Grooming 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is the first video of my grooming in Houdini series.
The video is a bit longer than I anticipated, 4:46 hours, but we need to start by covering the very basics of grooming before doing any real grooming work.

This is what I will be covering in the video.

- Grooming workflow in Houdini.
- Grooming tools.
- Cartoon style grooming.
- Full grooming of one character.
- Overview of grooming of another character.

In future videos I will be covering many more grooming related topics, I explain the whole plan in the introduction of this video.

All the info on my Patreon.

Stay tunned.
Thanks!
Xuan.

Solaris backplates and live compositing /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

I'm planning to realease two more videos before the end of the year, and most lilkely I will stop posting on this Patreon in 2025 let's see.

For now, this is the first video that I'm releasing in December.
Solaris backplates and live compositing. Houdini has re-designed COPs and now you can do much more without leaving the software when it comes to compositing, specially for slap comps.

We will take a look at the new tools and we will do a simple slap comp similar to the ones we do in production.

All the info on my Patreon.

Crowds part 03 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This is the final video for my Crowds series.
In this video we are going to talk about using ragdolls in crowds systems.

Of course, there are many other topics that we could discuss when it comes to crowds, but for now, let's end this series here. Please let me know if you would like to see more crowds content in the future. Otherwise, please feel free to suggest other topics as well.

Al the info on my Patreon.

Thanks!

Crowds part 02 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

As promised, this is the second part of the crowds series.
In this very long video, almost 3.30 hours, I will cover creating agents from scratch. We will start by building the rigs bone by bone. Then retargetting mocap from different sources, creating collision layers, etc, and finally creating the crowd simulations.

We will be adding cloth and hair layers for simulation.
This is a more advanced crowd setup, so I encourage you to take a look at the first video.

I will conclude this series with Crowds part 03 - ragdolls, hopefully next month.

Thanks!
Xuan.

Crowds part 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This is the first of two parts of my Houdini crowds training.
The first video is an introduction to the system. I will cover everything from agent creation, motion capture clips, props attachment, configuring contraints for feet contact, transition clips, and rendering in Solaris with Karma.

I will also explain in the video what are the plans for the second video, which will be a bit more advanced and it will touch on some important topics not covered in the first video.

I hope you like it.
Head to my Patreon to get all of this.

Thanks,
Xuan.

Blender camera tracking /  by Xuan Prada

Is blender good enough for camera tracking?
Let's find out in this long video (almost 4hours).

I'm going to try to solve different camera tracks, starting with the most basic and simple exercise to understand how Blender works when it comes to camera tracking.
We will also look into more complex shots, recreating different 3D cameras for different types of shots.
After that we will also look into 2D tracking and planar tracking to solve other types of VFX shots.

We are also going to look into camera projections and compositing inside of Blender, nothing too fancy tho, everything in the context of camera tracking.

Overall a good introduction to camera tracking in Blender, and hopefully some valuable information that you can use in your own projects.

All the info on my Patreon.

Thanks!
Xuan.

Professional photogrammetry 04 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello!

This is the first of two videos about drone photogrammetry of my series "Professional photogrammetry".
In this video I will explain everything that I know about scanning for visual effects using commercial drones.

We will talk about shooting patterns, surveying extra data, equipment, flight missions, etc. And we will also start processing some of the data sets that I have available for you.
The video is around 3 hours long and it will continue in the next episode of this series.

Head over my patreon for more information

Thanks!
Xuan.

Snow piles in Houdini /  by Xuan Prada

In this video I will show you my process of building snow piles for your environments.
This might be a bit overkilling but it is a nice way of getting super detailed props for close up shots.
I basically use vellum grains to get a decent looking sim. Once the setup is done, you can get variations quickly and export single frames to build multiple props efficently.

All the info on my Patreon.

Intro to VEX for artists 01 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

I start the new year with an introduction to VEX for artists.
VEX is a crucial tool for any Houdini artists, it doesn't matter if you use Houdini for procedural modelling, environment creation, scene assembly and rendering or FX, you will have to use some VEX at some point.

This video covers the basics of VEX from scratch, there is no need to know any coding at all, and I will be making some basic examples along the way. From something very simple to more complicated setups.

