The Ultimate Explosions Workshop by Urban

This workshop is about taking control of your explosions. Instead of relying on luck and random sims, you’ll learn to build the emitters, shaders, and full shots that give you real artistic direction. It’s a hands-on, project-based deep dive into Houdini pyro.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Build a custom “Master Exploder” emitter for art-directing explosions.
• Create a custom XPU/CPU MaterialX shader.
• Reverse-engineer and recreate famous explosion shots.
• Optimize heavy volume simulations in Solaris.
• Professional compositing workflows in Nuke.

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Intermediate knowledge of Houdini and its UI.
• Tools: 3-button mouse.
• Hardware: Dedicated GPU, minimum 16GB RAM.

📝 Description

This isn’t a beginner’s guide to Houdini. It’s a focused, 10-week deep dive into the specific craft of building explosions that look and feel right. The core philosophy here is that the emitter is everything. You’ll spend the first weeks building a custom “Master Exploder” setup, because 80% of an explosion’s look comes from how you set up the source. Once you have that control, you stop hoping for a good sim and start directing it.

The workshop is built around recreating real, famous explosion shots. You’ll reverse-engineer them, learning the exact workflows for shaders, rendering, and compositing that make them work. You’ll build a custom XPU/CPU MaterialX shader, optimize heavy simulations in Solaris, and finish everything in Nuke. It’s a generalist’s approach to a single, spectacular effect.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Intermediate to advanced Houdini artists who want to specialize in FX.
• Artists tired of random sim results and wanting to art-direct their explosions.
• Generalists looking to build a complete shot pipeline from emitter to final comp.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Urban Bradesko is a seasoned FX artist and instructor with a deep understanding of Houdini’s pyro and volume tools. He leads this workshop alongside contributions from Julen Elia, Ismael Martinez, and Ayush Ramana. Urban’s approach is practical and pipeline-focused, teaching you to think like a technical director while maintaining a strong artistic eye.

🏁 Final Result

• A portfolio-ready set of explosion shots, including a “Moonshot” sequence with ground shockwaves, particles, and professional compositing.