workflow question

[supremeoh]

Hello, so I'm new to Houdini, and was curious about the workflow approach that you use when approaching an effect. Do you simply go through the shelf tool, and have that create the basic nodes. Or do you manually create the nodes yourself? Is it okay to delete nodes that come with the system from the shelf and replace it with your own? Thanks 

[Guest tar]

All approaches work!  

[jordibares]

Hello, so I'm new to Houdini, and was curious about the workflow approach that you use when approaching an effect. Do you simply go through the shelf tool, and have that create the basic nodes. Or do you manually create the nodes yourself? Is it okay to delete nodes that come with the system from the shelf and replace it with your own? Thanks 

 

You design it on paper, some references to help inspiring, photoshop the effect to see it action before investing a lot of time into it and then just go for it. The shelf tools may be valuable but ultimately you want custom never seen images so is a great starting point to prototype but ultimately you will have to put it together yourself in your preferred application as this is not app specific.

[abvfx]

I agree with all responses above.

 

Also never feel guilty using the shelf tools. A lot of time was spent into creating them. Some are more deeper than others and so can their contributions towards your efforts can vary. But they are completely open, available to append/remove/edit. 

 

I always think there is no reason to re-invent the wheel, if there is a tool that does exactly what you need, go for it. But one thing to keep in mind is the tools themselves might change, so your understanding of them is more important. I am looking more and more into rigging and haven't fully sat down with the Autorig tool. The rig itself is does not have the controls i would like but it is not meant to be production ready and in the area of rigging you can't please everyone. It is a valuable resource into how one could go about creating one for themselves. 

 

Your question "Is it okay to delete nodes that come with the system from the shelf and replace it with your own?", absolutely but is that required? You can setup additional tabs in the shelf with your own tools.

[LaidlawFX]

I follow in agreeing with the above.

 

I create node by node, esp. once I understand what the shelf tools create, I like a flat clean sop environment for one FX, and shelf are a slight pain for that. In my scenes each "major" thing for that scene should be its own object node, like how it can be controlled in a lighters mindset. As far as creating a general FX, reference first of the visual kind youtube or google images, then look around on odforce if I haven't done that FX before and see if some one else has. Thirdly I breakdown the FX into it's particular elements like each regional detail, certain elements that are seemingly unique, and try and match a cheap method of making it for that specific detail.