Houdini FX combines superior performance and dramatic, ease-of-use to deliver a powerful and accessible 3D experience to VFX artists creating feature films, commercials or video games. With its procedural node-based workflow, Houdini lets you create more content faster to reduce timelines and enjoy enhanced flexibility in all your creative tasks. Houdini is perfect for Visual Effects artists and technical directors with its particle and dynamics environment. Houdini FX includes a complete toolset for studios that want to use it for other tasks such as lighting, animation or procedural modeling.
Houdini has refined the dynamics framework and crystallized the smoke/pyro simulation pipeline to make for a very robust and phenomenally fast workflow to create multithreaded and GPU-assisted grid-based volume simulations and rendering.
by Theodor Vandernoot | Sony Pictures Imageworks
MODELING, RENDERING, ANIMATION Houdini FX includes all the features found in Houdini Core including modelling, animation, character rigging, lighting, rendering, compositing and volumes. Digital Assets created in Houdini FX can be opened, animated and rendered in Houdini.
PYRO FX | With Pyro FX , Fire and Smoke simulations look more realistic and are faster and easier to set up. The speed gains in Houdini are significant allowing for more iterations. The ability to simulate using the GPU takes things to a whole new level and advances in volume rendering create an impressive final look.
FLUIDS & OCEAN FX | Create realistic sims using forces such as surface tension, viscosity, and visco-elasticity. Particle fluids can be surfaced at the geometry level to produce high quality splashes while fluild forces are used to create white water effects.
BULLET RBD | In Houdini FX, you can use the Bullet Rigid Body solver to create highly complex simulations of large data sets. This solver and Houdini’s own solver work with various forces, constraints and collisions for complete control.
PARTICLES | Whether you are creating dust and debris or a flocks of birds, the particle tools in Houdini let you define a clear set of rules using a simple node network made up of sources, forces, attractors and collision objects.
FINITE ELEMENTS | The Finite Element solver analyzes the stresses on an object then either bends or breaks the object. It can also be used for soft body effects with volume preservation. Take the simulation of digital destruction, and gooey slimy objects, to the next level.
CLOTH | Houdini FX’s cloth solver can handle multiple layers while generating accurate, realistic results over long simulations. By adjusting a few simple parameters, you can achieve a variety of different looks and material types.
WIRE & FUR | Ideally suited to creating hair and fur simulations, the Wire solver in Houdini FX also can be used for other types of thin shapes. Control wires with attributes such as thickness, length, rigidity and curl for added control.
CROWDS | The crowd tools use artist-friendly shelf tools along with a new packed agent primitive type, a Finite State Machine solver, hardware accelerated display of instanced crowds, controls for crowd layout, steering, collision avoidance, terrain adaptation, motion blending, and look-at targets.