HOU235 – Houdini Vellum Workflow on The Battle for Bazoches by Liam Whitehouse

This course is a focused walkthrough of how Houdini Vellum fits into a real VFX pipeline, using a medieval siege setup to show how ropes, cloth, soft bodies, fur, and rigid body interactions can all live in the same simulation workflow. It is taught by Liam Whitehouse for fxphd, runs 2 hours 49 minutes, uses Houdini 20, and ties its assets into the larger Battle for Bazoches production course.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Build Vellum rope setups and attach them to cloth elements for layered dynamic motion
• Control cloth behavior for different fabric looks, including folding, gravity response, and wind-driven ripple effects
• Create soft body, fur, and RBD interactions that work together inside a single Houdini simulation workflow

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic Houdini navigation, comfort with node-based workflows, and some prior exposure to simulation concepts are helpful since the course is marked intermediate
• Tools: A 3-button mouse is recommended for Houdini, and access to Houdini 20 is needed to follow the shown workflow
• Hardware: A workstation with at least 16GB RAM and a dedicated GPU is a sensible baseline for simulation and viewport work in Houdini, especially when handling Vellum and rendering fur with Karma XPU

📝 Description

This one is built around production-style problem solving, not isolated demo shots. You are not just poking at Vellum constraints in a vacuum; you are setting up simulation layers that need to behave together, which is exactly where a lot of Houdini work gets messy in real projects.

The course starts with the main Vellum systems, then moves into rope-and-cloth setups, fabric control, wind motion, and hybrid interaction with RBD elements. That structure makes sense because each class adds another layer of complexity, so you can see how a simple cloth setup turns into a more believable shot with attachments, collisions, and secondary motion.

A nice practical angle here is the focus on controls that artists actually tweak: rope flexibility, cloth folding, fabric resistance, internal pressure for soft bodies, and fur shading through Karma XPU. Instead of staying broad, it drills into the settings that change the look and behavior of the sim, which is the stuff you end up fighting with on a production schedule.

Because the assets feed into the Battle for Bazoches medieval siege sequence, the training also feels more grounded than a generic sim overview. It is really about building pieces that can slot into a bigger VFX shot, with cloth, ropes, props, and deforming elements all supporting the same scene.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• Intermediate Houdini artists who want a clearer, more connected workflow for Vellum cloth, ropes, and soft body setups
• FX and environment artists working on action-heavy shots where secondary motion helps sell weight, scale, and realism
• Students following the Battle for Bazoches training path who want simulation assets that plug into a larger medieval siege sequence

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Liam Whitehouse is an Australian-based senior VFX artist who has worked in the 3D industry since 2003. His recent credits include environment work on The Fall Guy, underwater environments in Aquaman 2, Lindon forests in The Rings of Power, canyon environments for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, hollow earth environments for Godzilla vs Kong, and photogrammetry rocks for Avatar 2.

That background matters here because the course is clearly shaped by production experience rather than theory alone. The material stays close to real shot-building concerns: interaction between systems, believable motion, and getting simulation assets ready for a broader VFX pipeline.

🏁 Final Result

• A set of production-ready Houdini Vellum setups for ropes, cloth, soft bodies, fur, and RBD interaction, built around a medieval siege shot and ready to inform your own portfolio or sequence work