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Houdini in the movies


Marc

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ok, now lets let no more be said about how 'rare' and 'few' movies use houdini in production.

http://odforce.net/wiki/index.php/Producti...i#In_Production

yikes! That's like almost every single FX film in the last 10 years.

And I count no less than 5 full CG movies in there, two of which are using Houdini almost exclusively, and six(!!!) 2D animated films. Great stuff..

M

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I got to teach a Houdini class this semester, and I'd like to put together a little demo of what shots Houdini was actually used for. Do you guys know which scenes it was involved in, say in Prizoner of Azkaban, I Robot, Spiderman, LOTR, Pearl Harbor, Titanic or any other big movies that come to mind, I'd be eternally grateful.

Thanks a lot,

Luka

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I can beleive Houdini was used for Jingle all the way! HAAHHA funny simply funny.

anyways heres your answer lukich

Productions using houdini

btw how does one know for sure the software was used? I mean even though a big fx house has it doesnt mean they used it right?

Like for Disney's Chicken Little, it doesnt say on imdb what software was used... so how does one know for sure?

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I guess one of the problems is that in every shot there is probably a big mix of stuff being used, not just one package. (Unless you read the Maya advertising and then you'd know that every shot was done entirely with Maya all straight out of the box..  :rolleyes: )

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This isn't funny! I have met VP's and supes of big companies that should know better clearly stating that Maya (insert software of choice) does everything and can't possibly see how Houdini could be used at all since they have never heard of it!!!!

These are the same people that sign $$$ checks to support the 500,000+ lines of mel that breaks with every minor relase of Maya. How deeply can you take your head and shove it in the sand?

For them, this is their "normal". They don't see the world any other way. Any change is seen as a needless expense or have been told so. It is amazing what a careful study on branding will do for a company that is spending less and less of it's annuals on product and more diverted to sharehoders and advertising budgets.

My normal happens to be taking a hammer and accidentally hitting my thumb bad at least once a year! Haven't lost the nail yet though. Need to work on that. Where's my hammer?:P

Now to get back on track.

SESI gets hundreds of reels every year from the different studios. Some we can't show due to copywrigh issues or studios not giving unlimited release of some sequences. That is why we usually need to do two reels: One for siggraph only and non-distributable and another that is free of any hold-backs. Sometimes we get a clear break-down of what was done. Sometimes we visit the actual shop and get a break-down of what was done. Sometimes we just don't know unless there is a clear explanation accompanying the reel.

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I'll chime in on the movies I've worked on though.

Day After Tomorrow - pretty much all you need.

Polar Express : The movie was rendered in renderman and a sprite rendering software called splat. All the particle stuff was done in houdini and either output to splat or renderman (via our lighting package). So that would be steam, smoke, snow, ice chips, elves, caribou etc. Also all the snow interaction stuff and ice cracking stuff was done mostly in Houdini.

Hope this helps

M

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thanks, keltuzar, but i actually need the specific scenes - i want to compile a 10 minute demo for them.  of course, i can be tricky and just grab random scenes, telling the students it's houdini, but that'd be unprofessional :)

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Here's what I know firsthand:

All the time travel sequences in The Time Machine, ranging from lsystems being used to grow plants around the greenhouse, buildings rising and falling in the huge pullup out of new york, the ground erroding and changing, the moon cracking, stalactites and stalagmites growing, the blades, beams and bubble of the time machine itself, the morlocks skin and bones erroding, etc, etc.

In Star Trek 10 it was used for the warp stars, the scorpions (the small spaceship that picard and data escape in) were rendered in houdini, the thaleron beam both at the begining of the movie and the larger version at the end (the green beam of death!), the transporter effect, the lasers and photon torpedos, and of course the death of the senator at the begining of the movie, where he turns into ash.

Like Marc mentioned, a lot of Day After Tomorrow used houdini. The tornados & building destruction, cars being crushed, hollywood sign & debris, etc. were all animated using houdini. The ocean water and all of the flood of new york related effects were animated using houdini (and some custom fluid sim stuff)

Other things that come to mind are the avalanche in XXX (animated in houdini), the brain sequence in Fight Club, the oceans in Peter Pan as well as the water splashing around and off the croc.

Well, that should get you halfway there...

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