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TOTAL DURATION: 7h 29m 46s

The goal of this workshop is to learn how easy it can be to use Houdini Solaris and a USD pipeline with Pixar’s RenderMan. These lessons are designed with beginners in mind although experienced Houdini and RenderMan artists who are interested in USD will also benefit. At the same time, Houdini artists can learn more about RenderMan and RenderMan artists can learn more about Houdini and its USD-based Solaris workflow.

This course consists of two major parts:

The Quicktakes section which covers the basics and the most important aspects of the USD workflow inside of Houdini. The second PROJECT section demonstrates how you can build a countryside/farm scenario from scratch with all the tools that Houdini/RenderMan and this workshop provides.

The workshop will also share the many assets designed to be used in this workshop. All assets are textured and shaded for RenderMan which is also the render engine that you will use throughout the entire course.

This workshop was designed for use with Houdini 19.0.589 and RenderMan 24 since these two versions have the best compatibility for this pipeline.

DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES [15 GB]
1 | Introduction [4:06]
Learn a little bit about the author of these lessons then take a quick tour of the entire tutorial series.
2 | What is USD [5:45]
USD is the future of our work environment: This lesson will cover the most important topic of this entire workshop - Pixar’s Universal Scene description also known as USD - it will provide a brief insight into why Houdini Solaris is an important part of a USD pipeline.
3 | Solaris Viewport 14:23]
This video will provide a brief overview about the Viewport and the Solaris Desktop.
4 | Naming Conventions 13:31]
Learn how easy it is to design your own USD structure. Learn about common issues such as incorrectly assigning USD primitive path names and how you can avoid these errors.
5 | How to use Geometry Attributes [2:56]
Learn how you can assign geometry attributes to be used in Houdini Solaris and what you need to take care about in regard to common attributes that Houdini provides natively.
6b | How to use Custom Attributes in Shader [1:43]
Learn how to use a custom color attribute in RenderMan USD.
6a | How to Apply Shaders [3:30]
Learn how to apply RenderMan shaders in Solaris.
7 | RenderMan Shader Library in USD [3:00]
Learn how to use the Preset Material Library that ships with Pixar's RenderMan and how you can avoid problems between USD and the RenderMan Library.
8 | How to use Multiple SOP Groups in USD [5:03]
Learn how to make multiple parts of a Houdini mesh accessible in Houdini Solaris USD and how you can separate them into multiple USD meshes in the correct way.
9 | How to use Lights in USD [16:05]
Learn how you can light your scene with a focus on setting up a simple lighting scenario.
10 | Displacements in LOPS for RenderMan [9:45]
Learn how to use displacements in Solaris for RenderMan. There are differences compared to the traditional Houdini SOP/Obj workflow. Learn how to make displacements work in RenderMan USD.
11 | Basic RenderMan Starter Settings [13:16]
Learn how to create a basic setup for working with RenderMan in Solaris. Learn how to add AOV/Renderlayers to your shot.
12 | Clouds and Volumes [6:51]
Learn how to render clouds and volumes in RenderMan USD. Explore useful tricks to optimize your overall render times.
13 | Rendering with RenderMan and PDG [8:56]
Learn how to use the Procedural Dependency Graph [PDG] in Houdini to render your Solaris networks with RenderMan. Learn how to set up the PDG network and how you can fetch external HIP files.
PROJECT | USD Asset Database Overview [38:28]
Learn how to work with all the procedural USD assets used in this tutorial. Learn how these assets can be used and explore various tips and tricks.
PROJECT | Asset Gallery Component Workflow [19:51]
Learn how you can populate the Solaris Asset Gallery with the workshop assets.
PROJECT | Scattering USD Assets [24:25]
Learn different methods of scattering Assets in USD.
PROJECT | Farm Build 1 [53:55]
Learn how you can use Houdini Solaris to layout your shot before you even start to populate the scene with high end detailed assets. Learn basic blocking methods to create basic shapes to get a feeling for the scene.
PROJECT | Farm Build 2 [36:55]
Learn how you have to use the procedural road asset to build the first road in the scene. Learn RenderMan shading tricks to sculpt the polygon road with displacements.
PROJECT | Farm Build 3 [37:29]
Learn a little more about the road asset, how to build a farm fence and how to place the hero robot asset in the shot.
PROJECT | Farm Build 4 [26:02]
Time to place the first forests in the shot. Learn useful problem solving techniques when things don’t go perfectly out of the gate.
PROJECT | Farm Build 5 [47:36]
Learn about grass placement and how you can place barley plants all across the scenery.
PROJECT | Farm Build 6 [56:15]
Learn how to populate the foreground with more details as well as place more trees and grass in the background.
PROJECT | Farm Build 7 [49:30]
Learn how to place clouds on the Farm and then complete the final render with denoising, then composite the final layers of the shot.

CREATED BY

AlexanderWeide
ALEXANDER WEIDE

Alexander Weide is a 3D artist and supervisor based in Dresden, Germany. For over 10 years he has been working mostly remotely as a professional freelancer in the field of 3D animation and VFX. At the age of 12 he opened a 3D software for the first time. In the last 24 years he worked in the 3D, film and VFX area also within a feature film production from Germany. Thereby he gained a lot of experience which he increasingly passes on in the last years. He founded a Youtube channel on which he distributes RenderMan and Houdini tutorials and gives insights into his work. A tutorial initiative of his was recently published on Pixar's learning platform for RenderMan. Also a Discord server for learning Houdini RenderMan was started 2 years ago.

More from Alexander Weide

COMMENTS

  • harryabreu 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

    Thanks very much I think so this tutorial will be enjoyable ;-)

    • IRONIC3D 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

      Awesome workshop Alexander

      • AlexanderWeide 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

        Thank you.

      • tor3203 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

        Thank you for this. I was looking for a way to get into Houdini Solaris and this seems to answer my pray.

        • AlexanderWeide 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

          Glad its usefull for you ;-)

        • Njordy 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

          Awesome, thanks! :)

          • AlexanderWeide 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

            ;-) you waited long time. hope it helps you alot.

          • sdugaro 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

            Cool! I just set myself up to start looking into Solaris with Renderman.
            Your timing is uncanny for me, looking forward to it. Thanks!

            • ragogas 2 years, 5 months ago  | 

              Thank you for putting this tutorial series together!

              • tmouraille 1 year, 9 months ago  | 

                Hi Alexander, really cool tutorial, thank you for putting that together for the community.

                I am running some tests with Renderman on my side, using 25.1 on the 19.5.601, and I can't manage to get the motionBlur camera working.
                I tried to add a renderGeometrySettings for the camera, added a cache node too, render on disk, etc... no luck. I might do something not correctly.

                Is there any chance you could share a quick .hip file with a cube and a camera in motion to explain how to setup the camera motionBlur properly, please? It would be very much appreciated.

                Thank you again for your time.

                • tmouraille 1 year, 9 months ago  | 

                  I got it working, all good, thx.

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