It’s time to start looking at one of the most exciting new features of Houdini 10! In this video tutorial, we take a look at the Pyro FX workflow used to create high-quality Fire and Smoke. The Pyro tools were created with the artist in mind and make it easier than ever to get your effects out the door.

This tutorial uses one of the production-ready Pyro FX presets to get you started. You then learn how to navigate the network, cache out a low-res sim, up-res to get more detail, then use IPR and the VEX Pyro shader to complete your effect.

Whoo hoo! Well, Houdini 10 has come out of private beta and is now available as a gold release! We’re all pleased with it at Side Effects and looking forward to seeing it used on some kick ass productions!

There’s a crap load of new features in the software including: ability to slice up and distribute fluid simulations over a network of computers (aided by the inclusion of render farm software called HQueue), and the new Pyro FX tools. The pyro tools should make your life much easier. At least, it’ll make it easier if you are trying to blow stuff up with digital wizardry.

We’ve also got Interactive Photorealistic Rendering (IPR), which both raytracing and Physically Based Rendering (PBR), providing feedback whenever your scene changes. Oh. Also, you can now see in THREE DIMENSIONS. Yeah, try doing THAT withou… t… a… computer…. Well at any rate you can do it in your computer now too!

Anywhoo, I don’t want this to be a press release, but Houdini 10 is going to rock your face, so go over to the SESI site and see the demos yourself.

I really don’t understand Korean at all, so I don’t even know if the title of my post is right thanks for the correction! I just wanted to thank Jae-Hwa, Jung for the opportunity to be interviewed on cafe.naver.com

Don’t watch if you, or the people around you are sensitive to cussing.

Gather ’round ladies and gentleman, young boys and girls for yet another haranguing Houdini herald! Nay I say! This is not software synonymous at all but instead probes perilously into the world of the precipitous… the phenominal… the palatial… the preposterous: The Circus! That’s right my audience, it’s the big top! A place where the world’s most agile acrobats arc amazingly about the air, where steely swordsmen snap scimitars surreptitiously, where daring damsels in designer unitards on ubiquitous unicycles perform provocatively, and where “little people” are encouraged to be elephantine especially for your entertainment!

The ringmaster of this soirée (found within the descending ring to your right) was none other than the sultry Ms. Spears. Eh? What’s that? I’m sorry… you thought I’d gone to the actual circus? Public opinion on the performer’s psyche aside, the concert was rather comparable to an actual circus. The above alliteration was abound last night in Toronto, and I was around to bear witness. I’ll be frank, that the music is not my favorite, but I’m also open to giving anything a chance. The end result? I was actually impressed with the effort that had been put into making the show an entertaining experience for the audience. There were a lot of people that worked hard to choreograph the evening, and said people should be proud of their work. The show contained lots of circus themed stunts; fire, sparks, fog (as a vfx artist, how could I not appreciate that); however did contain a bit more costume changes than I’m used to from my past experience at Dream Theater and Symphony X concerts.

It was great that they had live musicians there to perform the songs… and call my old hat… but I do think it would have been be cool if Britney had have sang rather than merely lip syncing. At one point, the huge screen descended from it’s heights and Marilyn Manson’s version of Sweet Dreams began playing. I found that I was actually hoping that Britney was going to do a cover of it! But no. That did not happen. It was merely filler while she changed costume.

Speaking of costumes… thanks to the folks at work for digging up one of my Halloween photos and wreaking havoc on my pride.

*sigh… always a backup dancer… never a star…*

I’ve been procrastinating for a while now… but I’m going to do it. Heck, I even got this image ready for my blog before reading the Whetting Your Appetite section. What can I say… I’m a natural!

Except, I will say… I find it odd that dividing by integers automatically returns a floor. 7/3=2? Odd. Well… I mean… it should be odd… I guess in this case it’s even :-/ Though in all honesty it does make sense that there be a quick way to determine that a decimal in the equation means “use decimals” and visa versa.

Did I mention that I forget what an imaginary number is? The 8 years since I had to do anything I learned in calculus have not been kind 🙁

Right now? 1j * 1J = (-1+0j) Means nothing to me. Aside from, of course, the fact that it’s imaginary.

I’m also a bit confused about why:
>>> ‘”Isn’t,” she said.’
‘”Isn’t,” she said.’

I’m also not quite sure what the significance of the “n” in n is. Sure it does a line break… but why n? “N”ew line?

I previously described a little of the first two days of my trip, but there is more to tell! As you can probably guess, there is a slight temperature difference in Santa Monica, and by day 3 (Wednesday) I was starting to grow attached to it. I really wish I had a better camera, as there was the potential while walking to the office that day, for a nice shot of a humming bird on the top of one of these palms. This camera only has so much zoom though. Considering that it was 6am, the lighting was particularly the best either, however as you can see from these images, 3rd street is beautiful regardless of the time of day. Below and to the right, you will see Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade.

