Magical FX

HS-209: Magical FX

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Course Overview

Class Description:

This recorded course gives students a solid understanding of how to create Magical FX in Houdini, utilizing the power of particles, fluids, procedural geometry manipulation, as well as lighting and rendering. This class will be going over different magical FX case studies both in a theoretical and practical hands-on style. Each class will be connected to a specific project and case study that we will be recreating and rendering out as a demo reel piece. This course is designed so anyone with good fundamentals of Houdini SOPs and DOPs knowledge will be able to easily follow and recreate the FX and achieve nice-looking renders that you can put into your demo reel. 

Learning Outcomes:

After completing the course by recreating different magical FX cases, students will have a solid understanding of how to create efficient builds of at least 3 types of magical FX(magical dust, disintegration, portals,). Students will learn secret techniques of how to easily utilize the power of SOPs, VOPs, POPs, volumes, fluids, and velocity fields to manipulate sources, force fields to achieve the desired look fast. Students will be able to easily build up on the learned knowledge after the course to create their own custom versions of different magical FX in Houdini.

Course curriculum

1. Files
1. 1. Introduction
1. 1. Initial Setup
1. 1. Setting Attribute Noise
2. 2. Setting the POP Net
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. Getting Rid of Stepping
3. 3. Setting Up POP Network
4. 4. Finishing Up
1. 1. Using Ramp from Attribute
2. 2. Using VOPs to Adjust Pscale
3. 3. Setting the Render Scene
4. 4. Applying Principled Shader
5. 5. Finishing Up
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. Setting POP Net
3. 3. Adding Colliding Geo
1. 1. Setting Up VOPs
2. 2. Adding Color using Ramp
3. 3. Tweaking the Settings
4. 4. Adding Constant Shader
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. Light Setup
3. 3. Finishing Up
1. 1. Interactive Lighting with Volumes
2. 2. A Substitute for Attribute Blur
3. 3. Turning Particles to Volume
4. 4. Make Particles Look Liquidy
1. 1. Q&A: Color Attributes
1. 1. Introduction
1. 1. Adding More Geo
2. 2. Remeshing the Hammer
1. 1. Explanation
2. 2. Demo Initialize
3. 3. Demo Finish
1. 1. Troubleshooting
2. 2. Animating the Mask
1. 1. Setting Emission Points for Particles
2. 2. Setting Up POP Net
3. 3. Finessing the Particle Emission
4. 4. Finishing Up
1. 1. How it Works
2. 2. Attribute VOP Explained
3. 3. Finishing Up
1. 1. How it Works
2. 2. Pyro Simulation Setup
3. 3. Pyro Solver Settings
4. 4. Increasing the Volume Resolution
1. 1. Q&A: Setting up Pyro on SOP vs DOP
2. 2. Q&A: Does Erosion Effect Cause Lighting Issues?
1. 1. Create Mask
2. 2. Mesh Erosion
3. 3. Create Particle Source
4. 4. POP Net
5. 5. Adding Colors
6. 6. Custom Forces
1. 1. Introduction
1. 1.Base Nodes
2. 2. Attribute VOP
1. 1. Explaining the Setup
2. 2. Initial Setup
3. 3. Deforming the Emitter Shape
1. 1. Adjusting the Emitter
2. 2. Particle Settings
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. Pyro Solver Settings
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. Attractor Object Setup
3. 3. Making the Setup More Efficient
1. 1. Setup Explained
2. 2. Initial Setup
3. 3. POP Advect By Volume Explained
4. 4. Finishing Up
1. 1. Setting Attribute VOP
2. 2. Fixing the Stepping Issue
3. 3. Preparing for Render
1. 1. Create Fancy Ground
1. 1. Preparing for Rendering
2. 2. Setting up Geo
3. 3. Setting the Particle Pscale
4. 4. Finishing Up
1. 1. Adding Shaders
2. 2. Tweaking the Settings
3. 3. Adjusting the Portal Colors
4. 4. Refining the Shape
5. 5. Adding Smoke to the Render
6. 6. Alternate Lighting Setup
7. 7. Q&A: Does the interactive light work natively with Redshift?
1. 1. Initial Setup
2. 2. POP Net
3. 3. Adding Randomness using Attribute VOP
4. 4. Two Ways to Add Color
5. 5. Finishing Up
6. Submit your work

About this course

$115.00
94 lessons
5.5 hours of video content

Course Teaser

Session 1

Magical FX Theory and Fundamentals

Students will learn the thinking process behind the creation of magical FX. Breakdowns of different magical FX in the movies/tv series, commercials, etc., will be provided. In this first class, we will create a magical dust/energy particles stream FX as well as learn how to create a nice rendering of the effect.

