Creature Grooming Techniques in Houdini by Juis Cadavid

Learn how to create convincing creature grooms in Houdini with this 3-hour workshop by Groomer at Digital Domain, Luis Cadavid. A discussion of the concepts and tools that are used in this workshop takes precedence at the beginning before Luis jumps into Maya to explore his creature model. At this stage, the importance is on getting to know the volumes that will be used to create the creature groom and involves observing lots of reference materials before exporting the model to Houdini.

Once in Houdini, Luis provides an introduction to how Houdini creates hair before he prepares all of the objects and creates the various VDBs, and separates the mesh to create the groom. You’ll learn how to take advantage of the tools that Luis widely uses, including the Curve Advect Tool, Guide Process: Bend, Guide Process: Set Direction, Guide Process: Lift, Length, Curve Mask, and Noise Mask. You’ll also discover how to create your own custom shortcuts to make your workflow faster and more efficient.

With knowledge of all the tools defined, Luis then starts the process of creating the guides for the face of the werewolf, adding volume and shape to the guides using various attributes. He creates the hair and various sized clumps before moving on to creating the guides for the body, legs, ears, and tail. He also paints the attributes that he will later combine together. Once the first pass of the groom is done, Luis shares how he tests materials and HDRIs and sets up the camera so he can get an idea of how the groom is working.

By completing this workshop, you will have covered all of the bases needed to begin creating your own grooms. This tutorial is intended for artists with a basic to medium level of understanding of grooming.