Liquid SOPs

HS-224: Liquid SOPs

Students should leave this class with a new perspective on how to approach building liquid FX in more art directable ways, and discover new approaches in breaking down FX tasks into smaller manageable chunks.

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Course Overview

Class Description:

Learn procedural ways to mimic liquids without diving into DOP simulations. This class will show slimy drool, bloody trails, surface water droplets, and a flowing river.

All of the builds in this class will be made entirely with SOP nodes, and will showcase various techniques using common SOP nodes, primitives, curves, VOPs, and VEX to allow you to art direct your creation.

Learning Outcomes:

Course curriculum

1. Files
2. Discord
1. 1. About Instructor
2. 2. Resources
3. 3. Show Rendered Results
1. 1. Water Glass Pour Ref
2. 2. Separating Elements
1. 1. Rock Surface Geo Base Setup
2. 2. Basic Curve and Create Pattern
3. 3. Drop Curve to Surface
4. 4. Groove Displacement
5. 5. Collider
6. 6. Animate Growth Timing
7. 7. Apply Growth Attribute
8. 8. Drop Curve into Groove
1. 1. Shape Blood Geo
2. 2. Setup Path for Blood Pour
3. 3. Add Animation Details
4. 4. Blending Curves Together
5. 5. Taper
6. 6. Q&A: Are the Vectors only being Pushed Down in the Y?
7. 7. Attribute Transfer Ripple Surface
8. 8. Surface Collision
9. 9. Q&A: Is the Surface you are Sampling in the Object Merge?
10. 10. Q&A: Is the Volume Gradient a Vector?
11. 11. Finishing Touches
1. 1. Q&A: The Intersection Motion seems to Stop Abruptly
2. 2. Q&A: Over Time will the Noise get Finer and Finer?
3. 3. Q&A: If the Solver is Incrementing it that way isn't the Multiplier doing the same thing?
4. 4. Q&A: Is there a way in VEX to say go back to the Beginning and Start Again?
5. 5. Tip: Adding the Time Value rather than Multiplying
6. 6. Few Notes before going into Karma
1. 1. SOP Import
2. 2. Material
3. 3. Camera
4. 4. Lights
5. 5. Render
6. 6. Q&A: Is Mantra Compatible with GPU Renderer?
7. 7. Q&A: How Useful is the CPU Renderer for Karma?
8. 8. Q&A: Do you prefer to use Karma for Teaching?
9. 9. Q&A: Is it difficult to Build in Redshift?
1. 1. Overview and Resources
1. 1. Importing & Setting Up the Model
2. 2. Prep Skull & Jaw
3. 3. Adding Gradient Attribute
4. 4. Link to File Cache
1. 1. Scale Skull & Jaw
2. 2. Animate Skull & Jaw
3. 3. Prep Collider
4. 4. Calculate Timing & Intensity
5. 5. Calculating Vector Detail
1. 1. Generating Points & IDs
2. 2. Making Curves
3. 3. Can you Explain the Minpos Function one more?
4. 4. Q&A: How do you figure out how far it goes before Minpos brings it back down?
5. 5. Q&A: What is the Process that determines the Distance the Gradient goes?
6. 6. Making Curves Part 2
7. 7. Shaping Geo
8. 8. Surface Collision Adjustment
9. 9. Applying Source Geo Animation
10. 10. Applied the Process to the Jaw
1. 1. Masking Geo
2. 2. Adjusting Falloffs
3. 3. Descend and Applying Source Geo Animations
4. 4. Ascend Point Locations
5. 5. Restlength
6. 6. Convert Space for Variance Seed
7. 7. Centroid
8. 8. Apply Movement Noise
9. 9. Shape Geometry
10. 10. Q&A: Can you explain problem space again?
