An introduction to the different types of volumes Houdini can create, and some examples of their use in procedural geometry creation.

The first section is an explanation of different types of volume and a description of the best ways to create and manipulate them.

There follows a series of examples of different ways you can use volumes as shown below:

  • Optimising collections of objects (at 22:00 minutes)
  • Cleaning up geometry (at 30:00 minutes)
  • Creating the low poly trees used in tutorial 1 (at 37.30 minutes)
  • Cutting through volumes with noise (at 42:00 minutes)
  • Using volumes to rebuild models from blocks (at 49:00 minutes)

all these examples can be downloaded here:

DOWNLOAD SCENE FILES

CREATED BY

HoudiniKitchen
SUSIE GREEN

Houdini Kitchen tutorials are aimed at experienced 3D artists who are new to Houdini, and focus on creating procedural geometry for video games. Each tutorial covers a single node or concept, and will usually finish with a demonstration of how that tool might be used in asset creation. There are easier ways to use Houdini – commonly used nodes can be set up automatically using shelf tools, and useful networks are now embedded in higher level nodes – but I believe that to be able to fully harness the power of Houdini it is important to understand the basics. I have worked as a Technical Artist in the Video Game industry for 15 years, and my credits include Killzone 2 & 3, The Getaway 1 & 2 and Playstation VR Worlds. I have been learning Houdini since 2005, and have been using it in production for the last 5 years. I also have a degree in Archaeology and have completed several 3D projects for the British Museum.

More from Susie Green

COMMENTS

  • SerjKirchano 3 years, 8 months ago  | 

    Love this one!
    Seems difficult at first, but thankfully the good explanation follows.

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