LEARN. JUMPSTART VOL.1 – INTRO TO PROCEDURAL MODELLING

learn. Jumpstart Vol.1 – Intro to Procedural Modelling from Adam Swaab

This is Volume 1 in a jumpstart series of videos for SideFX’s Houdini.  Unsure or perhaps intimidated about how to learn Houdini?  Industry veteran, Adam Swaab, will take you through his learning process, step by step, using project-based techniques to get you up to speed with this program.

Rather than exhaustively discussing every window, panel, menu item and button, Adam embraces a “learn what you NEED to know” approach.  In this first lesson about procedural modeling, you build a simple chair model that can be easily customised during the modelling pipeline.  Adam explores the procedural nature of Houdini, showing how one model of a chair can easily be turned into thousands of unique models with just a few button clicks.

This tutorial series is beginner level and assumes no prior knowledge of Houdini.

CHAPTER  BREAKDOWN:

Chapter 1 : Intro

We take a look at the final procedural chair model and controls we are going to build for it.

Chapter 2 : Quick Interface Overview

We look at adding objects and manipulating them in the viewport and node pane.

Chapter 3 : Chair Base And Arms

Using simple boxes, we start the chair model. We get our first look at expressions and proceduralism, showing the arms automatically adapting to the changing dimensions of the base.

Chapter 4 : Back Support And Seat Cushion

We continue adding parts to the chair model.

Chapter 5 : Back Cushion

We continue on the model.

Chapter 6 : Details

We look at sweeping a profile along a curve to create details for the couch and bevelling the cushions to give them a softer appearance.

Chapter 7 : Legs

We create simple legs for the chair and develop a system that will always keep the chair on the ground, no matter how long the legs are.

Chapter 8 : Variation

A quick demonstration of the copy-stamp function of Houdini are shown. This is not explained in depth, but provides some insight into how we procedurally add variation to a scene.

Copy-stamping will be covered in depth in another tutorial.

NB : This tutorial was made with Houdini version 13. Only small interface changes in Houdini version 15.5 will affect any usage of the tutorials.