Well, I am new to vfx and I wanted to learn how to do effects used in films like Harry Potter spells and X-men super powers. I was told the area I wanted to learn is dynamics. I don't know anything really and I am starting from the beginning. I was told that Houdini is the best for dynamics and for what I was trying to achieve. I figured why not learn the best first and not waste my time, right? (or maybe no I was just looking for advice on where to start and how to start. I have the apprentice version and it looks pretty intimidating.
Still kind of a newbie myself since I started using Houdini a couple of months ago, but I'm getting the grasp of it!
For dynamics specifically, there are a couple tutorials in the learning/tutorials section here, “houdini 9 dynamics”, “avalanche previsualization”. The last two recent ones cover the fluid/gas solver and are a bit advanced, don't start with these!
There's also the “working with particles” pdf, which is for H8, but is easy to apply to H9. (I'm guessing you want to do particles too)
Gnomon (thegnonomworkshop.com) has an in-depth dvd on rigid body dynamics, once again for H8, but it applies to H9. Digital tutors has an introduction to dynamics as well.
However dynamics (well, the dynamic operators, because particles are a bit separate) is the most advanced part of houdini imho, so you may want to check other tutorials to get to know the interface and the concepts, before diving into dynamics.
Thanks Vinz, that does help. I am going to start looking around some tutorials. I forgot to mention earlier that I wanted to learn particles too, but you seemed to answer that question too. Like I said, the things I want to do is the kind of stuff that is in the end of Harry Potter OOTP with the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort. I like the spell effects. I would like to do similar things like in the X-Men films like with the fire, ice, water, light beams, things like that. I am not so much interested in learning modeling so much, I am not much of an artist and I don’t think I could sculpt/build those well. I would like to be able to integrate the effects into live action footage. That is my goal. Does anyone have any idea how long it will take me to achieve these effects? I basically have this summer to dive in and spend my time. I also heard Maya is a good program; does anyone have any advice going for Houdini or Maya for what I want to learn? Thanks!
if you start SLOW, and really try your best to understand the fundamentals of what you're doing as you learn how Houdini works, then I don't think having a goal of recreating or creating similar effects as seen at the end of Harry Potter and the order of the pheonix in a few months effort is unreasonable…
DO NOT just look for tutorials on how to do things that are close to what you want to do… try to understand how these effects are created in Houdini using the basic building blocks and by the and of the summer you'll be able to do these things and lots of other things…
good luck… post questions when you need some help…just remember to start slow and small…build up to your goal.
It is far more useful to understand the underlying mechanics as opposed to blindly memorizing a sequence of operations.
If you continuously ask yourself, “What is really happening here”, you'll be in an excellent position to build and expand on the tutorials you DO find.
Remember, a special effects is only special once - the first time you see.
Thanks everyone for responding. Sorry it took me a bit to respond, I had exams this week and had to focus on the school thing. I am really excited about jumping into Houdini, but I was curious if after Effects would be a better start to get some of the basics and then go to Houdini? What do you think, start right away with Houdini or maybe lead in with AE?
After Effects requires a different mindset since it's workflow is fundamentally different from Houdini. There are some basic tasks of compositing that you can learn in AE, but why not learn those within Houdini's compositor? One of the main aspects of Houdini that I urge new students to concentrate on is to understand procedural workflow, which is the backbone of Houdini. Once you develop an initial level of comfort with that concept you will find your ability to learn Houdini will accelerate rapidly. A side benefit to that is your will understand how to use other advanced compositors such as Shake and Digital Fusion almost instantly. As has been recommended, learn first principles and the more complex techniques become much easier to decode. Houdini is uniquely suited to this process unlike the majority of applications which makes access to that knowledge awkward at best.
“gravity is not a force, it is a boundary layer” “everything is coincident” “Love; the state of suspended anticipation.”
Vinz suggested a few tutorials to do, do you as a Houdini prof, have any suggestions of what to read/watch to learn these procedural workflow and understanding Houdini that beginners respond well to?
3d is one of the most complex areas in CG to learn. So don't waste any time and start! Don't bother with this damned “this or that application is better easier faster”. Grab you Houdini Apprentice and start for free. Houdini is a complete package, modeling, animation, render and compositing.
Download the tutorials from SideFX, you will need them, especially the ones concerning about the Interface. To beginners I can recommend the Digital Tutors series. Intro to Houdini 9, intro to Dynamics and Intro to Rigid Bodies. Easy to follow, but no in depth explanations. But then you have to tackle a real project: decide what do you wanna achieve: an effect like X-Men? which one? Get the movie and try to get closer and closer. It will be frustrating, make use of this forum whenever you are stacked, but your skills will reach higher levels constantly!
Thanks so much, everyone, for the your advice about my plunge into Houdini. I am a little nervious and feel like a little overwhelmed by its complexity, but I am excited at the same time. Thanks, all the tips and suggestions were a huge help!
My big epiphany in college was that most effects in films are post-production 2D layered effects not too much 3D.. So it's probably best to improvise with what you see than what you think you are seeing, and to also consider what you aren't seeing.. Sometimes when doing animations, to save on rendering times things that are not seen are either removed or not created at all. Another thing to learn about is the use of Z-buffers in post-production compositing. And to also consider secondary things..
Like if you are working some magic and you shoot flickery stuff from your fingers,there is more to it than getting flickery particle effects, you have to have a similarly colored light off-stage to you, lighting in sync to the particle effects so you appear to be lit by the particles. And if you have a wand in your hand, you have to consider how the wand may obstruct the particles,
So you have to produce a rendering of the wand for the purpose of obstructing the particle visibility. So you'd make a rendering of the particles with the animation of a black (shadeless) wand and you'd use the resulting “mask” to layer atop “you” with your real wand and off-stage lighting.
