Hello All,

I have a request for a complete 3D pipeline tutorial using Houdini only (I know other softwares are used in normal professional pipelines) outlining an iterative process of a (very very short) 3d shot from conception to screen using everything that Houdini has to offer. It would be a great lesson in best practices as well as showcasing how a complete workflow can be done using only Houdini (for those of us that only own Houdini ). Even just an animated short of a two second shot of a 3D ball bouncing with some VFX using Houdini for the entire pipeline (modeling, animation, shading, takes, render passes, VFX, compositing…etc) would be great.

Thank you,
Caesar

i like the idea but how would be the pipeline look like? whats the end product?
a pipeline for advertisement will look different then a archvis pipeline and
a game pipeline will look different then others.
so i think it would make sense to split the pipeline in different parts so you can build up your pipeline for your requirements.

some examples for some parts:
- Project Folders Structure for Multiple Shots (local and Network)
- Asset Management (Naming, Nodes Layout in Network view, Node Color Definition)
- Managing Revisions / Version Control (Subversion, Git, Perforce)
- External Data Driven Process (example: csv File with Mesh Filename, Shader,some Parameters, Render Resolution, Final Filename)
- Pipeline for Architecture
- Pipeline for Games
- Pipeline for Small Company's
- Pipeline for Lightning and Rendering
- Pipeline Integration with other DCC Apps
- Pipeline Integration with shotgun or ftrack or what ever…..
- Pipeline Customizing
…
hope i could give some inputs :-)

EDIT:
Found something useful :-)
http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/pipeline.html [andrew-whitehurst.net]

Thanks for the input Mand. In my mind I was thinking “animation short”, but I neglected to type it! Showing the differences in workflow between the end product results you'd listed is a great idea (all within the context of Houdini that is).

~C

not exactly what you're looking for but…
http://www.awn.com/news/make-sci-fi-short-scratch-digital-tutors-new-vfx-training-series [awn.com]

Thanks arctor…

Yes this is great, but it's using all of the traditional tools used in a professional pipeline (which is awesome), but I was hoping someone could show how to do all of this within Houdini itself ..

..which raises another question: Why don't studios stick to as few tools as possible when creating a pipeline? I realize different needs yield different tools, but doesn't Houdini provide all of the tools necessary to get the entire job done from start to finish (possibly minus the modeling tools - I don't have a lot of experience modeling in Houdini, but the initial impression is that it lacks in this department - at least from a convenience standpoint*)?

~C

*I know this point has been argued in another post so I'm not trying to start anything, I just don't have tons of experience modeling in Houdini.

That's like 2 years (optimistically looking at this) off of your life to prepare and record everything. How much one should charge for something like this? I think that we are talking about price waaaaa….y off the $30-$400 range. Even $1000 for this, if there will be like 10 people interested, for 2 years of someones life will be quite low. The higher the price and more elitist topic, the less people interested.

3dbuzz made Unity MMO course, where they go full out with making pipeline and project. They started it like 2-3 years ago, and I think it's still didn't ended. So yeah. Nice dream, but without involvement of more than couple people to prepare it, it's only a dream.

mandrake0
some examples for some parts:
- Project Folders Structure for Multiple Shots (local and Network)
- Asset Management (Naming, Nodes Layout in Network view, Node Color Definition)
- Managing Revisions / Version Control (Subversion, Git, Perforce)
- External Data Driven Process (example: csv File with Mesh Filename, Shader,some Parameters, Render Resolution, Final Filename)
- Pipeline for Architecture
- Pipeline for Games
- Pipeline for Small Company's
- Pipeline for Lightning and Rendering
- Pipeline Integration with other DCC Apps
- Pipeline Integration with shotgun or ftrack or what ever…..
- Pipeline Customizing
…
hope i could give some inputs :-)

EDIT:
Found something useful :-)
http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/pipeline.html [andrew-whitehurst.net]

there are some tutorials but i'm not sure how good they are (not viewed):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYf4Vz9V1ESoAtSgPZWrYB2NkIJk58NfI [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYf4Vz9V1ESpAWXbn11j3LDr6n_wSVm3Z [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4lKjfRPfks [youtube.com]

if you want to have a open source project management you can look at TACTIC: http://www.southpawtech.com/products/ [southpawtech.com]


EDIT:
found some basic stuff
HDA/otl's usage: http://forums.odforce.net/topic/9650-designing-a-digital-asset-workflow/ [forums.odforce.net]
Project Files: https://medium.com/vfx-craft/project-management-cc31df461bc5 [medium.com]
VFX Project Structure: http://vincentwauters.com/programming/2010/11/1/vfx-project-structure-python-shell-scripts-sql.html [vincentwauters.com]
Visual Effects Pipeline: http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/pipeline.html [andrew-whitehurst.net]

Get Complete Houdini Pipeline Tutorials:
https://hackr.io/tutorial/houdini-game-art-create-foliage-for-games-with-houdini [hackr.io]