Mastering Environment Creation in Houdini

Houdini has become the go-to tool in the FX industry. Whoever wields its power is unstoppable.
The same goes for Environment creation. Using procedural systems to your advantage and creating tools to make your workflow more efficient is what great environment development all about.

Week 01 | Introduction to Environment Art
• A general overview of the project.
• Art, Colors and Composition.
• How to best tackle large scale environment.
• How to analyse the real reference to closely reproduce it.
• Visual story telling.
• Understanding what we need to achieve, the tools available and the best workflow to use.

Week 02 | Advanced Terrain Generation
(This is for the large scale shot)
• An in-depth look at height fields and what’s available in Houdini 18.
• River and erosion.
• Layering procedural details using Houdini sops.
• Texture generation and advanced masking.
• Create the large scale terrain with all the details needed.

Week 03 | Tree / Foliage Generation
• A visual study of plants, trees and all elements needed for the large scale and close up shot.
• An introduction to Speed tree.
• Create the various trees.
• Create the various bushes and plants.
• Simple tree creation in Houdini as an alternative to speed tree (for RND only)

Week 04 | Scene Assembly
• Scene Assembly.
• Mask Generation Techniques.
• Procedural and efficient Scattering setup using Houdini and Arnold or other alternatives renders.
• Basic lighting.
• Shading and rendering the large scale terrain.

Week 05 | Shading & Lighting
• Shading and texturing the various Trees and bushes.
• Prepping extra assets to enrich the environment.
• Advanced Lighting and refining the various visual aspects of the shot.
• How to setup all the aovs necessary to get the flexibility needed in comp.

Week 06 | Atmospherics & Compositing
• Introduction To Volume manipulation in Houdini.
• Volumetrics and cloud creation.
• Shading and lighting and rendering the cloud and atmospheric
• Reviewing all the passes and prepping data for comp.
• Initial compositing using Fusion.
• Initial compositing using Nuke.

Week 07 | Advanced Compositing
• Refine the comp and tweaking.
• Lightning animation in comp
• Adding all the necessary tweaks to make the shot feel believable.
• Enhance the visual by adding 3d elements in comp.
( This workshop will be covered in Nuke and Fusion)