I've been playing around with Houdini 20's new APEX feature ever since I tried out the chicken rig that was made with APEX (one of SideFX's APEX demo projects). APEX is very powerful! I was already obsessed with KineFX in Houdini, APEX is like the cherry on top of the ice cream, completing the whole animation job. What I use to try to do in KineFX is now very simple and easy in APEX. Join me in a Live Stream and I'll show you what I've learned and what NOT to do when dealing with APEX. I'll also show you what I've been working on, brushing up some of my zbrush sculpting skills and rigging it in Houdini with KineFX and building Control Rigs using APEX! Then add simulations just because we can!

In this video, I'll go over some basics of Epic Games' MetaHumans, more of an introduction showcasing the features and existing products that augment the MetaHuman animation for ease of use and performance. I start off by showcasing a short animation video I did using MetaHumans and breakdown on how I did it and what tools I used. This is where I feel Unreal Engine and Houdini will shine when used together.

In this video, I'm going to demonstrate how you can target specific agents in the Crowd SIM in Houdini and apply specific Crowd Triggers for full control! We'll organize the agents and give them unique attributes to be used in the Crowd SIM.

In this video, I continue on from the previous Crowd Basic Concept #6A on Crowd Triggers. I'll be adding more Crowd Triggers and explaining how to set them up and how each trigger affects neighboring triggers.

Adding animations to the characters in the Crowd simulation in Houdini really makes a scene come alive. You can easily create large scenes with Crowds making for a very busy and urban look.

I use a new character that I've made to show case how to setup the animate and setup the IK Controls utilizing all the Basic Concept videos up until now in this Kine-FX mini-series for Houdini! There's a lot of new tips and tricks within this video that are only available in this video, that will help you rig & animate characters in Houdini using Kine-FX!

I go over another technique you can use for Rig Posing with Houdini's KineFX system. By Layering the Full Body IK nodes and organize the rig poses into groups, it will make our Character Posing tasks a lot more efficient. Non-destructive rig posing! We can take this to a new level and tackle some more complex character poses that involves more limbs and requires more adjustments.

I demonstrate how priority can be added to the IK Control Bones and tell Houdini’s Kine-FX system which bones should be followed more closely than others. This will allow us more control over posing the characters and makes posing much easier!

We start digging deeper into Houdini's Kine-FX world by introducing the IK Full Body node. You're going to love this node! It makes character posing so much easier! And if you use the workflow I suggest in the video, you'll find that you don't need any bone remapping at all!

A very super simple introduction for those that have never touched KineFX in Houdini before. This video is meant to be very simple and if you have any experience with KineFX, you should probably skip to the next KineFX Animation Basic Concept #2 IK Controls.

Head Generator HDA! Create different character heads on the fly just by dragging the timeline in Houdini, each unique frame number will generate a different head mesh. Make custom adjustments on the head by tweaking the sliders on the HDA. And it gets better! All onward randomly generate heads will be based on your changes!