The Breach flip production by Dennis Schmidt

This one is all about doing FLIP for real. You take a breach shot in Houdini from the first brief all the way to final composite, with the workflow, fixes, and shortcuts you would actually use on a job.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• How to break down a production brief for a FLIP shot
• How to set up and art-direct a large-scale FLIP simulation
• Tips and tricks to speed up your FLIP workflow and iteration times
• How to handle meshing, whitewater, and render prep for water
• How to take FX from simulation to final composite
• How to troubleshoot common FLIP problems in production

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Intermediate understanding of Houdini UI and SOP workflows, basic knowledge of DOPs and simulations
• Tools: Houdini FX, compositing software for final comp
• Hardware: Multi-core CPU, minimum 32GB RAM, dedicated GPU

📝 Description

This is not a button-tour. It is a production run. You start with a brief, just like you would get from a supervisor, and you have to make decisions on scale, resolution, and timing before you even hit sim.

From there Dennis walks through the whole FLIP workflow in Houdini — sourcing, forces, collisions, and how to keep control when the sim wants to do its own thing. You will see what to push for more detail and what to leave alone to save sim time.

The other big focus is speed. You will pick up practical optimization tricks, caching habits, and wedge strategies that let you iterate faster. Less waiting, more versions to show. That is what gets shots approved.

Then you close the loop: particle meshing, whitewater, render passes, and the final composite. No sim living forever in the viewport — you get it rendered, integrated, and finished.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Intermediate Houdini artists who want to get confident with FLIP water
• FX artists already in the industry who want a real production workflow from brief to delivery

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Dennis Schmidt is a Houdini FX Artist working in feature film. He has bounced between commercials, game cinematics, and a bunch of big film projects, so he knows both fast turnarounds and heavy hero shots. He teaches the way things get done on the floor — direct, practical, no fluff.

🏁 Final Result

• A finished breach FLIP shot, simulated, meshed, rendered, and composited — ready to cut into your reel.