Solaris Workflows in Houdini by Tom Doring

Tom Doring builds a complete atmospheric environment in just 2 hours, and shows you how to actually work in Solaris without getting lost. You get practical prep, scattering, and assembly tricks you can reuse on any show.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Prepare geometry for clean and efficient work in Solaris
• Cut atlases and set up animated grass, ivy, and moss on any asset
• Build procedural vines that adapt to geometry and move with Vellum wind
• Use scattering concepts and translate them to instancing in Solaris
• Create SOP-level tools to speed up object setup in Solaris

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with Houdini SOPs and 3D scene layout
• Tools: Houdini Indie or FX, Nuke (optional for reviewing final comp)
• Hardware: Modern multi-core CPU, 16GB+ RAM, dedicated GPU

📝 Description

This one is all about getting stuff done in Solaris. Tom starts from raw geometry and walks through prep, layout, and scene assembly the way you’d do it on a real shot. No theory dump. Just a working USD workflow you can copy.

Vegetation is where it gets fun. You’ll cut your own atlases, then scatter grass, ivy, and moss onto anything. For vines, Tom shows a procedural setup that sticks to any shape, then uses Vellum for that light wind wobble. It sells the shot without running a heavy sim.

Then he ties it together. You’ll see how SOP scatter logic maps to instancing in Solaris, and how to build small SOPs tools that do the boring setup work for you. Faster iteration, cleaner stage, less clicking around LOPs.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Houdini artists who know SOPs and want to get comfortable in Solaris
• Environment and lookdev artists building foliage-heavy scenes
• Freelancers who need a fast, reusable USD assembly workflow

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Tom Doring is a Houdini artist focused on procedural setups that fake sim-like motion without the overhead. He likes breaking down tricky effects into simple, reusable tools. He teaches the way he works — curious, practical, and straight to the point.

🏁 Final Result

• Finished atmospheric environment scene assembled in Solaris, with animated vegetation, procedural vines, and efficient USD instancing — plus completed Houdini Indie and Nuke project files for your portfolio breakdown.