Well I just decided to do it before I go to canada. So it may hapen in canada too.

Free informal Houdini training - Brisbane
Introduction to Procedural Modelling and Houdini Digital Assets


Hi. My name is Robert Kelly and I have been using Houdini for the past five years. I am keen to share my knowledge of Houdini within the community, so with the support of Kanuka Studio I am holding a one off set of 3 evening classes open to up to 8 people. Apologise for the short notice, I am leaving the country soon and wanted to hold this class before I go.

The classes will be held at Kanuka Studio in Albion, Brisbane on

* Tuesday the 26th of August. Part 1
* Thursday the 28th of August. Part 2
* Tuesday the 2nd of September. Part 3

This class aims to familiarise the participants with Houdini's procedural modelling and digital assets, making the participants feel
more comfortable with Houdini, and thus allowing them to go on and use on-line resources to continue there own Houdini training.

Our target audience are experienced in a 3d package like Maya, Max or XSI, who are pushing the procedural nature of their current application and are interested in what Houdini can do.
Seats are limited, so we will be discretionary based on appropriate experience and first come first served.
If you are interested please RSVP to robk@kanuka.com.au with a brief description of what you would want to get out of this class. If you are brand new to Houdini the interface tutorial should be completed first. They can be found here:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=855&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]


I look forward to hearing from you!

Regards,
Rob Kelly.

Hi all
My name is Robert Kelly I live in friendly Australia. I have recently
decided that my life needs a shake up and i need to go forth and
venture out alone into the cruel world…. but not too cruel, so I
chose Canada as my destination. What a coincidence that there are
plenty of world class 3d animation studios that are Houdini-infused.
I'm not too picky which city I end up in, but want to find a good
studio. As an Australian I can get a 2 year working Holiday visa,
making that part not too much of a fuss. I plan to arrive in Canada
some time in October.

I have a show reel fresh off the presses for you perusal,
unfortunately some of my best work is on the yet to be released
feature film Daybreakers. I hope you enjoy what i do have on the reel.
Rangi Sutton has been personally shoveling knowledge into my skull in
his boutique studio, Kanuka, and is kind enough to host my reel
http://www.kanuka.com.au/rob/ [kanuka.com.au]

Any ideas on which studios i should apply for in Canada?

Robert

I love “paste relative channel reference” the only catch is when i
already have an expression half written it clears out what i had in
there. to work around this i use this work flow

1. copy parameter
2. on the node i have my half written expression i “paste relative
channel reference” in a parameter beside the one i am editing.
3. copy the ch() expression
4. set the value back to what it was in the parameter beside the one i
am editing
5. click else where to enter that value
6. right click on the parameter beside choose delete channel
7. paste in my ch() expression into the spot in the expression where i need it.

What if you could just

1. copy parameter
2. in my half written expression i right click and choose “relative
channel reference in buffer”
3. then i hit ctrl v and paste that ch() expression where i need it in
my expression.

As far as the interface goes it could be under the “paste relative
channel reference” or be a button to the right of it at the end of
the line. Ether way as i am making video tutorials it is a bit
embarrassing to watch myself do this drawn out step. Maybe i should
just write the ch() expression by hand each time, but why should i
behave like a computer when there is one in front of me.

Its not too hard to implement!
So Who thinks this is a good idea?

Another way of approaching the animation layers would be to change the way takes work and add a blending mode to the current overwrite behaviour. The benefit would be takes become a bit more powerful, the down side would be they would be used differently and need to be re thunk. if you had a animation using layers a+b+c and using render take “reflection pass” that wouldn't just work as is

And remember your houdini keyboard shortcuts are sensitive to the capsLock key so you will need to turn that off before using houdini.
8)

the first issue in dealing with say processing vectors in a vex chop is getting more than the current channel into the vop at a time. This can be handled by the use of the chinput() function to get any channel you like in for any pass of the code
chinput(inputNumber, channelN, index)

The next issue is you can only output one channel at a time. So you need to run the same code 3 times to output a vector, one channel at a time. If you made it possible to process N channels at a time and out put the N number of channels per pass this would make it easy to do more chops work in vex and vops

So if you could make a VOP to import a vector or any channel number in any pass this would make it easier to make VEX CHOPs. the second request is to make vex chops able to process and output a user chosen number of channels at a time. eg. process the channels in groups of three then feed in 12 channels representing 4 vectors that get processed in 4 passes.

Is this a good request or not?

ps I would like to go nuts and process 30 odd channels at a time giving me the ability to manipulate rig elements all in vops.

i am rite there with you. but i just accept it

i had this issue with suse 9.1 and now with 9.3

well you should visit this page and find out how to make the equivlent of all your maya constraints. read this page and KNOW the blend object.
http://www.odforce.net/wiki/index.php/Constraints [odforce.net]

Step this way my good man, this is why i love the ODwiki….. For character constraints you want this page
http://www.odforce.net/wiki/index.php/Character [odforce.net] but for the sticking stuff to geometry and the like you want the rivit object and you can also roll your own. but the pages on constraints outlines most of the tools you may want to create.

but if you want specific solutions just ask.

a nVIDIA FX5200 128meg or better should get you going without a worry and anything better is gravy

unles you are going to get a Pro card you are best getting a nvidia gameing card.

and i thought radeon cards didnt play well with houdini.

