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TOTAL DURATION: 1h 18m 29s

Solaris is Houdini’s environment for layout, lookdev and lighting and is built on USD, the open source Universal Scene Description format created by PIXAR. This makes Solaris a great environment for interacting and authoring USD scenes and assets. USD is an optimized system for organizing your assets that allows for efficient workflows for teams or individuals.

In this course you will explore the Solaris UI, beginning with a discussion about what USD is, how to manipulate objects in the Solaris viewport, and how to import and render SOPs geometry in Solaris using Karma. The goal is to introduce you to the concepts of USD and how they are implemented in Houdini using Solaris.

CREATED BY

PArcara09
PETER ARCARA

SideFX Training Lead

More from Peter Arcara

COMMENTS

  • krzys_kite 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Awesome intro course, filled in some gaps for me. Will we see any follow-up courses?

    • rmagee 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

      Yes - a second one is coming soon

  • lorsange 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    It's outstanding tutorial. Thanks again, Peter.

  • rkoomera 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Awesome course!

  • unreal-universe 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    nice!

  • dunnieboy 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Even though I am familiar with Solaris/USD, I found myself watching these intro vids and wishing they were available when I first started out !
    Excellent intro course. Keep 'em coming.

  • JoshFoster 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Thanks Peter! Great tutorial.

  • alahab 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Thank you for this wonderful course Peter! Lots of valuable information and a great delivery!
    Just FYI that in the scene file that I downloaded, SOP Create section does not have the name SOPs that set "spikes" and "grid". (Video #17 at 01:03)

    • PArcara09 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

      Probably just an issue of me changing something on the fly and not adjusting my master file. I'll make up a new zip file and link that with the fix. Thanks for the heads up!

  • thedimensionxyz 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    Brilliant tutorial series! Thanks Peter!

  • HarrryHoudini 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

    I downloaded the scene files but can't find the scene in video 4??

    • PArcara09 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

      It is there when I downloaded the linked HIP file. Maybe try downloading the zip again and opening the new HIP file?

      • HarrryHoudini 2 years, 9 months ago  | 

        Hey Peter, thanks for the reply. You're right, it was a problem with the default unzip software on macOS that was the issue. The HIP file is indeed there thanks.

  • Anastasiiadots 2 years, 8 months ago  | 

    Thank you so so much! Such an awesome explanation!

  • lorsange 2 years, 8 months ago  | 

    Hi again Peter, get some troubles starting with #11 "Color Meanings" section
    Get errors on the Reference node:
    Error Unable to find layer file: -
    Warning Fixed invalid USD path: /_
    Tried to write /$OS instead of /"@sourcename" in Primitive Path, but it won't help with reference::2.0, only with first version of node

  • seanhedman 2 years, 4 months ago  | 

    super in-depth tutorial series. really easy to follow. great for getting us up to speed quickly!

    Just wanted to add one invaluable hotkey for pausing the render in karma.

    shift + P

    That will pause your render so no need to jump into houdini GL to pause.

  • Mike_A 2 years, 2 months ago  | 

    This is a really helpful and practical introduction, especially so with the supplied scene file. Thank you Peter!
    I'm looking forward to your next course on the subject.
    You've taken us through the basics of Solaris and USD, but one thing I'd really like to see you talk about is the 'Why?' Particularly in relation to the solo artist / freelancer. What are the real world advantages of the Solaris workflow over the traditional SOP > ROP workflow for such users?

  • adamghering 1 year, 10 months ago  | 

    where are the files?

    • Fsl 1 year, 5 months ago  | 

      At the top of course list

  • adamghering 1 year, 10 months ago  | 

    nevermind lol

  • BabaJ 1 year ago  | 

    Video 12 > 2'36"

    Selecting the same light in viewport of scene does not highlight all those lights.(usual yellow)
    Select All is on, Xform Primitives is set drop down, and all viewport display guides/icons(on right side of viewport) are on.

    However, Scene Graph Path does show the 'lights' primitve is selected, and the following edit node does move all the lights as intended.

    Display options don't seem to suggest something is amiss.

    Must be some default settings changed since this video to version 20.5.410?

    • PArcara09 1 year ago  | 

      Hi there,
      I would guess that there is some visual bug happening. We don't often change the default behavior of viewports. With our recent updates to our Vulkan Hydra Delegate from the OpenGL Hydra Delegate, there could certainly be some newly introduced bugs. Also, since Solaris uses USD and Hydra, any time there is a change to those codebases something unintended could happen to our implementations. I would recommend logging a bug for this, as it seems to be easily reproducible and it seems to only affect the highlighting.

  • janisfs 3 months, 1 week ago  | 

    Thanks, Peter! Great tutorial!

    • PArcara09 3 months, 1 week ago  | 

      You're welcome. Glad it was helpful!

  • ArtemisUK 2 weeks, 1 day ago  | 

    Any idea how to get these files? the download only has the single hip file, nothing else in the zip. the error: Unable to find layer file: F:/MortaLab/_PROJECTS_MAIN_FOLDER/Houdini/USD Solaris Tutorials/USD_with_Solaris_Basics2/usd/USD_with_Solaris_Basics/scenes/simple_flat_scene.usd

  • ArtemisUK 2 weeks, 1 day ago  | 

    It’s really unprofessional that you reply to positive comments but completely ignore questions about missing USD files, both on SideFX and YouTube. People trying to follow the tutorial are left stuck, and it makes the learning experience frustrating and incomplete.

    • PArcara09 2 weeks, 1 day ago  | 

      Hey there! Sorry you're feeling frustrated. I certainly don't intentionally ignore any comments, and I didn't know there were any comments on the YouTube versions, as I don't get notifications about those. So my apologies there.

      As far as the missing files go, all of the USD files referenced in this course are made within the HIP file itself. In order to automate the creation of all files, you can use the TOP Network on the far right of the HIP file. There are instructions within the file on a sticky note. Please let me know if it isn't working for some reason. Today is a holiday in the USA, so I might be away from time to time, but I'll try to get back to you.

  • ArtemisUK 2 weeks, 1 day ago  | 

    For anyone trying to figure out the missing USDs (its a beginner's tutorial after all), in the group where you click the SubLayer node (ie load_simple_scene), above it you can see the Subnetwork (ie create_simple_scene), dive into it, click on the last node on the tree [SUD ROP] (ie simple_flat_scene) and on the properties above click on [Save to Disk] and it will be created.

    While he does say that in the tutorial briefly, he does so AFTER we have found the issue when we clicked on the load_simple_scene SubLayer and got nada and went nuts. He says that when he goes on the Subnetwork (create_simple_scene).

    Being a Beginners Tutorial, this can be missed (as it did from qute few people), its not so obvious to the untrained ear and the eye trying to follow this, and it would be ideal if the [Save to Disk] was mentioned earlier and save people's time.

    Hope that helps.

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