Having visited Hamburg recently I was smitten by the city’s concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie. What looks quite minimalistic from afar turns out to be an incredibly detailed building. Of special interes to me were the acoustic panels within the main concert hall, developed by Yasuhisa […]
All posts by “Moritz”
Advanced Setups 17 – Jeroen Claus: Solving The Traveling Salesperson Problem in Python
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep. 19: Mo Was At OFFF, The Second Wave Of Houdini For Designers
Mo got to go to Barcelona to present at OFFF and is still on cloud number nine. The guys discuss what learning and teaching Houdini to a visually minded person means, how and why there is a resurgence in interest in Houdini and finally they […]
OFFF Special: My First Vellum Sim
Back from OFFF 2022 and well rested, we managed to upload our talk’s very quick example of how to build and export your very first Vellum cloth simulation in Houdini. Enjoy! Download Project File
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.18: CG vs. Photography
Manu and Mo ramble on about what sets CG and photography apart and what might make them closer than they appear at first glance. Rethinking Photography (German): https://fotografieneudenken.de Chris Hoffmann / Ugly Stupid Honest: http://www.uglystupidhonest.com
Creating An Abstract Wire Sculpture
One of those classic setups again! This time we’re combining custom point advection with a few nifty techniques in Houdini to analyze how our base geometry is shaped and where its edges are. Also we’ll talk briefly about a basic rendering setup in Octane. Napoleon […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.17: Using Python Libraries In Houdini
Before leaving for easter holidays, Manu & Mo discuss the usefulness and pain involved in using Python libraries in Houdini’s SOP context to easily access higher level functionality like arcane file export or intricate math.
Houdini Guest Tutorial: Jeroen Claus – Creating Toon Shading Outlines
Thrilled to have Jeroen Claus back for a quick tutorial on creating toon outlines as geometry in Houdini. Ideal for those hybrid renders between toon and photoreal shading. Download Project File (.zip)
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep. 16: Blatant Advertising, Premium Course Blender Geometry Nodes
New premium course out on April 14th: Generative Design Using Blender Geometry Nodes Mo is cranky he’s back in Germany, Manu isn’t cranky although he hasn’t been out of Germany. Manu discusses his soon to be released premium course on Blender’s Geometry Nodes.
Advanced Setups 16 – Multithreading Python
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Packing Rigid(ish) Bodies In Vellum
Yes, we covered this in our “packing the Torus” tutorial, however back then we didn’t have Vellum! You draw the conclusions yourself! Seriously though, using vellum for rigid body intersection detection and resolution can be a neat trick when you’re depending on a unified simulation […]
Python in Houdini: Controlling An Embroidery Machine (DST Export)
In what might be our most useless Houdini tutorial to date, Mo covers exporting Houdini geometry for use in an embroidery machine. Yep that’s right. You’re welcome. Setting up Python for Houdini: https://youtu.be/aUdC8p17QEc Virtual Embroidery in Houdini: https://youtu.be/RgLcREpwaU4 Info on the .dst file format: https://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Embro… […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.15: Learning Houdini With Vincent Schwenk pt. 3 – Grains
Part three of our special Nerd Rant with Vincent Schwenk is here! This time we focus on recreating a setup Mo once created for a project into which Vinz hired him. Vincent Schwenk is an incredibly talented Designer / Art Director based in Hamburg, Germany. […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.14: Learning Houdini With Vincent Schwenk pt. 2
TPart two of our special Nerd Rant with Vincent Schwenk is here! This time we spend time talking about getting geo into and out of Houdini, tweaking simulations and how to install MOPs for Houdini, which makes mograph tasks a good bit easier. Vincent Schwenk […]
Abstract Particle Animation Using Houdini, Vellum & Octane Render
Inspired by Maxim Zhestkov’s great artwork, we set up a simple Vellum grain sim and render the results using Octane render. Download Scene File (.zip)
Vellum 101 – pt. 40: Melting Things Using Vellum Fluid
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.13: Learning Houdini With Vincent Schwenk
This is a special nerd rant – just an excuse to upload well over an hour of Vinz and Mo struggling with understanding / teaching Houdini to an absolute beginner. So if you’re thinking of learning Houdini, this call where Mo introduces Vinz to the […]
Houdini Tutorial: Melting Things using FLIP
Learn how to turn any object into molten lava by adapting one of Houdini’s presets to liquify any geometry. Ben Watt’s tutorial that triggered Mo to look into this. While we’re not talking about shading & rendering in here, we provide a scene file that’s […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.12: Digital humans
While pondering what makes a decent digitally created human figure, Manu & Mo go almost toe-deep into the philosophical aspects of what believable digital humans would mean technologically and for society. Don’t expect mentions of elk meat, saunas or chimpanzees though.
Simulating A Rubber Band Ball In Vellum
Again Patrick triggered this one by asking if we could have a look at a setup he’s been working on. And boy did we like what we saw. Mo decided to simplify it a bit and slow it down so it could be used to […]
Advanced Setups 15 – Solving Optimal Transport using Python and POT
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.11: Game Design – Tools & Processes
In the second part of our nerd rant with guest Marcel Casasola Merkle we talk about the nitty gritty of what game development means. To Marcel. We talk tools, techniques, opinions on what to best use when creating a game.
