Houdini 19.5, Ue5 - Procedural Stylized Pencil Case(S) + Rbd

In this project-based Houdini & UE5 course we'll create 4 HDAs and go over common procedural modeling approaches.

What you'll learn

Better understand procedural modeling in Houdini with provided examples.

Increase understanding of Houdini.

Houdini's For Each Loop.

How to randomize shape, colors, etc.

How to create Houdini Digital Asset specifically for Unreal Engine 5.

How to add Rigid Body Simulation to pencils per case.

How to create Unreal Engine 5 specific attributes (Nanite, LOD screen size).

How to create Unreal Engine 5 collision and LODs groups.

How to add vertex colors to procedural model(s).

How to create procedural pencil.

How to scatter pencils within pencil case.

How to create procedural pencil case.

How to scatter pencil cases within area bounds and randomize each case/pencil.

Requirements

A basic knowledge of Houdini interface.

A basic understanding of Houdini channel (parameter) reference.

A basic understanding of what attributes in Houdini is.

A basic understanding of Houdini For Each Loops (nothing crazy).

Created at least few basic Houdini models (procedural or in traditional way). Optional.

A basic knowledge of Unreal Engine 5.

Unreal Engine 5 and Houdini Engine plugin installed.

Description

Grateful for you taking a look. To adjust your expectations, I won't be sharing source files (HDA and HIP). This is done on purpose so you can practice and get a better feel using Houdini. My personal mission is to do my best to help people actually get a feel of Houdini and use its power. There's no shortcut to understand something without practice.The course is fully narrated. The only very last video is a timelapse. Houdini is all about efficiency. You create a tool once, use it on multiple projects, and polish it to suit different tasks.Even though the final models look simple, this course covers some common procedural modeling approaches such as randomization, for each loops, and other faced things when making procedural models. Understanding similar techniques will help to approach any other model that you need to create.This course starts from the upper beginner level and "climbs" to the intermediate-advanced level. The course is split into small parts so it doesn't feel overwhelming.This course is aimed to:- provide examples that might be used in a real-world scenario rather than creating an abstract model.- increase your understanding of Houdini and how certain things work.- increase your understanding of uses cases of Houdini Engine for Unreal Engine 5.This is a project-based course where we'll create 4 Houdini Digital Assets (HDA) that you can reuse in different projects:1. Pencil HDA.2. Case HDA.3. Case + Pencil HDA (scatter pencils within the case).4. Scatter cases with pencils within area bounds HDA. All HDAs expect "Case HDA" will have support for Rigid Body Simulation, in other words, pencils will interact with collision geometry. I've created this model for my own environment project and thus decided to share my approach to creating it.The course has 3 sections:1. Pencil HDA creation + RBD.2. Pencil case HDA + scattering pencil HDA within that case and randomizing pencils + RBD.3. Scatter pencil cases, randomizing cases/pencils RBD.Some of the lectures contain additional description with the information I missed explaining. Such as what's the purpose of certain node(s).

Overview

Section 1: Creating procedural pencil with RBD support

Lecture 1 Creating base shape

Lecture 2 Creating wood and tip

Lecture 3 Closing bottom hole, modifying base shape

Lecture 4 Creating groups

Lecture 5 Adding shaving effect

Lecture 6 Polishing shaving effect

Lecture 7 Finishing tip

Lecture 8 Adding bottom circle (pencil lead part)

Lecture 9 Fixing bottom circle open hole

Lecture 10 Polish base shape (get rid of harsh edges)

Lecture 11 Organizing node graph

Lecture 12 Adding vertex color

Lecture 13 Rigid Body: preparation

Lecture 14 Rigid Body preparation: making pencil as a single mesh

Lecture 15 Creating Rigid Body Simulation

Lecture 16 Rigid body: dynamically place pencil on top of any input geometry

Lecture 17 Finalize: creating normals

Lecture 18 Finalize: additional cleaning

Lecture 19 Finalize: creating collision group

Lecture 20 Finalize: creating Nanite attribute

Lecture 21 Finalize: creating LODs

Lecture 22 Finalize: creating LOD Screen Size

Lecture 23 Finalize: organize graph

Lecture 24 HDA: Creating HDA

Lecture 25 HDA: creating shape parameters

Lecture 26 HDA: controlling parameter(s) visibility with "hide when" parameter option

Lecture 27 HDA: creating color parameters

Lecture 28 HDA: creating nanite parameter

Lecture 29 HDA: adding simulation parameters

Lecture 30 Unreal Engine: creating project

Lecture 31 Unreal Engine: testing HDA

Lecture 32 Unreal Engine: enabling Nanite and LODs

Lecture 33 End of the Section

Section 2: Creating pencil case and adding RBD simulation to pencils

Lecture 34 Creating Pencil Case Part 1

Lecture 35 Creating Pencil Case Part 2

Lecture 36 Adding Vertex Colors, Unreal Attributes, Collision Group, Low Poly

Lecture 37 Creating Case HDA

Lecture 38 Case HDA - part 1

Lecture 39 Case HDA - creating parameters - part 2

Lecture 40 Case HDA - creating parameters - part 3 (controlling UI with toggles)

Lecture 41 Preparation for scattering pencils within the case bounds

Lecture 42 Creating For Each Loop with For Each Metadata node

Lecture 43 Copying (scattering) pencils inside case shape

Lecture 44 Creating randomization controller (Null node)

Lecture 45 Randomizing pencils/case colors/etc

Lecture 46 Adding RBD and fixing attributes mismatch on Merge

Lecture 47 Clean up, normals and collision group

Lecture 48 Creating group LODs and lodx_screensize attributes

Lecture 49 Organizing node graph

Lecture 50 Pencil case HDA - creating parameters - part 1

Lecture 51 Pencil case HDA - creating parameters and testing - part 2

Lecture 52 Testing Pencil Case HDA in Unreal Engine 5 and creating two variations

Section 3: Scattering pencils cases with pencils RBD simulation

Lecture 53 Preparation: creating scatter area bounds

Lecture 54 Creating For Each Loop

Lecture 55 Creating Debug Plane

Lecture 56 Creating randomization controller (Null node)

Lecture 57 For each loop: randomizing pencils (shape, shaving, etc.)

Lecture 58 For each loop: randomizing case shape (height, radius)

Lecture 59 For each loop: randomizing case channel ramp shape

Lecture 60 For each loop: randomizing colors (pencils and cases)

Lecture 61 Creating Rigid Body simulation

Lecture 62 RBD: troubleshooting (when object passing through geometry)

Lecture 63 Cleaning attributes, etc

Lecture 64 Creating LODs

Lecture 65 Creating HDA parameters

Lecture 66 Testing inside Unreal Engine

Lecture 67 Creating a scene for renders (timelapse)

Environment artists who want to speed up/automate their workflow.,Indie developers.,3D modelers from other software (Blender, C4D, 3DS Max, Maya, Modo).,Beginner Houdini users.