My idea is to record 2 or 3 videos about VEX over the next few months,
This is the time to take your Houdini skills to the next level by understanding the most common uses of VEX.

Thanks!

Info on my Patreon.

Intro to TOPs /  by Xuan Prada

Hello Patrons,

This month I bring you an introductory video about TOPs.
TOPs is Houdini network that allows you to automate processes (amon other things).
I use it quite a lot for creating variations or wedges, specially when building procedural assets, scattering systems or environments. I also use it a lot to create different variations for simulations, and I use it specially for wedging lighting when designing sequences. But you can really use it for anything in Houdini.

This is a two hours introduction to the TOPs workflow, I hope you find it useful.
All the info on my Patreon.

Houdini's window box /  by Xuan Prada

Hello,

I just published on my Patreon a video about Houdini’s window box.
This video is about how to use the new window box system in Houdini. One of those tools that I've been using for many years at different VFX studios, but now it works out of the box with Houdini and Karma. I hope you find it useful and you can start using it soon in your projects!

All the info on my Patreon site.

Intro to gaussian splatting /  by Xuan Prada

Bibliography

  • https://repo-sam.inria.fr/fungraph/3d-gaussian-splatting/

  • https://github.com/aras-p/UnityGaussianSplatting

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFOy354zf9E

Hardware

- You need an Nvidia GPU with at least 24GB VRAM.

Software

  • Git https://git-scm.com/downloads

  • Once installed, open a command line and type git --version to check if it's working.

  • Anaconda https://www.anaconda.com/download

  • It will install all the packages and wrappers that you need.

  • CUDA toolkit 11.8 https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit-archive

  • Once installed open a command line and type nvcc --version to check if it's working.

  • Visual Studio with C++ https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/older-downloads/

  • Once installed open Visual Studio Installer and install Desktop development C++.

  • Colmap https://github.com/colmap/colmap/releases

  • This tool is for creating camera positions.

  • Add it to environment variables.

  • Edit environment variables, doble click on "path" variable and add a new one and paste the path where Colmap is stored.

  • ImageMagik https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php

  • This tool is for resizing images.

  • Test it by typing these lines one by one in the command line.

  • magick logo: logo.gif

  • magick identify logo.gif

  • magick logo.gif win:

  • FFMPEG https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

  • Add it to environment variables.

  • Open a command line and type ffmpeg to check if it's working.

  • To convert a video to photos, go to the folder where ffmpeg is downloaded.

  • Type ffmpeg.exe -i pathToVideo.mov -vf fps=2 out%04d.jpg

  • Finally restart your computer.

How to capture gaussian splats?

  • Same rules as photogrammetry but less images are needed.

  • Do not move too fast, we don't want blurry frames.

  • Take between 200 - 1000 photos.

  • Fixed exposure, otherwise it will create flickering in the final model.

Processing

  • Create a folder called "dataset".

  • Inside create another folder called "input" and place all the photos.

  • Now we need to use Colmap to obtain the camera poses. You could use RealityCapture or Metashape to do the same thing.

  • We can do this from the command line, but for simplicity let's use the gui.

  • Open Colmap, file - new. Set the database to your "dataset" folder and call it database.db Set the images to the "input folder". Save.

  • Processing - feature extraction. Enable "shared for all images if there is no changing in zoom in your photos". Click on extract. This will take a few minutes.

  • Processing - feature matching. Sequential is faster and exhaustive more precisse. This will take a few minutes.

  • Save the Colmap scene in "dataset" - "colmap". (create the folder).

  • Reconstruction - Reconstruction options. Uncheck multiple_models as we are reconstructing a single scene.

  • Reconstruction - Start reconstruction. This will take the longer, potentially hours, depending on the amount of photos.

  • Once Colmap has finished you will see the camera poses and the sparse pointcloud.

  • File - Export model and save it in "dataset" - "distorted" - "sparse" - "0". Create directories.

Train the 3D gaussian splatting model

  • Open a command line and type git clone https://github.com/graphdeco-inria/gaussian-splatting --recursive

  • This will be downloaded in your users folder. gaussian-splatting

  • Open an anaconda prompt and go to the directory where the gaussian-splatting was downloaded.

  • Type these line one at a time.

  • SET DISTUTILS_USE_SDK=1

  • conda env create --file environment.yml

  • conda activate gaussian_splatting

  • Cd to the folder where gaussian splatting was downloaded.

