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Learn how to simulate a wave crashing onto a lighthouse. This workflow will involve the use of FLIP fluids to create the wave, colliding surfaces, and an ocean spectrum. Once that is complete, learn how to surface the water, add white water and generate spray effects. Finally, render out the sequence using Mantra and composite the AOVs to complete the shot.

Note: Lighthouse model by Pieter Talens. A version of this shot was originally created by Stephen Tucker when Fluids were first introduced into Houdini.

Note: Fluid simulations consume a lot of disk space and you should set aside at least 1TB to fully complete a project like this. If you don’t have that available then you will have to work with a low res simulation. RAM also plays a big part in simulations and at least 32 GB is recommended but more will be needed for a detailed sim.

<img src="https://media.sidefx.com/uploads/tutorial/h18_5/spevick/aws-thinkbox-logo-300x125.png">

This project was completed by using AWS Thinkbox cloud services to get access to bigger computers with more RAM for simulating and rendering.

CREATED BY

spev
MARK SPEVICK

Mark Spevick is the Head of 3D at Escape Studios, Pearson College London, and combines teaching with working at the highest level in the industry. He has 10 years working in industry and 6 working in higher education and teaching. He got his big break at Peerless Camera, the production house co-owned by Terry Gilliam, and worked on every Gilliam film from ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ to ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’, starring the late Heath Ledger. He also worked with director Martin Campbell on ‘Zorro’ and ‘Mask of Zorro’ before supervising on the set of ‘Casino Royale’. Mark also managed the CG team that worked on the parachute scene in ‘Angels and Demons’, on behalf of post-house Double Negative. Mark was heavily involved in the design and development of our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

More from Mark Spevick

COMMENTS

  • HerculesMare3 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    thank you so much for this. Really usefull.

  • Infinity FX School of VFX 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Really Helpfull

  • Scara 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Mark, looking forward to learning from this. Cheers.

  • Kjellono 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Very nice. Thank you.

  • spev 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Thank you all for the kind comments. I hope you enjoy and pick up some tips.

  • CYTE 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Hey Mark,
    this tutorial is gold! Thank you very much!

    Cheers
    Philipp

  • ostaek 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Awesome! Always appreciates any course from you

  • VFXMA 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Very nice. Thank you.

  • stevestone35 3 years, 2 months ago  | 

    Much appreciated, awesome tutorial. Thank u ♥

  • spev 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Thanks for all the kind comments.

  • leizhao9050 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Thank you so much Mark. I have learnt a lot from all your courses.

  • OneBigTree 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    3h per frame? Mantra is horribly slow. I've been rendering sims like this with Redshift in minutes per frame.
    Still great tut, nicely structured and very helpful.

    • CalmFuture 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

      Would you please let me know what is your exact PC configuration?
      Looking forward to upgrade my system.

    • khoa191288 1 year, 3 months ago  | 

      Hello OneBigTree can you tell more about how to render using Redshift? I have had problems with Mantra too because it is very slow (even the quality is so good). Thank you so much!

  • AFtelinagraphic 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Frankly, your lesson was very good, short and gives the main points. I hope you will not skimp on me with lessons like these. Thank you.
    MARK SPEVICK

  • Parpa 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Hey Mark, This is such a cool tutorial. Great job! Do you know if the pop wrangle you write to color the foam,bubbles and spray is not working in Houdini 19?
    I also wondered what settings are used in the WWsource cache that you say is "low res". Thanks!

    • alexroblesfx99 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

      Hey!
      I'm working on H19 and yes, it works! Check your expression well, maybe you wrote it wrong.
      "low res" was the cache he made it with 0.05 particlesep, and 0.025 the high res.

  • Daniele2105 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    I'm sorry, but I don't understand how you have create the whitewater cache in the end of lesson number 8. Thank's

  • SteeleDesmond 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Thanks for the great tutorial.

    At the start of section 3, you mention downloading the asset files to start with. Is there a link for those somewhere? I can't seem to find them from Google search.

    I can try to make it myself in the meantime.

    • rcbellergy 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

      @SteeleDesmond
      You can find the "DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES" link on the top right of the page.

  • ShubhamRai 3 years, 1 month ago  | 

    Thanks a lot for this tutorial and thanks a lot to sidefx website which contains these awesome materials (tutorials) on there official web page

  • chimera_film 2 years, 12 months ago  | 

    Thanks for this great tutorial! A lot of useful information and tips&tricks! Here is my splash: https://vimeo.com/657853741

  • TangheStudent 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    I i try select a watersourse (flip object) to use the whitewater in my setup it tells me no water is selected and then it doesnt do anything.

  • PavanBasrur 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    Hey man, I was making the waves from part 3 of your series and I am using Houdini 19, there is no "VDB vector merge " node

    I think that they have moved it in my version..... (Houdini 19)
    can you please help and tell me where it is

  • spev 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    Hi Pavan.
    The vdb vector merge is now called vdb vector to scalar in h19
    https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/sop/vdbvectormerge.html

  • spev 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    TangheStudent...please try going into dops and selecting the flip object directly. That may help.

    • Nebojsa Visnjic 1 year, 7 months ago  | 

      You should select WhiteWater in Particle tab NOT the ocean tab!

  • spev 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    chimera_film...looking great

  • alexroblesfx99 2 years, 10 months ago  | 

    Hey Spev!

    I am working on a project like yours.
    But I have a question, you in part 9 (SPRAYFX), you create a copy of the DopNet for the SPRAY.Okay, but... when you cache it, what do you do with the other cache that we already have from the WW?

    Thanks!

  • knockflakes 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Thänx a lot for sharing your knowledge!

  • pkmet 2 years, 4 months ago  | 

    great quality, well explained - just fantastic, i absolved paid courses and tutorials and this one is gold - I really appreciate and recommend it!

  • omergurkan91 1 year ago  | 

    Hey great tutorial! Love your confidence with this hard software and easygoing teaching style. I`m using Houdini 20 and it doesn`t have source particles checkbox in visualization tab for whitewater source. To see the red blue and green channels of my whitewater particles before baking. Do you know if I can still enable that? If I can, do you know where? thanks!

  • cheesetroyer 5 months, 2 weeks ago  | 

    When caching the fluid - using the provided files - the fluid just falls below the waterline.

  • kiponline3001 5 months, 1 week ago  | 

    I am stuck at volume source step. I am using version 19.5. Volume Source don't have scale so my wave not tall enough. If i increase Source Scale at the end of wave when it break a little bit, particle keep going up.

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