Narr go for something a bit better than a 440 mx the Linux drivers for it have issues with the 2.6 kernel i have a NVIDIA 5900 xt but I am shore there is something in the next bracket above the 440 mx… But if you won’t be using Houdini in Linux it does the job in windows.

harlequin
Gee, Harlequin, I'm with you. I think that there should be a MotionBuilder plugin too.

What about the crazy idea that we aren't with you… there already being a workflow from motion builder, explained rite here. There is a small staff at Side Effects, with only so many man hours, to create the software we all know and love, So it is in our interest to push for the features that mean the most to us, and it looks like a motion builder plugin isnt one of them.

harlequin
I just wish that in order to get some responses to your post you didn't have to get short with the community.

and people respond so well to that.

harlequin
lurkers are people too and you shouldn't expect too much from them so lighten upup.

I believe now most people don't expect too much from yourself now, was that what you were getting at?

Houdini can import bvh files.

Now I wasn’t the one dealing with the bvh files so I can’t answer more of your questions.

$ mcbiovision
Usage:
mcbiovision
[-o -w -f -i ]
infile

This program converts a BioVision motion file to
a Houdini script & channel file(s). Run the script
to create the geometry and channels.

-e Parms are stuffed with expressions (chop, default).
-b Parms are left blank.
-d Parms are left blank and override channels created.

-c Only create the channel file(s).

-v Reverse joint rotation order.

-o Create character using object joints.
-w Create character using object joints + wire polys.
-j Set the object creation script (eg “opadd geo %s”).
-f Create character using Forward Kinematics (default).
-i Create character using Inverse Kinematics:
-n Specifies bone length channel type (FK,IK only).
0 = none, 1 = always, 2 = auto).
-t Dual bone chains with twist affectors (IK only).
-l Specifies a file containing a list of bone chains (IK only).
Each line of the file must be of the form:
<IK Chain Root Joint> <IK Chain End Affector>


Then… from houdini:
$ cmdread myfile.cmd

$ cmdread $HOME/whatever/myfile.cmd

PS. a better way to see why there was no response would be ask if it is because it doesn’t exist or people don’t know or what.

In the top right there is a “?” this is where the help can be accessed from….

The hot key “i” will take you “i”nside the sub network and “u” will take you “u”p and out of the subnetwork.

I am interested to hear how you go with this because I am in the visualization game too and at work I use 3d studio vis. I could buy my own select / escape version for my self sooner if I knew I could use it for my major earner. Importing DWGs is the major issue and one or two things about the snapping tools could make my life better but the rest is fantastic. Exporting DWGs would be nice too but not to important. With the SDK free all it would take is a C++ guru to make a plug-in or something. But I don?ft happen to be or know one of them, there may be some licensing issues but I am just guessing.

I had play with Houdini 5 for about 3 weeks of after work time. I am 20 months from the day when I decided to stop messing around and use all my time between freelance jobs completely on learning Houdini. At that stage Houdini 6 had just come out. I have watched the video tutorials and most of them are Houdini 6 some are Houdini 5, in general they are similar enough to be fine for learning Houdini.

As for really learning Houdini, at least as I have up to now, you need to be in close communication with someone in the know. To have them sitting beside you is the best option but you get what you can. I was on my own learning Houdini for 6 months in a city where I was the only one I knew doing so. Until Rangi moved into town and we started collaborating. Now what I learn from him is not easily quantifiable, the easy ways to do some things, a few production methods and some suggestions on how I may approach a problem. The most powerful thing is when I get helped over the small things that catch you up. The problems that an experienced user can just say ?gjust use a copy sop this way?h and you?fre off creating again instead of spending 3 days exploring why you can?ft do something so simple.

Often I find my self making a VOP sop to do something that there is already a sop for, this can be frustrating when you discover a sop already existed but the time spend getting comfortable with VEX or VOPs is not lost. Don?ft despair about doing things in inefficient / hard ways ether. In future when you know how it is done the easy way the messy way that you solved a problem in the past may prove to have benefits in different ways in the future. I feel now I have my Houdini voodoo to a level where I can get some momentum up and make things that impress people. I will never stop improving as long as I don?ft rest on my laurels, and I know this software will be able to meet my needs and even my wants.

when you find out let me know

It is a "desktop?h each desktop is just a configuration of the panels. A view here, probitys panel there, network below it. The default layout is fine, using F1 to F8 you can get a variety of layouts and one will look like what you need. If you get into splitting panels with ALT + and hitting ALT + 1 to get a view, ALT + 2 to get a network view, ALT + 3 to get a probitys panel that is the basics.

SESI need to toot there own horn a little louder. It is hard to find references to where Houdini has been used. you you can find some spots on some websites but more often than not you never here about Houdini being used on a project until you hear it through the grape vine. the SESI website should be the first stop in finding out where Houdini has been used and how it saved the day on yet another move. But hey if you guys are just too busy making the best 3d package on the planet we cant really complain….. But it would be nice to have something to show, as in a URL, to people when they say maya is “Da Sh!t”.