Digital Tutors - Introduction To Dynamics

[michael]

Introduction To Dynamics

Popular highlights include:

* Particle Simulation and Events

* Particle Rendering

* Rigid Body Dynamics

* Paint-based Geometry Shatter

* Rigid Body Fractures

* Constraints

* CHOP Dynamic Effects

* Particle Based Fluids

* Fluid Emission and Interaction

* Animated Sprites

* Cloth Dynamics

* Fur Dynamics

* Wire Dynamics

* Wire-driven Geometry

* Cloth-Wire interactions

* RBD-Wire interactions

4 Hours - $55.99

[hitch]

Neat, might give this a go, originaly thought that it was a copy of the gnomon rbd dvd, but looks like good stuff, cheap too

[Netvudu]

I think it

[Jason]

I think it

[Andz]

I think it

[old school]

The Digital Tutors videos get the main points across. I can't recommend them enough! They cover topics that are realistic to a typical Houdini user. Their videos embrace the networks and isn't "that" the Houdini way? Marching up and down node trees, changing flags, parameters, rewiring, etc. To new users it changes the way you approach problems. This has nothing to do with a "shelf". It's the networks that you work with and that is the very first thing the Digital Tutors dvd's deal with after they get through the UI overview.

Tools are tools, no matter where you access them: shelf, tab menu, MMB/RMB on inputs and outputs. You are accessing the identical tool and running the same python code. This is the big shift for nodes in H9. If you are an advanced Houdini user, you will have to deal with python tool scripts sooner rather than later if you want to tune the tool behaviour and get rid of a bunch of hda's that shouldn't have existed in the first place. Just like you modify the desktop, you also tweak the tools to fit your way of working. After you're done, package it up as a Shelf Tool and put it up on the exchange for others to use.

The python tool scripts present more than just a macro. If designed correctly, they do present you the opportunity to design a workflow. Whether you access these tools from the shelf or the tab menu, you have an opportunity to enhance your current way of working. The Maya community has known about that for a great many years. There are many advanced Maya TD's I have met over the years that have built very powerful ways of building complex results in very intuitive ways. Mind you we could have built the same workflows in a fraction of the time. Doesn't matter though. Once it's done, it's done.

Whether you use the shelf or not is your own decision. I use it a great deal when setting up an fx network. It sets up all the correct relationships and builds the objects for efficiency. If it takes a couple clicks to rework the resulting nodes, that's better than writing a bunch of expressions jumping over the paths to build the basic relationships which can be tedious.

I also agree with Jason that DOP networks best be started from the shelf, then dive in and work away. For example if you don't use the shelf to set up a particle based fluid, you may miss out entirely on the way you can use a POP network to effect your fluid. It also places DOP Import SOPs in many of your objects. Very handy as DOPs point to that node. Makes it real easy to know where to effect data before and after the sim when you are working in that object. Adding constraints is a pleasure too. In DOP mode, just select your dop object, press a constraint from the shelf, done.

POPs is another area where I enjoy using the shelf to create and build particle networks. Selecting collision objects is an amazing time saver. Instead of spending 1/2 hour to complete the particle sim, I can now do it in a fraction of the time. It's all about shot throughput! Best of all, the shelf keeps the basic referencing and set-up consistent yet allows you to rework the networks as you wish. The particles are always placed in a separate object. Makes it real easy to turn the sim on and off by just toggling the object display flag, not manage SOP network flags which can be error prone.

The shelf is also about discovery for new users to Houdini as much as it is for existing users.

The shelf is just another method of working in Houdini that complements and enhances the network work flow. It's not about a philosophical statement of manhood.