elephantvfx

Houdini Solaris / Katana interoperability part 1/2

Video in English: https://youtu.be/iDMVZKomJpQ

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/8A-hLAWPAnM

Solaris Katana interoperability part 1/2 - trailer

Hello patrons,

This is small trailer for the video Houdini Solaris / Katana interoperability part 1/2.
The full video is published only for patreons in the next post.
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 Kata...

Lighter for Houdini Solaris - FREE

Quick overview of the lightin tool "Lighter" created by Anton Grabovskiy for Houdini Solaris. Check Anton Github here: 2023-08-07 20:48:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Shooting HDRIs for VFX - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/u23OzNK44EE

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/4LzEyWLWAto

Shooting HDRIs for VFX - trailer

This 3 hours video is droping next.
Everything you need to know to start shooting and processing HDRIs to create image based lighting rigs for lookdev and lighting.

Thanks!
Xuan.

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Trailer: https://youtu.be/q6sMXtxEngM

Casi 3 horas donde muestro como capturar y procesar HDRIs para crear rigs de image based lighting.
El video completo en el siguiente post, disponible para patrons.
2023-07-17 15:08:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Houdini Solaris Dummy Crowds - FREE

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. 2023-07-08 12:14:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Houdini Solaris and Katana. Custom attributes. FREE

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.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILLQ3WF6SDs

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En ...

Professional photogrammetry 03 - videos

Videos in English.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/lBxADHB9stY
Part 2: https://youtu.be/ezSmuZBcAqA

Videos en Castellano.

Parte 1: https://youtu.be/jolddU3GM_U
Parte 2: https://youtu.be/LlT6rd-jSro

Professional photogrammetry 03 - trailer

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...

Discord community.

Hello! I hope everyone is having a great week.
I just created a Discord community for us to interact with, ask questions and have fun.

Not sure how much time I'd be able to spend there but worth giving it a try.
Please follow the link: https://discord.gg/6JBDXGEQ

USD in depth part 06 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/MwWIZtxCi4c

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/cSQtOso7KkY

USD in depth part 06 - trailer

Hello everyone,

USD in depth part 06 is dropping today.
This time is all about lighting and rendering.
We will take a look at all the lighting/lookdev/rendering tools available in Solaris.

We will focus mainly on Karma, as it is the propietary Houdini rendering engine and hopefully something that we all can use in production soon.

We will introduce concepts like sequence lighting, shot overrides, interactive render filters, etc.

Some of the topics covered. 2023-04-03 17:53:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Professional photogrammetry 02 - videos

Videos in English.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/c3hHMh6yl5U
Part 2: https://youtu.be/cHVIp0fe2XI
Part 3: https://youtu.be/hy-3mL1ShBo
Part 4: https://youtu.be/cw4obUDyxUE
Part 5: 2023-02-02 20:40:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Professional photogrammetry 02 - trailer

Here is the trailer for "Professional photogrammetry episode 02".

In this 4-ish hours video I will talk about scanning in natural environments. We will cover everything needed for scanning and processing two different types of natural assets.

The first asset is a 3D asset, the second one is a ground surface. Both scanning and processing workflows are completely different for each, but hopefully after this video, you should be able to grow your own library of natural environment ...

USD in depth part 05 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/gUA7te5eAIQ

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/SrsXZXugPf4

USD in depth part 05 - trailer

Hello patrons,

Part 05 of the USD series is here.

This is a 3 hours video about working with FX layers in USD.
We will explore different situations where we will deal with roundtrips from LOPs to SOPs to LOPs. We will have a look at different types of FX that require different approaches when working with USD.

From vellum simulations, to rigid bodies or pyro simulations. Nothing very fancy but hopefully, it will give you the information that you need when dealing with ...

Mix 05 - videos

Mix 05 part 01 English: https://youtu.be/1V2_nIyD1mU

Mix 05 part 02 English: https://youtu.be/XI3iPeffQVQ

Mix 05 part 01 Spanish: https://youtu.be/cip-LNrdDWI

Mix 05 part 02 Spanish: https://youtu.be/TMKw...

Mix 05 - trailer

Hello patrons,

This mix is not really a mix. What I mean by that is that the two topics covered in this video have a relationship between each other but also with a topic that we will be discussing soon in the USD series.

In the first part of the video we are going to be talking about ingesting lidar scans of natural environments in our pipeline. We will process the lidars to be used as heightfields. Then, we will extract some attributes based on the pointcloud data, later we wi...

USD in depth part 04 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/kVcnNNayj6k

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/ppHnf-8Txl8

USD in depth part 04 - trailer

Hello patrons,

USD in depth part 04 is here.
In the last episode we talked about asset authoring in USD and Solaris. I spent many hours after that publishing all the assets from Aninmal Logic's lab scene using my asset creation HDA, in the way that I like to publish assets. Now that everything is ready we will move on to the next stages of the pipeline.

In this video we will talk about assembly, the process where we create a set using all the available assets created before. ...

Professional photogrammetry 01 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/sFKZSv9p_QA

Video in Spanis: https://youtu.be/sT0flv8P9gM

Professional photogrammetry 01 - trailer

Hello patrons,

Let's take a break from the USD training, we'll come back to it in the next video.
For now, let's enjoy a 4 hours video about professional photogrammetry.
I reckon this will be a short series, maybe 3 videos about photogrammetry acquisition and processing.

In today's video we will talk about cross polarization in a controlled environment for capturing 3D assets. We will discuss how polarization works, camera gear, how to take photos properly and how to proce...

USD in depth part 03 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/PkhBj-8o_yQ

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/l-JxfJmA9AY

USD in depth part 03 - trailer

Hello patrons!

USD in depth part 03 is here. This is where the action starts to happen.
We will spend around 3 hours in Houdini Solaris talking about asset creation.
I have a bunch of different scenarios that you will face while working with USD and assets. From very simple assets to more complicated ones with multiple variations for geometry and lookdev.

While exploring all the different options, we will create a re-usable template that you can use to standardize all your...

USD in depth part 02 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/Ufym94LEnxU

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/e8D9LwldCuQ

USD in depth part 02 - trailer

Hello patrons,

USD in depth part 02 is here.
This is another dense video, about 3 hours long talking about USD.
In the first video we talked about data and structuring, in this second video we will be talking about composition in USD.

USD layers can be written and read in different ways, it is very important to know how to use the different composition arcs, specifiers, and everything else that composes a USD file. This will dictate the way you structure your assets and yo...

USD in depth, part 01 - videos

Video in English: https://youtu.be/tMC_0smnlR0

Video in Spanish: https://youtu.be/evwA9yfzRqM

USD in depth, part 01 - trailer

Hello Patrons,

I'm starting a new series called "USD in depth", where I will be exploring everything USD related. As you probably know USD is a new standard pipeline system/file format based on layers that contain scene descriptions. It is supported by the VFX platform and is or will be the core of many visual effects studios and animation companies around the globe.

In this first video (more than 3 hours) we will be talking about what defines USD. Type of data, USD structure, t...

Back to full HD.

Hello,

I'll be recording fullHD in the future, not everyone has a 4K monitor and some people have issues since the resolution is too big.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Xuan.

Deep compositing, going deeper - videos

English video: https://youtu.be/jXBLs3hPowo

Spanish video: https://youtu.be/eVdzA9Rp-T8