Learn how to create a flowmap using the new Flow Map tools in Houdini. You will see how control the flowmap velocities by using terrain geometry, a curve, and also how to manually comb it if you wish for more specific control. Then export the mesh geo, bake out the flowmap, and assemble your riverbed in Unreal Engine.



You can download the scene data seen in the video here! It includes an annotated .hip, textures (.tga) and .fbx files.

Software Builds Used

Houdini 16.5.268
Unreal Engine 4.17

CREATED BY

ANDREAS GLAD

Andreas has spent a third of his life as a VFX artist in the games industry working on games of all shapes and sizes. From gritty explosions in Battlefield 1 to whacky powerups in Disney Universe He recently realized that there is a despicable lack of educational material for realtime vfx so he decided to try and do something about it. In both his work and tutorials he strives to live by KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Finding simple solutions to hard problems has become an addiction and it's the reason he's neck deep in Houdini. He's currently freelancing for some of the biggest names in both games and VR.

More from Andreas Glad

COMMENTS

  • ztyqaz111 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    nice job~

  • Enivob 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    Nice overview, thanks!

  • anon_user_75466869 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    is a beautiful tutorial !!
    I followed at minute 8:55 where are the tool " sop_create_flowmap1" but my apprentice version does not have it tool, it is not in this version, it hurts me, but I admire each Houdini minute : )

    thanks.

    • andreas.glad 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

      Hey Alfredo! Are you running 16.5? If so, find the games tool shelf. It will be nearly empty. There will be one button called update toolshelf. If you click that it will download and install the tools for you. Let me know if that's still not working for you.

  • anon_user_75466869 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    yes! and I already found it, I'll continue it right nooow, thanks : )

    • andreas.glad 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

      Awesome! :)

  • anon_user_75466869 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    thank you Andreas, until 18:40 I arrived.
    the rest is no longer Houdini and I have no experience, but thank you very much because I am still learning in progress in many things : )

    • andreas.glad 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

      Good job getting that far!

      If you are interested, you can download Unreal for free and continue. My example files are included so you will be able to follow the rest of the tutorial even if you can´t export from apprentice.
      https://www.unrealengine.com/download

  • anon_user_75466869 6 years, 4 months ago  | 

    Yes, I watched a few more minutes about and it's something else and a software interesting, I appreciate you helping me move forward, and is ok, maybe I'll.

    also on Pinterest, here, and in a couple of other sites more there are tutorials of Houdini for keep on : )

  • Izwikeutfff 5 years ago  | 

    This tutorial seem so good, but, I use Houdini 17.5 and i don't find Flowmap, I instaled Game Developement toolset, I don't find him. Can you help me please ?

  • foy8 4 years, 11 months ago  | 

    The example files do not appear to be functioning correctly in Houdini 17.5.

    I am seeing errors similar to this:

    Warning
    This node is using an incomplete asset definition. It will not
    function properly until the asset library containing the full
    definition is installed.

    With that said, I did try to replace the old nodes with the current game dev nodes (1.149). The current flowmap obstacle node does not have a "Distortion Scale" or "Number of Samples" variables. When I hook up all the current gamedev flowmap nodes I do not get the same visual results.

    • Alexandre Dizeux 4 years, 10 months ago  | 

      same here, would be nice to find a solution to be able to use it with houdini 17.5
      :/

  • penviro 4 years, 11 months ago  | 

    Thank you! very much sir for such a great tutorial

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