Tutorials Poll

[altbighead]

It's about time SESI takes a clue from this tutorial poll and starts covering the learning resources on shading/rendering aspect.

There are a handful of information on mantra and vex shader writing

but most of them assumed that you have prior knowledge of renderman and cg knowledge.

I would really love to see topics like

*Optimizing mantra based on different real world production scenarios.

*VEX shader writing 101 to advanced for people with no prior knowledge of renderman .

*Using VOP to create mid-level VOP shaders that can generate different AOV passes.

*Dealing with motion blur,displacement , character animation .

*Tips and Tricks on efficiently using SSS,Global Illumination ,Physical Base Rendering .

*How to write shaders for Physical Base Rendering.

Until then most of the new comer and user coming from other software gonna be still struggling with rendering decent image in Houdini.

May I suggest to take a look at modo training VTM pages for inspiration.They have 14 pages of video tutorials goodness.

http://www.luxology.com/training/training.aspx?page=0

[zasid]

I think lot of houdini areas are unexplored.For example the recently fire effects files posted at SESI websites should have been documented properly like a video tutorial or something .If the internees cud creat such file they should be able to create a tutorial out of it because m sure a fresh beginner cant get them.All the softwares as above like mode and blender properly document everything in video tutorials and the pace is fast .Houdini is putting the same effort now with new interface but the pace of video base training is still quite slow and alot of things are still a mystery...hope SESI will make the pace a little faster.Offcourse VEX is one of the most important one ...!as Houdini doesn't offer millions of shaders like vray or Maya Shader library,but does offer a powerful system to built custom shaders which is still a mystery for many new beginer....

[TheUsualAlex]

Aren't most of those VEX shaders can be learned through rman's? Seemed like much of concepts carried well across to vex, no?

[andrewlowell]

I would very much like to see a short manual or set of training videos ... to something of the effect of "THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO RENDERING IN HOUDINI" ... something I could actually do at home. That would be great. It's fine if it's similar to renderman, but I would want something I could actually test exclusively with Houdini. I'm sure they aren't much different and if anything Mantra is probably better; doesn't mean it's an easy thing to learn if what you have to do is cross-reference renderman documentation and hack through scantily documented vop help files

So hey .. for you Mantra experts: If I wanted to really learn rendering in Houdini. What do I have to do to do that, what set of stuff. LINKS please

[altbighead]

I would very much like to see a short manual or set of training videos ... to something of the effect of "THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO RENDERING IN HOUDINI" ... something I could actually do at home. That would be great. It's fine if it's similar to renderman, but I would want something I could actually test exclusively with Houdini. I'm sure they aren't much different and if anything Mantra is probably better; doesn't mean it's an easy thing to learn if what you have to do is cross-reference renderman documentation and hack through scantily documented vop help files

So hey .. for you Mantra experts: If I wanted to really learn rendering in Houdini. What do I have to do to do that, what set of stuff. LINKS please

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[_suz_]

shading/rendering please

....we need a guide to the "MAKE MY STUFF LOOK KIFF" button

[JDenker]

where is the fun then..

with this button : MAKE MY STUFF LOOK KIFF

com'on

i also voted for shading

[Fomal]

I went for intermediate shading / rendering and advanced chops. I'm not into character modeling or animation so those are irrelevant to me.

I know mantra can be great, but as a person who jumped from maya (mental ray) i'm not trained enough to get my hands on proper shader writing / rendering techniques. We had renderman and some vex classes but still, grasping the idea of actually creating your own materials is hard. Especially with almost no training material out there. With the basic understanding of it you want to develop your skills, which is almost impossible at this point.

Next to that I love signal processing techniques. Using audio / midi / geo and procedural systems to create something unique, almost impossible without coding. That's why chops can be amazing but this rare future isn't supported or pointed out enough. Especially for cross platform artists this can be a real motivation to give houdini a go. Like people involved with maxmsp / jitter, processing or experimental music. It's not only the fx or cg artist that can benefit from the package.

