Create art-directable building demolition FX in Houdini
The Gnomon Workshop has released Controlled Building Demolition FX in Houdini, a detailed guide to creating an art-directable destruction simulation, recorded by Timucin Ozger, head of FX at Mr. X.
The workshop is aimed at complete newcomers as well as VFX veterans, with “only a basic understanding of the Houdii user interface” required to follow along with the tutorial.
Discover how to create an art-directable building demolition effect in Houdini from scratch
Over the course of more than five hours of video training, Ozger cover the process of creating a destruction simulation in Houdini from start to finish, beginning with an empty scene file.
The workshop covers key rigid body dynamics (RBD) techniques using the RBD Bullet Solver, including pre-fracturing the model, creating constraints, and secondary simulations such as debris and pyro effects.
Houdini features covered include TOP networks, the RBD Material Fracture node, packed primitives, RBD constraints, custom DOP set-ups for smoke, sparse Pyro sims, for-loops with compiled blocks, and instances.
Ozger also reveals how to trigger all the events with custom objects to create a complete building demolition effect inside Houdini, and how to render the results using Redshift.
As well as the training videos themselves, viewers of the workshop can download the Houdini project files.
About the artist
Timucin (Tim) Ozger is head of FX at award-winning visual effects studio Mr. X. He previously worked for other leading VFX studios including Weta Digital, MPC and Platige Image.
His movie credits include The Suicide Squad, Godzilla vs. Kong, Aquaman and Ghost in the Shell.
Pricing and availability
Controlled Building Demolition FX in Houdini is available via an online subscription to The Gnomon Workshop. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $490/year, and provide access to over 300 tutorials.
Read more about Controlled Building Demolition FX in Houdini on The Gnomon Workshop’s website
Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.