Saturday, June 13th, 2026 Posted by Jim Thacker

Tutorial: Snow Simulation Workflows in Houdini


The Gnomon Workshop has released Snow Simulation Workflows in Houdini, a guide to Houdini’s Vellum toolset, recorded by Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Diego de Mendizabal.

The intermediate-level workshop provides over six hours of video training in Houdini.

Master professional snow simulation workflows for VFX and animation
In the workshop, de Mendizabal reveals how to use Houdini’s Vellum toolset to simulate snow, including interactions with a character wading through deep snow.

The workshop sets out an iterative, art-directable approach that can be extended to sand or mud simulations, covering how to optimize the setup and how to troubleshoot problems.

As well as the primary snow simulation, the workshop provides Pyro and POP techniques for secondary effects, and touches on using Solaris and Karma for rendering snow.

Aside from free HDR light probes, every asset used in the workshop is built in Houdini, with full downloadable project files provided alongside the training videos themselves.

About the artist
Diego de Mendizabal is a Senior FX TD at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

He has over 15 years of professional experience as a VFX artist, with credits including Dune: Part One, Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and GOAT.

Price and availability
Snow Simulation Workflows in Houdini is available via a subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, which provides access to over 300 tutorials.

Subscriptions cost $57/month or $499/year. Free trials are available.

Read more about Snow Simulation Workflows in Houdini on The Gnomon Workshop’s website


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