Edited July 15, 2008 by Fomal

[KrisStaber]

would love to see some expert rigging tutorials

or at least intermediate

thanks

[daskog]

Some rendering for production tutorials would be great.

Also some basics, like: how to get good quality renders, how to render water nice etc

[nomad]

It would be great to show different methods of creating flames and clouds in houdini.

There is a great fuids explanation from Allegro.

But it is not the only method to create the smoke or the fire for example. I saw the greatest pics of the fire doing by procedural shaders in houdini, and the render time of the frame was not longer than three minutes. Sometimes it is more useful than the fluid method.

There are many ways to do the same task in houdini.

The combinations of this ways is one of the main distinguished feature of the SESI software.

Another words it would be great to show the strong connections between operators by giving the examples: geometry driven by VOPs, VOPs driven by geometry, particles driven by COPs. And the DOPs connecting with them.

Edited November 3, 2008 by nomad

[bhaveshpandey]

Voted for DOPs, Particles, and Shaders----Intermediate level.

i'm a Houdini beginner, trying to scratch the surface..

since i have worked on node based compositing apps and have little knowledge in computer languages

i'm able to make sense out of the tutorials (by setting up an analogy between CG and Compositing) BUT the thing is we need to be able to think of similar or other solutions too AND do it ourselves.

The issue with beginners is that we might know what a Copy Sop does or some other node does, but we find it difficult to come up with

different and innovative ideas using the same familiar nodes.

here's an Opinion:

we need to also try to think from live action's point of view coz at some point we will also be integrating CG with Live Action

so instead of simulating just a cracking wall or piece of glass etc why not put the process in front of people (beginners). theres a lot of hardwork in rendering

the CG the right way and then compositing it.

here's recent glitch i faced (which was a big reality check for me..)

i was working on a fluid simulation(colored fluid) and i did not get that "fluid" feeling looking at my renders. It resembled more like Glass.

Stephen Tucker at SideFX forum was really great help. He put up a simple render image of fluid which was far far better and more importantly looked like

a fluid atleast.

I asked him about the same and also requested a Hip file.

The only extra thing (from rendering point of view) he did was to over ride the attenutaion of the fluid at SOP level (coz i had Cd attrib on my Fluid surface and wanted it to be of same colour) and set it to the $CR,$CR,$CB for using the colour on the surface.

Sometimes its smaller details which work wonders.

I guess we need more integrated tutorials( as in the approach of our workflow when we know we will comp it later) which i know will be very very exhausting

But i think its worth giving a try.

just my opinions.

Learning Houdini and experimenting with it is real fun.

Cheers

[michael]

Happy Birthday internos

have a good one!

[Andz]

Happy Birthday internos

have a good one!

:ban: :-)

Edited March 18, 2009 by Andz

[stevenong]

Hmmm... it seems Michael posted to this thread accidentally or the forum moved the post here. Marc?

[Marc]

I'm not sure if I can anymore. It's become a bit of a thing now... . If I move it do I move all these posts too? And if I do will they still make sense? And if they don't make sense, do I delete them? And... and... and exactly how much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

See... I just don't know the answer to all these questions.

M

[michael]

AH WHAT THE HELL...?Q!?!^%*&^

stupid birthdays...

JUST IGNORE ALL THIS!

grumble grumble....

[stevenong]

Alright, Michael can clean up after himself if he wants.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

[fxrod]

This is a good poll! I would LOVE to see some advanced particle tutorials. Seems like the most obvious thing is overlooked. Most tutorials I've found on particles online are pretty basic to intermediate at best. Most of the techniques and tricks I've learned are word of mouth or on production. Would love to see a book similar to Houdini on the Spot that just highlights POPs and POPs tricks. For that matter, Houdini deserves a book for each context.

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

Render passes and depth or z-map . Is it possible to post an otl where passes could be exported easily as in 3delight , renderman and mental ray in maya 2009 ? In houdini 10 is a shame to make acrobatic vop/vex manipulations to add export nodes then figure it out how to plug them to the network . The add extra image planes is so limited . Well if tutorials can solve this problem for most situation then "welcome" .

Regards