  • Type these lines one at a time.

  • pip install plyfile tqdm

  • pip install submodules/diff-gaussian-rasterization

  • pip install submodules/simple-knn

  • Before training the model we need to undistor the images.

  • Type python convert.py -s $FOLDER_PATH --skip_matching

  • This is going to create a folder called sparse and another one called stereo, and also a couple of files.

  • Train the model.

  • python train.py -s $FOLDER_PATH -m $FOLDER_PATH/output

  • This will train the model and export two pointclouds, one at 7000 iterations and another one at 30000 iterations.

Visualizing the model

  • Download the viewer here: https://repo-sam.inria.fr/fungraph/3d-gaussian-splatting/binaries/viewers.zip

  • From a terminal: SIBR_gaussianViewer_app -m $FOLDER_PATH/output

  • Unity 2022.3.9f1

  • Load the project. https://github.com/aras-p/UnityGaussianSplatting

  • Tools - Gaussian splats - Create.

  • Select the pointcloud, create.

  • Select the gaussian splats game object and attach the pointcloud.

  • Do your thing!

Solaris Katana interoperability part 2/2 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

In this video we will finish this mini series about Solaris and Katana interoperability.
I'll be covering the topics that I didn't have time to cover in the first video, including.

- Manual set dressing from Solaris to Katana.
- Hero instancing from Solaris to Katana.
- background instancing and custom attributes from Solaris to Katana.
- Dummy crowds from Solaris to Katana.
- Everything using USD of course.

There are many more things that could be covered when it comes to Solaris and Katana interoperability, I'm pretty sure that I'll be covering some of them in future USD videos.

All the info on my Patreon.

Solaris Katana interoperability part 1/2 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is small trailer for the video Houdini Solaris / Katana interoperability part 1/2.
The full video is published only for Patrons.
The whole thing is divided in two videos, the first one is around 2.5 hours and hopefully next month I can publish the second video covering the rest of the topics.

In this first video we are covering.

- Working template in Solaris.
- Working template in Katana.
- Full assets from Solaris to Katana.
- Modifying/overriding looks in Katana.
- Geometry assets from Solaris to Katana.
- Publishing looks as KLF.
- Publishing looks as USD files.
- Full assembly USD files.

All the information on my Patreon.

Thanks!
Xuan.

Shooting HDRIs /  by Xuan Prada

In my next Patreon video I will explain how to capture HDRIs for lighting and lookdev in visual effects. Then we will process all the data in Nuke and Ptgui to create the final textures. Finally everything will be tested using IBL in Houdini and Karma.

This video will be available on my Patreon very soon. Please consider becoming a subscriber to have full access to my library of VFX training.

https://www.patreon.com/elephantvfx

Thanks!

Dummy crowds in Houdini Solaris /  by Xuan Prada

Quick video showing how to use one of my oldest tricks to create “dummy crowds“, but this time in Solaris, which makes this even easier and faster than using SOPs or MOPs.

I’ve used a flavour of this dummy crowds technique in many shots for a bunch of movies. It is very limited in so many ways, but when it works it works. You can populate your environments in minutes!

Please consider subscribing to my Patreon so I can keep making professional VFX training. Thanks. www.patreon.com/elephantvfx

Houdini Solaris and Katana. Custom attributes /  by Xuan Prada

This is a quick video showcasing how to use custom attributes in Houdini Solaris for USD scattering systems. The USD layer will be exported to Katana to do procedural look-dev using the exported custom parameters.

This technique will be explored in depth in my upcoming video about Houdini Solaris and Katana interoperability.

Subscribe to my Patreon to have full access to my entire library of visual effects training.
www.patreon.com/elephantvfx

Professional photogrammetry 03 /  by Xuan Prada

Hello patrons,

This is the third episode of "Professional photogrammetry".
Two videos, around 4 hours long where we will talk about Photometric stereo scanning. We will discuss the different setups that we have available for this kind of scanning. Then we will work on three different exercises, starting with the calibration of the setup followed by some fabric and vegetation scanning.

Finally, we will take a look at how to use coded targets for variable reduction in our scans.
Hope you learn something new and have some fun.

All the info on my Patreon page.

Thanks!
Xuan.