11. 11. Q&A: Because each point has a different value known they will get a different value instead of being similar?
1. 1. Masking Geo
2. 2. Adjusting Falloffs
3. 3. Descend
4. 4. Convert Space for Noise Seed
5. 5. Set Custom Delay - Why Not This?
6. 6. Set Custom Delay
7. 7. Shape Geo
1. 1. SOP Import
2. 2. Materials
3. 3. Camera
4. 4. Lights
5. 5. Render
1. 1. Resources
2. 2. Class Introduction
1. 1. Preparing Surface
2. 2. Setting Grad Attribute
3. 3. Setting Density Mask
4. 4. Surface Collider
1. 1. Draw Curve
2. 2. Resample
3. 3. Optional Prepping Nodes
1. 1. Scatter Points and Set ID
2. 2. Make Curves
3. 3. Attribute Delete vs Clean
4. 4. Transfer Normals
5. 5. Add Noise
1. 1. Sort by Length
2. 2. Convert to Length Space
3. 3. Clip
1. 1. Convert Space
2. 2. Seed
1. 1. Set Animate Attribute
2. 2. Carve
3. 3. Resample
4. 4. Start-End Frame Range
1. 1. Dripzone
2. 2. Resample
3. 3. Shaping Drips
4. 4. Surface Collision Adjustment
5. 5. Q&A: In the Wrangles, is there a reason you use the Floor instead of Ceiling?
6. 6. Q&A: So for the Abs, if it was -5 it would now be 5 and it wouldn't be 0?
1. 1. Descend-Ascend Point Locations
2. 2. Setting Pscale
3. 3. Clean-up Points that are too close
4. 4. Extend Droplet Height
5. 5. Assigning Drip Zone
6. 6. Dissolve Nearby Droplets
1. 1. Making Volume Geo
2. 2. Surface Collision Adjustment
3. 3. Q&A: Going back to the Intersection Gradient Volume, would a Good Alternative be doing a Boolean Operation instead or would it be to slow?
4. 4. Q&A: What if we wanted to do it for a Randomly Selected Group of Points rather than all the Points?
1. 1. SOP Import
2. 2. Camera
3. 3. Lights
4. 4. Material
5. 5. Render
1. 1. Resources
2. 2. Introduction
1. 1. Ground Geo
1. 1. Curve
2. 2. Measure SOP
1. 1. Grid
2. 2. Banks Map
1. 1. Add Wave Details Overview
2. 2. Wave Noise
3. 3. Ripple Noise
4. 4. Remove Bank Areas From Main Noise
5. 5. Banks Noise
6. 6. Wave Peak Mask
7. 7. Ripple Peak Mask
8. 8. Banks Peak Mask
9. 9. Visualize The Details
10. 10. Motion Blur
1. 1. Path Deform
2. 2. Extrude
3. 3. Transform
4. 4. Flat Bottom
1. 1. Vis Maps
1. 1. Move UVs
1. 1. Choke Banks Map
2. 2. Set Normals
3. 3. Set Side Attribute
4. 4. Bend Trails Along Flow
5. 5. Space Conversion to Gen Flow
6. 6. Attribute Noise and Blur
7. 7. Flatten, Adjust Width, Set Pscale
8. 8. Movement and Loop Z
9. 9. Modulo
10. 10. Wave Details, Trails, Influence
11. 11. Deform Foam
12. 12. Karma
1. 1. Introduction
2. 2. Coptonet
3. 3. Warp
4. 4. Clean Out Transparent Points and Add Normals
5. 5. Add Detail, Velocity and Set Pscale
6. 6. Karma
1. 1. Can we use a mask?
2. 2. Q&A: Could the Banks Interact with some sort of Environment?
3. 3. Note on Art Detectability
4. 4. Q&A: Is there a Solution?
5. Submit your work

About this course

$180.00
174 lessons
10.5 hours of video content

Course Teaser

Session 1

Blood Trails

This session will take a simple curve shape and turn it into a replicated pattern that will drive the design of a surface, and the blood flow itself. Techniques will involve adding small details like faking liquid surface movement, handling intersecting geometry surfaces, and shaping the blood flow over the traveling path.

