If you want something to grow over time or maybe shrink over time, SOP Solvers make it easy. SOP Solvers are perfect for animations where you have an object evolving over time, from frame to frame.

Building upon that collision detection, we can also use the SDF to deform the object upon the collision. Using the SDF value and some math, the grid can be deformed to create footprints stamped on by the Torus.

SDF is short for signed distance field and describes the interior volume of an object. How thick an object is from the middle to the surface? How deep does the cylinder extend? From any point inside an object, using the SDF, it is possible to easily grab the distance to the surface of the object in order to know the depth.

Step by step mathematical explanation of the Sine Wave function and how it’s used in defining motion. Increasing the frequency and increasing the amplitude and flipping the entire curve function.

Javascript vs Houdini. Demo of Javascript code of a simple 2D Version of a Houdini Foreach Loop scene that eats away at a cube. This is a quick demonstration of how coding line by line is different from the nodes in Houdini, but similar because they are derived from the same concepts.

I demonstrate how to use a procedural workflow to create a bottle geometry from scratch. This project finishes off from the previous project and makes it more complete by hollowing out the interior of the bottle geometry and adds thickness to the edges. And also still using a procedural workflow.

Procedural Modeling has infinite possible ways of doing things, and the way Houdini does its point number assignment makes it very convenient to write VEX code to automate things. Using VEX into your procedural modeling workflow is a huge advantage.

This post will go over some tips on how to export the Height Field terrain as an HDA (Houdini Digital Asset) and import it into Unreal Engine as a playable environment or game asset.

Houdini’s Height Fields provides a simple and fast way of building complex landscape geometry, but what if I wanted to hull out areas in the terrain to make a tunnel? Cave? Secret underground path for a game?

Volume VOP’s (visual operators) are extremely powerful! Volume VOP’s like any other VOP nodes in Houdini is multi-threaded and all operations are run in parallel utilizing all the cores in your computer. Fast and flexible, who could ask for more?

Everything inside a VOP (visual operators) node is multi-threaded and makes use of the multiple cores in your computer. You are given a wide range of attributes that inherit the values from the connected parent node, which can then be used for further manipulation inside the Point VOP node.

This is an explanation of the math behind how the Height Ramp in the Height Field Mask by Feature node in Houdini is calculated.

Houdini’s Seamless Integration with Height Fields. The Height Fields fit in very nicely with the rest of Houdini’s infamous simulation tools. I can create a random test terrain within a minute and then use it for fracturing in a destruction simulation right away.

Core concepts for Volumes. How exactly is volumes made up of voxels? How can you picture it? If you’re new to volumes, this is a great refresher.

Guide through Light Parameters & Redshift Render settings for Volumetric Scattering in Houdini scenes.

This post explains a specific node, “set_density” and how the math works in calculating the density attribute. I’ll try to explain the math behind it and how the node works.

Create whitewater on FLIP Fluids with a few mouse clicks using Houdini’s Shelf Tool!

Rendering volumes in Houdini. Learn how to setup a Redshift volume material and use volume primitives to drive the material renders.

SideFX’s Siggraph 2019 presentation was held in Los Angela’s on July 30, this past Tuesday at the time of writing this. SideFX announced Solaris to the public and mentioned many impressive updates that out coming out to Houdini in the upcoming release. In Houdini 18, we’re going to get a new context window that will take advantage of USD (Universal Scene Description) and a new CPU renderer named Karma replacing Mantra.