

I'm wondering if I should export my simulations first, then render AFTER all my simulations have been written to disk.

Is that the best way to work with things like this?

Right now, I have an RBD simulation and a Pyro smoke simulation, and I'll be adding some POP stuff to that.

Also, I've seen tutorials where VFX artists will export out a low-res and high-res version of their Pyro Smoke simulation.

I'm just trying to become efficient in Houdini so I don't waste time and effort.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jim

Your thinking is correct > my approach is always bite sized chunks of a problem.

Rob

I'm wondering if I should export my simulations first, then render AFTER all my simulations have been written to disk.

Is that the best way to work with things like this?

I would say yes.

So the final scene that you render your passes from mainly contains geo nodes that are playing back a file sequence or cache. This would be the scene that you work on your materials and lighting in. If you do need to refactor a portion of your sim you can go back to the sim generation scene, make a change and re-export.

Look into the Extra Image Planes section of the Mantra node for setting up your passes. This would be like the Render Settings dialog in C4D.

Thanks!

So, should I set up a different Houdini project for rendering? Or just set up some geo nodes with my cached sims?

One more question. How do I know what nodes to turn ‘off or on’ when I'm exporting my cached sims and when I render?

I'm so new to Houdini that I may be running a sim when I don't need to.

Thanks,

Jim

Everything can stay in the same scene . Just label things correctly and when you use a mantra ROP , just use the force object feature , of course with your render geometry objects

Rob