The more you do (carefully considering what is needed and not), the more realistic it will look.. But some details like the wand obstructing particle visibility won't matter so much,
It will matter more where people are looking, what is more interesting, To consider the details on that, Than to consider things that may pass quickly or things that may not be noticed at all. Like a magician would.
Another thing, try to do stuff with rendering than ray-tracing, ray-tracing is costly and you may be able to get away with rendering. Note, all of Toy Story was rendered, none of it was raytraced. I've told this to people for years. In the blender produced movie, Elephants Dream, nothing was ray-traced (I got this from an interview with one of the animators).
Don't rely on fancy physics and such, if it doesn't get the right results, you can play around a lot, or just bite the bullet and try something else. Many animators talk about the mythical “make fantastic movie button”, that one day you won't even have to think to get great looking stuff.. But the reality is the package isn't going to think for you. Imagine what you see in your mind and try to make that real, than relying on physics in Houdini. Observe reality, see how close you can simulate it, but look for what you see, not what you think you are seeing. Your brain will fill in a lot for missing details, it may be possible to drop those details or substitute something less hard. A lot of time can be wasted trying to put every petal on a flower when the camera only sees 1% of it, for example.
For animations: If you have a guy walking through a door, don't replicate the entire action, like animating the guy reaching for the door knob, holding it, etc.. Watch cartoons or movies, see what is done there. I'd heard Gene Roddenberry watched TV with the sound off to learn screenwriting.
If doing snoopy, no need to make people with torsos, you will never see them. If having hands on a character is slowing down the render, get rid of the hands, replace with low-res mockups, use several models of the character at different levels of quality depending on how close the camera will be in each case.
Also consider secondary motion and ideas like, living things breathe, living things shift weight when idle, robots may rock back and forth, dead things don't move when idle. When a character walks, jewelery, cloth, etc. moves, this adds to realism. Also when a character talks, the nose and other parts of the face will move as well because they are all connected.
When most people see a white wall, they see a white wall. When an artist sees a white wall, he see color bleed from the floor on the wall (radiosity effects), he sees shadows, specular effects, bumpy textures, dark corners, cob webs, specks, dents, scratches, “dust bunnies” at the bottom, If you are shooting an animation, things like this may not be important, but if you make a still life, they will be.
Other things: Ray-tracing in the computer is demented, It's not really how light works, its a fast approximation to the way light works. It's backwards, tracing eye-rays to lights, than the other way around.
Also most rendering packages compute rays in RGB, not with light of various wave lengths, so light passing through prisms don't produce a color spectrum nor even caustics unless the rendering engine is smart about stuff like that.
Shadows in a day-lit scene aren't black, they have ambient light with a tinge of blue (from the sky), and color bleed from grass or cement or whatever may be nearby. Cloudy days have no shadows. HDRI, I haven't done any myself, but the use of HDRI allows you to bring real world lighting into a scene (pretty cheaply too).
When animating, try to avoid time wasters like texturing, lighting, unneeded details.. Use storyboards, and draw up sketches of everything you expect to see. And you don't have to be talented, just get enough in to make sense. If you can only draw stick figures (there is a percentage of 3D artists that really suck at drawing), try modeling something in clay or use the 3D package to make something, use action figures and take digital photos of those in place of drawing storyboards. Then do rough animations (animatics) in the computer once you have your storyboard. Then do “passes” on this, getting gradually more and more realistic (if that's what you are shooting for, otherwise shoot for whatever the look is supposed to be).
Something I've personally noticed, bump mapping in some 3D packages, such as blender, is computed with respect to the lights, not with respect to the camera. If you do stereograms, bump mapped surfaces will appear flat.. And glittery bowling balls are impossible without anisotropic shading.
All in all.. Just think about things a little more deeply..
Just don't do what Ed Wood would!
Ha, I just thought that one up..
PS- If things get too hard, do it over, it's likely you can do it faster. If things are still too hard, break with nature and do something unnatural, but keep a mind about it still, even monkeys can break with nature and do random meaningless stuff without style.
If stuck on imagination, ask a child for help, you'd be surprised.
I donated the DEC Alpha Ton made his first 64-bit port of blender to. Okay if I survive, SideFX has to be pretty cool. Otherwise this is a totalitarian regime.
Thanks everyone, I was completely surprised with the amount of support and advice this community has already given me and I am sure will continue to give in the future. Sorry it took me a bit to respond to this post, I did read the response sent to me right away rofthorax, I just forgot to write back. Thanks for the advice and I am taking the plunge into Houdini!
I would also like to add that you might want to learn more about the full VFX pipeline. If you want to add these effects to live action, you will also have to learn about 3d tracking and compositing. “Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist” and “Apple Pro Training Series: Encyclopedia of Visual Effects” are two great starter books. You will also want to start looking at a compositing app. If you decide to learn Houdini, I would suggest a node based compositing app (since Houdini is node based) like Shake, Nuke, or Fusion.
If you want another good resource, I could not recommend www.fxphd.com enough. I have just started taking their online classes and it is fantastic, the community alone is worth the price (I think it is very reasonable). They currently have Maya and Cinema 4D classes (along with a ton of others) and have said that they plan to add Houdini courses in the near future.
I am really interested in Visual Effects as well. I have researched around and started learning both Maya and Houdini. I have to say that I really love Houdini. Everything about it just makes a lot of sense to me. Also, the stuff you can do with digital assets is simply unbelievable and i plan on building all sorts of things for my VFX work like fire, explosions, bullet hits, etc. and just re-using them on other projects. The tough thing about Houdini is that there aren't as many learning resources as Maya–but really seems like SideFX is trying to put out more learning aids.
I was just looking for advice on where to start and how to start. I have the apprentice version and it looks pretty intimidating. 