This is a rather nice section of town as well where the SESI building can be found along with lots of trendy shops, booths for street vendors, restaurants, and homeless people. A little further down (and I regret not taking a picture now) is where the Farmer’s Market happens twice (I think) a week. They were just setting up as I was going to work though, and so at the time I didn’t think it to be a worthy photo. Something which *was* a worthy photo… but unfortunately a location that I’m unsure of my rights to display was the location in which I did training on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The campus was lavish, and impressive but the shots I took of that locale shall remain private.

However, I felt that the training went exceptionally well. I got a few compliments on my teaching, and had an overall sense that the attendees very much were paying attention, absorbing, and are interested in continuing to push their Houdini skills. A nice thing for Side Effects I think. It was also nice of course on a personal level to a: be able to pass on some stuff that I’ve learned, and b: to meet cool people who love visual effects.

Aliza Sorotzkin, who is now the Training and School
Accounts Manager in the SM office of Side Effects was kind enough to force me into the Pacific ocean on Wednesday night. I got to see the pier, but she was adamant that my feet had to go in the ocean. What can I say? It was about the same temperature as if I were to go out onto the concrete, barefoot here in Toronto at the moment. See? Not that bad! I don’t understand why the beach would be some empty this time of year. That said, I was surprised at how many ambitious fishermen were casting their lines from the pier. I’m curious as to whether these people eat their catch? That’s something I’d be surprised to see at the other end of the continent.

Alas, my Thursday was undocumented with photos, however I did get to go to the Houdini User Group LA (HOUPLA) where I met up with some mad peeps yo. Rachael Campbell (That’s with no “a”, right Rachael?), Graham (again), Erika Salatiello (congrats on the new job!), and Jason Iverson (who rashly lost his long hair *tisk tisk*) were among those who were there. A great bunch of people. I should also mention that I met some of the past (and present) interns of Side Effects while there. Eddie Smith, Karl Kohlman, John Arballo, James Kirk, and Eric Rosenthal are all super cool people. Though apparently not too big on making websites.

Friday I got to see L.A. itself! I didn’t see any stars in LA, but I did see Venus! Though, I didn’t make it downtown during my trip, Eric and Anna from the LA office took me up to the Griffith Park Observatory. I learned that staff doesn’t appreciate it when you climb on walls to take photos of the city. I also learned they get very confused if after they suggest that you get down, you tell them “it’s fine.” Well it was! There was a roof not 6 feet down on the other side… besides, I needed to rest my camera on something stable to get any night time photos without a tripod. We also looked into a telescope while there. Venus is partially visible at the moment… actually I guess I lied earlier, I did see stars. I was rather surprised at the night time visibility in the area. Toronto is just a haze at night.

Saturday was my last full day in the area, and since I wasn’t leaving my hotel at the crack of dawn for a change, I actually paid attention to the hotel property. I was surprised to learn that the tree outside my window was a banana tree, and that there were also oranges about. I also had a class to teach that day at the SESI office concerning Attributes and Expressions. The class went rather well in my opinion, and there was a full attendance. I hope to get some time to record a version of the class for online. Pretty simple, yet essential stuff I think. It’s probably a good idea as well if at SESI we get some tutorials containing the training I did the rest of the week in LA. It was a pretty good bootcamp I think.

Overall, it was a cool week in Santa Monica, but apparently not quite as cool as snowy Toronto. Mind you I’ve always been a fan of lower temperatures and so it’s actually rather tough to determine which climate I prefer. It was rather nice when I got to Santa Monica… probably what I’d consider perfect weather (though the locals seemed to require multiple layers. I fear for what it would be like in the dead of summer. On the plus side, when in Santa Monica I didn’t have a cold… yet here I am back in T-Dot, stricken with a illness mere hours after my return to Canada. Hooray for sickness!

I got into Santa Monica at around 2pm yesterday, and was shocked to discover that the weather was actually quite nice!  You need to keep in mind that I’m from the northern tundra, and I’m actually quite used to cold temperatures.  I like my sweaters, and do not like summer.  Yesterday was a nice temperature though, not too cold to require a coat, and not to hot to forbid a longsleeve shirt.  Just about right.  Mind you the locals seemed to think I was foolish for only wearing a single thin, long sleeve shirt. Oddly enough, I didn’t think to grab any photos yesterday, and so still need to get some shots while I’m here. The location you see to the left is the hotel I’m in at the moment. A rather nice place that makes me *think* California. A palm tree stares at me through the window.

I met up with David Schoneveld for lunch when I got it. Dave helped me start learning vfx a few years back after I’d started asking some questions on Highend3d.com. It was good to finally meet up in person. I also had dinner in the evening with Graham Thompson who I’ve previously worked with at Side Effects.

Today I got to see the local SESI office, which is shaping up to be pretty nice! They’re still in the process of moving in and fixing it up, but what is, is nice. I basically spent the day fussing over files for my class on Saturday, and the handout for my secret customer classes the next three days. I had some greasy, disgusting pizza foah lunch, and some very nice gnocchi for dinner. Aliza from the local office was kind enough to take me to a local italian place.

Tonight was a decent warm up for the next few days, and I was able to show off the effect that was used in The Hamster Attack! to HOUPLA. Speaking of which, we’re going to meet up again (more casually) on Thursday! If you’re in LA, and you use Houdini… come on down!