Session 2

Magical FX Case Study Disintegration/Decloaking FX

Students will get the breakdown of how disintegration FX works in general and how to approach the effect creation. We will build a very flexible, yet easy-to-create object/character to dust particle disintegration system with the help of VOPs and POPs, advanced sourcing methods, different forces settings, and post-sim particle manipulation for a nice render.

Session 3

Magical Portals FX

Students will learn how to efficiently combine fluids, pyro simulations, and particles in order to create interesting portal effects similar to what you see in films.

Instructor

Alasgar Hasanov

Senior Houdini FX Artist

Alasgar Hasanov is a Senior Houdini FX artist, FX Lead and Houdini FX mentor from Toronto. With over 7 years of experience in the CG/VFX industry Alasgar has a strong focus on complex dynamics simulations for large and small-scale water FX, pyro FX, magical/abstract particles FX, rigid and soft body dynamics as well as FX look development, shading, and rendering. Over the course of his career, Alasgar worked in different studios (Tendril, SOHO VFX, Mr.X) helping to create high-end VFX for Movies, TV shows, Commercials, and Games. He has worked on a wide variety of exciting projects such as X-Men Dark Phoenix, IT: Chapter 2, Bad Boys 3, Game of Thrones S8, American Gods, and some Netflix and Marvel titles to be announced.

WHAT YOU NEED TO TAKE THIS COURSE

Computer (Please see SideFx system requirements)
1. https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/
2. The second monitor is recommended to follow along
Houdini v.18.5 or later

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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REFUND POLICY:

Multi-Session Courses

Students may request a refund up to 1 day before the start of the course. Students may also withdraw from Multi-Session Courses at any time and are entitled to a pro-rated refund. The withdrawal date must be 1 day before the next class they intend to drop.

On-Demand Courses

All on-demand courses are non-refundable.

How to Drop a Class

Please send a request to drop a class via email to [email protected].

Your written request to drop any or all of your classes must include:

Student’s full name
Name of the course(s) being dropped

Testimonials

“Finally got around to finishing up this little thing. This was based off of my friend @hialycat #alycatober week 1 prompt feathers! I also took this time to practice some fun new techniques I picked up at @HoudiniSchool. https://twitter.com/alexliou/status/1454130799012286473 ”

Alex Liou

See you in Class!

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Class Description:

Learning Outcomes:

Resources

1. Introduction

2. Initial Setup

3. Particle Setup

4. Adding Particles to the Character

5. Applying Material to Particles

6. Adding Hammer Particles

7. Adding Hammer Particle Material

8. Adding Interactive Light

9. Miscellaneous

10. Q&A

11. Introduction

12. Initial Setup

13. Create Erosion Mask

14. Create the Erosion Effect

15. Setting up Particle System

16. Creating Custom Forces

17. Create Smoke

18. Questions

19. Quick Summary

20. Introduction

21. Initial Setup

22. Adding Noise

23. Setting up POP Net

24. Create Smoke/Pyro

25. Creating the Suction Effect

26. Advecting Particles

27. Adding Colors

28. Create a Fancy Ground Place

29. Create Interactive Light Geo

30. Rendering

31. Dr. Strange Portal Effect

About this course

Session 1 Magical FX Theory and Fundamentals

Session 2 Magical FX Case Study Disintegration/Decloaking FX

Session 3 Magical Portals FX

REFUND POLICY:

Session 1

Magical FX Theory and Fundamentals

Session 2

Magical FX Case Study Disintegration/Decloaking FX

Session 3

Magical Portals FX