r/Houdini

Hello 😄

I recently discovered the work of posthuman studio on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/posthuman.studio/), and I'm really in awe of their work. I'd really like to explore similar look in Houdini, but I'm not quite sure how to achieve it as I'm merely a beginner in this DCC.

Can some of you advise me some tutorials/courses to look at ?

For reference, this is particularly the look i'm trying to achieve :

https://preview.redd.it/c2wwc4uulg2h1.jpg?width=944&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e71b2def6407c5231711ecb1e3cf76081af8403b

https://preview.redd.it/i36k85uulg2h1.jpg?width=948&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c54f085d4756c7cc9955ef5fa9504c9618792bb3

Hi everyone,

I’m considering buying a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max chip, mainly because I need a powerful portable workstation while traveling.

I work in VFX/compositing and mostly use Nuke, but I’m also learning and planning to use Houdini more seriously for 3D, FX, simulations, procedural work, and possibly rendering.

I understand that a MacBook is not a full replacement for a powerful desktop PC with an RTX 4090, especially for heavy GPU rendering or CUDA-based workflows. But portability is important for me, so I’m trying to understand how realistic it is to use an M4 Max MacBook as a main working machine.

I’d really appreciate feedback from people who use Apple Silicon Macs for production work:

• How well does Houdini run on M4 Max in real projects?
• How is the performance with simulations, caching, Vellum, Pyro, FLIP, particles, volumes, etc.?
• Are there any serious limitations with rendering, GPU acceleration, Karma, Redshift, Octane, Blender, or other render engines?
• How stable is Nuke on Apple Silicon?
• Is 64 GB of unified memory enough for serious VFX/3D work, or would you recommend more?
• What are the biggest problems or limitations you’ve faced?
• Would you choose an M4 Max MacBook again, or would you rather build/buy a Windows/Linux workstation?

I’m especially interested in real production experience, not just benchmarks.

Thanks!

Hey guys , I have been learning houdini for months, not for work, I have a job but I just learn houdini as hobby for me.

But I'm really fedup and lost, as sometimes I found myself needing other subjects to know before completing a small project and you know houdini , each subject is an ocean of knowledge and I think I burned out with this method.

For example, I'm doing small pyro exercices, at some point I need to understand and see difference so I need to wedge right ? to see variants..Well I go to learn PDG and then I forgot about the initial project and so on for each smaller project I start.

same for flip, I completed my sim and need to render, but don't know solaris, I open to learn solaris and get there then unable to complete, and forget the flip sim etc etc.

there's also something in between I need to know, I'm lost at how to proceed, Houdini unlike max or other softwares is very deep

Hello!

I am a blender user who finally got a houdini license... this shit is crazy. I feel so dumb. I have a simple conveyor belt animation with 6 blocks that I would like to fracture/explode as they reach the middle point of these two posts. In blender, I would simply add a force above the two posts and animate its power to explode the blocks as they pass the threshhold. In houdini... I am totally lost, even after spending all day watching RBD tutorials. I am using a simple RBD setup, but cannot for the life of me find a way to add a simple force. I did try double clicking into the solver to the forces level and tried all the POP forces... none of them gave me the result I was looking for. I also looked into going into the dopnet but can't edit that with my indie license. Many of the youtube tutorials I watched made a rigid body sim from scratch... should I just start over and avoid RBD? I'm totally lost and undereducated.

I would really appreciate any help! Thank you!!

https://preview.redd.it/0lhm9nyub72h1.png?width=1357&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9cbc39f16f34449dbef5bb18ff4c9baaaebda26

https://reddit.com/link/1ti87i4/video/v0o96j0wc72h1/player

Is there like a cheap script I can get for bringing in pbr textures that plugs all maps to the right slot in your redshift material, instead of plugging each textures manually.

I wanted to expand my houdini skills by getting into procedural modelling/asset creation but I started to wonder how common is it really? So far it seems like it's pretty hard to come up with a system that can produce good looking assets that wouldn't be too repetitive (for example buildings) and at the same time not spend so much time on the system that you could have built those assets manually instead.

Do you regularly find yourself working with systems that would procedurally create cities, city blocks, roads, or buildings?

Ofc certain cases such as terrains and natural environments are much better suited for this. My question is directed more towards man-made sets.

Hey guys, am looking for some advice. I have a TOPnet setup where I am driving camera animation parameters through two wedges for 20 work items. As the top is only randomising transforms for the camera, and the geometry cache I am loading is pretty heavy - I was wondering how I can go about loading the geometry once per frame, then snapping that frame (for each of the work items) before moving to the next.

The current setup goes something like:
Geometry Import (importing the heavy cache SOP) > Wedge (first parameter) > Wedge (second parameter) > ROP Fetch > Partition by Attribute (@wedgeindex) > FFmpeg encode video.

This seems to be doing something but not exactly what I’m looking for. Is there a more efficient / faster way of doing this?

Hello,

We are currently a team of 3D animation students in the research and development phase of our graduation short film, and we are trying to optimize our production pipeline as much as possible.

Our short film is around 5 minutes long and features 5 main characters, with a large number of relatively short shots. The project notably includes a motorcycle chase sequence as well as a dance sequence, which involves a lot of fast movements, deformations, and interactions with clothing.

We are currently asking ourselves several questions regarding costume workflow and simulation:

• Should the clothes be directly integrated into the character skinning setup (without a fully modeled body underneath, only visible parts such as the arms or head)?
• Or would it be better to model a full body with the clothes layered on top?
• Would it be more relevant to mainly use dynamic rigs / nCloth in Maya?
• Or rather rely on full simulations in Houdini?
• Or perhaps use a hybrid solution, with simulations enabled only for specific shots or areas, while other parts remain fully skinned/rigged?

Greetings,

I have a google pro plan, i,m thinking of using gemini to help me learn procedural modeling only without any vex code, at least for now until i master it, is that a right approach to learn houdini ?

I tried chatgpt yesterday extended thinking but i feel it doesnt explain well or not working steps, i never tried grok or claude.

I,m sorry to say that sidefx learning portal tuts are below average and chris bohm course feels not so organized and he said its not for Beginners.