Advanced Setups 14 – DIY Poisson Solver pt. 4: Designing Caustics
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.10: Working Remotely
Suffering through German autumn part two: Manu & Mo finally got the heaters running and aren’t freezing anymore. Fantasizing about working from some warm and sandy beach, they discuss the pitfalls of and solutions for working remotely.
Smearing Paint using FLIP
We’ve been asked by Patrick how to pull off something like these beautiful paint smears in Houdini, so we got to work. Using basic FLIP techniques will get us quite far, we just have to find the right settings. (Haha. “just” finding the settings…) In […]
Advanced Setups 13 – DIY Poisson Solver: Jacobi Two Pass & von Neumann Boundaries
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Quicktip: New Grouping Behaviour In H19
By a comment on one of our videos on YouTube we stumbled upon a strange behaviour in H19 which took us a few minutes to figure out. Turns out grouping expressions are evaluated slightly differently in Houdini 19. A single short forum post got us […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.9: Game Design, Mobile Games & Free To Play
We’ve got a guest! One that shares the same last name with Manu! It’s Marcel Casasola Merkle, game designer extraordinaire and we’re rambling about the state of games, game design and free to play.
Ribbon Knot pt.2: Art Directing Wrinkles
In our last free tutorial we tied a ribbon into a knot, but what if you want (or need) to work on details like wrinkles or want to reshape parts of the knot? In this tutorial Mo covers one technique to arrange the detailed shape […]
Advanced Setups 12 – DIY Poisson Solver: Jacobi Red Black & OpenCL
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.8: Dynamic Solvers
Mo dusted off his best shacket (yes, that’s a word!), Manu is donning his best summer shirt – at this point the guys are just trying to mentally escape winter. What better topic than dynamic solvers to get their minds off the muddy weather.
Tying A Ribbon Knot in Vellum
That special season of the year is creeping ever closer and you might be starting to think about gift wrapping. One important aspect of which is the decorative ribbon that goes around it. Not that we’re particularly talented at arts and crafts, but we were […]
Advanced Setups 11 – DIY Laplace & Poisson Solvers: Jacobi, Gauss-Seidel & SOR
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.7: Photogrammetry
Manu dons his finest T-shirt, Mo is going all lumberjack, the audio offset still hasn’t been fixed and the guys discuss their experience turning photos into 3D meshes.
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.6: Houdini 19
Mo is back from holidays, Manu’s winter semester started and both guys are freezing through the German autumn. Yet a ray of hope shines on them in the form of SideFX’s new Houdini 19 release.
Test Driving Houdini 19: Creating Wrinkles & Rendering Them In Karma XPU
It’s Halloween(ish). – so Mo decided he’d create something creepy. And this is as creepy as his mind gets. No judging. In this tutorial we’ll cover the creation off stress maps to drive the procedural generation of wrinkles using Houdini’s Karma XPU and MaterialX displacement. […]
Advanced Setups 10 – The Urquhart Graph
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Test Driving Houdini 19: Pouring Quicksand/Paint Using Vellum Fuids
Houdini 19 has been released and Mo is taking it for a test drive. As far as you can drive any software. (I mean a car’s firmware you’d definitely drive…) In this video, Mo demonstrates the new Vellum fluids by using them to create a […]
Test Driving Houdini 19: Poisson Image Blending
Houdini 19 has been released and Mo is taking it for a test drive. As far as you can drive any software. (I mean a car’s firmware you’d definitely drive…) In this video, Mo demonstrates the canonical example for one of the more popular image […]
Test Driving Houdini 19: Injecting Packed Primitives
Houdini 19 has been released and Mo is taking it for a test drive. As far as you can drive any software. (I mean a car’s firmware you’d definitely drive…) In this video, Mo modifies the abstracted sculpture we built in part one by using […]
Test Driving Houdini 19: Karma XPU, MaterialX And A Hidden Gem
Houdini 19 has been released and Mo is taking it for a test drive. As far as you can drive any software. (I mean a car’s firmware you’d definitely drive…) In this video, Mo builds an abstracted sculpture out of minimal surfaces by using H19’s […]
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.5: THE BESTEST 3D App
In part two of their highly scientific and grown up debate about 3D DCCs, Manu and Mo go knee deep in apps to find out what’s THE BEST 3D APP (!!!) on the market.
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.4: Our Software Biography
We still have offset audio, one camera is slightly out of focus and Mo starts requiring a haircut, but on the plus side we discuss our weird origin story in terms of apps and tools we used. To at some point in the future arrive […]
Advanced Setups 09 – From Formula to VEX: Winding Numbers
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No VEX Houdini: Organic Modelling Using Winding Numbers
Continuing our “No VEX Houdini” tutorials, Mo covers implementing a very clever technique to model organic surfaces using a mesh’s winding number, as presented in this thread on Twitter by Daniel Piker. In this quick (sub 10 min) tutorial, Mo will use one of Houdini’s […]
Advanced Setups 08 – From Paper to VEX: Electrostatic Halftoning
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Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.3: Understanding Scientific Papers
We still have laggy video and Manu is overexposed but we share our favorite tips, tricks and resources for getting a grip on scientific papers.
Nerd Rant 2.0 – Ep.2: Rendering in Houdini?
We finally fixed our streaming setup, Manu had a haircut and the guys discuss if it is a good idea to render your projects in Houdini or if you should rather export to other tools.