Firstly, Hi, I'm very new to Houdini and these forums and of course….a complete n00b at it ^^

I have some questions going from what I've seen while surfing the net….

1)How do I import pictures to work on and would I need to convert Jpeg pictures?

I've seen a Car, a Rabbit and a Cheetah on some pics - and it seems as if they are editing it….

Examples

http://www.architosh.com/news/images/news-images/2008-04/houdini_mac_x425.jpg [architosh.com] (This is Houdini for Mac - I assume it's pretty much the same?)

http://softwarebackups.org/Desc/5159/1.jpg [softwarebackups.org]

2)How would I go about making something like this? Would I need to download extra tools/pics or something?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJmIfCh1zOQ&watch_response [youtube.com]

I know it's out of my league right about now but would still like to know

Thanks for the help!

The Cheetah picture you see is the output of the render in Mplay. The snail is being composited.

To use background images in houdini, press ‘d’ over the viewpane, then go to the background tab. Turn on Display Background Images, check that Apply operation to all split views is off (at the bottom of the window) since you want different images for the top, side and front view…On the Image Source tab, select the image you want, on the 3d Viewport tab, turn on texture mapped and apply zoom to background. Turn of Automatically place image. You have to repeat this for each view.

The video, funny. Well, you might be able to do it in two minutes. But guess it will take some more time if you are new to it all. Isn't all that difficult though. If you follow the tutorials from sidefx alone, you should be able to make this (and way more)

Crazyposse
http://softwarebackups.org/Desc/5159/1.jpg [softwarebackups.org]

Thanks for the warez site. Stupid me, I was paying loads of money to SESI while I could have it for 50 bucks.

Pagefan
The Cheetah picture you see is the output of the render in Mplay. The snail is being composited.

If you follow the tutorials from sidefx alone, you should be able to make this (and way more)

First of all….thanks for the help

Right, output of the render in Mplay? That kinda doesn't mean much to me lol

Is it hard to get an image composited and would any of the tutorials cover that?

I'm going through the liquid fluids right about now - apologies for all the questions

this new tutorial covers a little bit of composition

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1305&Itemid=305 [sidefx.com]

best regards
Allan