Curve design and manipulation
Shaping surface geo-based on curve design
Adding flow data to curves
Building noise based on flow data
Handling surface intersections
Setting up Karma materials, lights, and camera

Session 2

Slimy Drool

Creature facial drool and slime will be the focus of this session. Techniques will include preparing source geometry, building custom masking, writing some custom VEX tools to manipulate points on a surface, using randomization, developing noise controls, and mimicking swinging movement.

Preparing skull geometry
Setting up skull procedural animation
Constructing custom masks
Building the procedural rig for mouth slime
Making random static surface slime with art-directed flow direction
Designing dangling slime and giving it life
Setting up Karma materials, lights, and camera

Session 3

Surface Water Droplets

This session focuses on making surface water droplets with art-directed droplets streaming in any direction you like. Subtle details like dissolving droplets as streams pass by, misshaping droplets to mimic gravity, as well as the directional surface flow will be shown.

Preparing source geometry
Making emission masks to limit droplet placement
Art directing drips and procedurally animating them
Dealing with dissolving surface droplets in drip path
Shaping the droplets and handling surface intersections
Setting up Karma materials, lights, and camera

Session 4

River Flow

This final session will go over using a custom curve to shape a flow path for a river. Techniques will include using noises to add surface details, hscript to generate flowing animation, and using procedural point generation to mimic foam.

Designing noise displacement patterns
Building rig for white water
Adding flow animation to all elements
Using VEX to loop whitewater back on itself
Defining the overall path and shape
Setting up Karma materials, lights, and camera

Instructor

David Torno

Visual Effects Professional

David Torno is a self-taught visual effects professional with a passion for the technical and educational side of VFX. Since beginning his career in 2000, he has worked on films, commercials, music videos, and large-scale multimedia projects. In 2008 he started sharing his wealth of knowledge with other creatives through video tutorials, project templates, and utility scripts. In recent years David has focused mostly on 3D volumetric and particle animation. Through the consolidation of his life's work under the Fendra Fx name, David continues to create helpful tools, and informative training videos for the creative community.

WHAT YOU NEED TO TAKE THIS COURSE

Some background with writing VEX code (all code used will be fully explained)
Computer (Please see SideFX system requirements)
1. https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/
2. A second monitor is recommended, but not necessary
Houdini (Apprentice License is free)

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

“Great class as always. Looking forward to rewatching it. ”

Chanelle Hartwig

“Amazing class @David Torno | Educator ! Thank you!”

Divyansh Mishra

See you in Class!

Enroll today

Class Description:

Learning Outcomes:

Resources

1. Overview of Class

2. Analyzing Liquids

3. Blood Path

4. Blood Geo

5. Questions & Tips

6. Karma

7. Overview and Resources

8. Source Geo

9. Animate Geo

10. Surface Drool/Slime

11. Drool/Slime Mouth Connections

12. Slime Extra Bits

13. Karma

14. Introduction

15. Sourcing & Collision Setup

16. Drip Path | Hand Drawn

17. Drip Paths | Auto Generated

18. Animating Drip Paths | Drip Longest to Shortest

19. Animating Drip Paths | Drip Random

20. Animating Drip Paths | Drip in Range Via Carve

21. Drip Geo

22. Droplet Base Points

23. Droplet Geo

24. Karma

25. Introduction

26. Ground Geo

27. S Path

28. Base

29. Displaced River

30. Deformed River

31. Vis Maps

32. Move UVs

33. Banks Foam

34. Waterfall

35. Questions

About this course

Session 1 Blood Trails

Session 2 Slimy Drool

Session 3 Surface Water Droplets

Session 4 River Flow

REFUND POLICY:

Session 1

Blood Trails

Session 2

Slimy Drool

Session 3

Surface Water Droplets

Session 4

River Flow