Houdini Production Studio: Fluid FX [CGMA, Edward Ferrysienanda]
- Publisher
- CGMA
- Product Type
- Video Course
- Author
- Edward Ferrysienanda
- Language
- English
- Duration
- 25:15
- Release date
- Jan 1, 2023
- Skill level
- Project Files
- Yes
- Product Price
- $450
Course Description
Houdini Production Studio: Fluid FX is a Houdini FLIP fluid masterclass focused on creating production-ready water simulations for visual effects and film.This course tackles the process of building large-scale water simulations commonly seen in today’s VFX and film industry. Students will learn core FLIP fluid theories and apply them directly through a wide range of water-based effects, including waterfalls, pipe bursts, fountains, blood, rivers, waves, and large-scale flooding.
The course is designed as a strong next step for students who have already taken an introductory Houdini FX course and want to deepen their understanding of fluid workflows. Throughout the course, students will explore custom emitter tools, fluid-based velocity fields, pumps and sinks, custom meshing networks, white water simulations, and post-processing for large simulation data sets.
All of the material covered in the course builds toward a final “hero” large-scale simulation shot, designed as a showcase piece. By the end of the course, students should feel more confident developing, problem-solving, and tackling a wide variety of water-based effects in Houdini.
What You’ll Learn
- How to work with Houdini FLIP fluids
- How to understand fundamental fluid FX theory
- How to create basic FLIP simulations from scratch
- How to work with emission and collision basics
- How to create a custom emitter tool
- How to manipulate DOP data
- How to create fluid-based velocity fields
- How to use pumps, sinks, divergence, and vorticity
- How to create waterfalls, rivers, waves, fountains, pipe bursts, blood, and other water-based effects
- How to approach shot building during production
- How to work with proxies and optimise environment assets
- How to control the look of water using velocity field injections
- How to build custom fluid meshing networks
- How to work with ParticleFluidSurface and VDB combine
- How to create and manage white water and secondary elements
- How to post-process large simulation data sets
- How to use camera culling, water bending, wetmaps, spray, bubbles, mist, and aeration passes
- How to light, shade, and render water elements
- How to prepare a final large-scale simulation showcase shot
Course Curriculum
Week 1 - Introduction: FLIP Fundamentals
Students begin with the course outline, learning outcomes, structure, and expectations. This week introduces FLIP fundamentals, including incompressibility, POP vs FLIP, how FLIP processes data, Fluid Compress, and different FLIP simulation types such as static tank, emissive, narrow band, and ocean spectrum.Students also create a basic FLIP setup from scratch, cover emission and collision basics, and set up core OTLs, naming conventions, playblast management, and data management practices.
Week 2 - Deep Dive: FLIP Solver
This week focuses on a deeper look at the FLIP solver, the importance of emission, and the use of IDs. Students create an emitter OTL, learn about forces, manipulate DOP data, explore basic meshing, test various basic water setups, and study FLIP post-processing.Week 3 - How to Sell Scale: Waterfall and Waves
Students study the importance of reference, AirField theory and implementation, and how to set up scale and speed. This week includes a simple waterfall setup, a quick look at white water and mist, and preparation for wave crashing.Week 4 - Field Day: Pumps, Sinks, Velocity Injection
This week introduces fields such as pumps, sinks, divergence, and vorticity. Students create a simple river, simulate 2D pyro for rapid velocity injection, and set up a simple rapid river.Week 5 - Shot Building Part 1
Students begin working on the production-style shot. This week covers development tasks, how to approach new FX during production, incremental development, and the importance of communication.Students also set up the scene, proxies, asset optimisation, environment assets, velocity field injections, and controls for the look of the water.
Week 6- Shot Building Part 2: Meshing and Secondaries
Students continue working on the simulation and take a deeper look at meshing theory and ParticleFluidSurface. This week covers VDB combine, creating a custom mesher, and running secondaries.The course also addresses common issues, particle size theory, and blending different water elements together.
Week 7 - Post Processing: Get the Most Out of Your Sims
This week focuses on improving and extracting more from simulations through post-processing. Topics include post-processing tips and tricks, camera culling, water bending, blending and rebalancing elements with VEX, extra passes, additional spray, bubbles, mist, wetmap solver, aeration, and data management.Week 8 - Lighting and Rendering
The final section focuses on lighting and rendering water elements. Students learn about basic shading, IOR, water density, passing extra attributes for lighting, and balancing elements.This section also includes render optimisation, with a lecture and demonstration by Phillip Engstrom. Students have two weeks for the final render, along with a bonus Q&A.
Requirements
Students should have a good basic knowledge of Houdini before taking this course.Recommended prerequisite knowledge:
- Comfortable navigation in Houdini
- Good understanding of SOPs and DOPs
- Basic VEX knowledge
- Intro to FX Using Houdini or equivalent experience
- Houdini 17.5 and up
Students can still take the course with a lower-performance computer, but computations will take longer and some simulations may not reach as high a resolution due to RAM limitations.
Who This Course Is For
This course is designed for intermediate to advanced Houdini users who want to build stronger production-ready fluid FX skills.It is especially useful for:
- FX artists
- Houdini artists
- VFX students
- Technical artists
- Artists interested in FLIP simulations
- Artists who want to create water, rivers, waterfalls, waves, and flooding effects
- Students who have already taken an introductory Houdini FX course
- Artists preparing for production-style fluid simulation work
About the Course
Houdini Production Studio: Fluid FX focuses on practical production workflows for fluid simulation in Houdini.The course combines theory, technical demonstrations, shot-building workflows, post-processing, meshing, secondaries, lighting, and rendering. The goal is to give students working knowledge of Houdini fluids and help them develop confidence in solving different water FX challenges.
Final Result
By the end of the course, students will have built a large-scale “hero” water simulation shot, culminating in a village flooding sequence.Students will also have developed a stronger understanding of Houdini FLIP workflows, water simulation setup, custom emitters, velocity fields, meshing, white water, post-processing, and rendering practices used in production.
Last edited:
