Learn to make Helicopter Dust in Houdini from Scratch

I’m Sachin Singh, with over 7 years of experience in Arts, Animation, VFX, and Design. I’ve contributed to various projects including “Masters of Air” (HBO, Apple TV+), “Pinocchio” (Netflix), “PS1” (Amazon Prime), “Adipurush” (Netflix and other OTTs), “Demeter of Voyage,” and collaborations with Lego, among others.

Welcome to this tutorial where we’ll delve into creating Helicopter Rotor Dust using the Sparse Smoke solver in Houdini.

Starting from the ground up, we’ll construct our emission source and proceed to simulate particles to achieve the desired Helicopter Dust effect.

We will be focusing on:

1. Basics of Houdini
2. Understanding about SOPs in Houdini
3. How to make an emission source and create a particle system
4. Understanding about DOPs in Houdini
5. Lighting, Rendering, and Compositing the scene

Our journey begins at the SOP level, crafting our emission source. Moving forward, we’ll develop a customized particle system within a POP network. Venturing into the DOP level, we’ll explore volume sources, pyrosolvers, and fine-tune parameters such as gravity, buoyancy, and dissipation to shape our Helicopter Dust.

We’ll delve into the intricacies of velocities, microsolvers, and other forces essential for achieving our desired outcome.

The overarching goal is to comprehend the essence of Helicopter Dust in the real world and replicate it within the realm of 3D space.