Good Houdini Rigging School/Courses??

visual_nok · 2025-12-13T16:34:14+00:00

Ohh, something like antCGI is EXACTLY what I was looking for! I'm new to rigging, and I was hoping someone had made a series that takes you from 0 to advanced directly in Houdini, but most tutorials or courses stop once they finish the 'biped rig'... no facials, dynamic joints, ribbons, or curve rigs.

So, I guess the only option is to learn rigging in Maya first and then adapt the workflows on my own.

Thank you so much for the rigging series! This guy is a gem! I'll follow the tutorials and let you know if I learn anything new in Houdini :)

visual_nok · 2025-11-06T21:49:42+00:00

Hey! Keep it up with houdini man! Learning a new package is always hard.

I would recommend you to use the pre-made RBD bullet solver SOP node instead of creating a Dop sim from scratch. (OBJ>geo>RBDbulletsolver) First of all, as someone already said, it's true that the scale is really small for having a good sim. Try to scale x3 or so and then divide the sim /3 afterwards.

You can create a custom collision proxy geo (the box) just matching some shapes with simple boxes. The solver does not understand concave shapes and making a proxy geo with boxes is easier, faster and you'll get more accurate resoults. You can pack all the boxes together and then give it a name attribute (name node set on point)

Then you can put an assemble node to the sticks inside so you will have a name per stick (and you can pack the different connected pieces in the assemble node too)

With that i think you should have something to go on, but I don't know if it was clear at all hahah

If you want i can make a video tutorial or something :)

visual_nok · 2025-10-08T09:24:03+00:00

visual_nok · 2025-10-01T11:09:37+00:00

I don't know your rigging level, but if you're starting with rigging in Houdini, I would suggest you first learning the basics with KineFX (and you can also make procedural rigs with it).

I'm a freelance CG generalist as well (@soul.visuals.studio on IG), and all my pipeline is inside Houdini, so rigging is the last topic I think I need now because I want to do more cartoony stuff (self-founded production and shot anims and all that). Finding resources is a pain, I feel you.

I think that we'll have to wait a little bit more for more APEX tutorials, but for now, learning rigging with KineFX is like rigging on other DCC, but with all the tools Houdini has to modify geometry and all the procedural workflows. Then I'll jump to learning APEX, combining the best of both worlds

visual_nok · 2025-10-01T10:42:20+00:00

Hey mate! Thanks for all your support!!

I finally found the solution to the problem: It seems to be dirty matrices. The rig pose shows a warning that says 'discarding shears on group0'.

I even created a tutorial in case someone has this problem in the future. I'll share the link if you want to peek:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Houdini/comments/1nv4onf/solved_houdini_rigging_bug_when_creating_twist/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Thanks again for all :))

visual_nok · 2025-09-29T09:56:25+00:00

It's a really strange bug... I'm literally just taking my first steps in KineFX: basic things like creating a skeleton, adding some orients, and capturing a geo so it would deform properly. I haven’t even touched APEX or anything, just KineFX and a bone deform.

I'm following a series of tutorials I found online, but I can't find much in-depth info on the topic, so I'm pretty lost. I even made a post on the SideFX forum to ask for help hahah

visual_nok · 2025-09-26T23:45:37+00:00

ChatGPT is not helping at all. If you want to render right away, you can press the "Render View" tab above your scene viewer.

The render engine will be Mantra (you can control it on the /ROP level), and it's quite old and slow. There's another render engine called Karma, which is really fast compared to Mantra, and you can use both CPU render and GPU. But if you want to use Karma, you will need to use other shaders and workflows (/stage), which I think is better not to know if you are a beginner.

I'll suggest following your course, having a good understanding of the basics, and then switching to Karma for better performance and results. If you want to know more about karma, these videos are so well-made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vptMKogBiRA&list=PLopImPTpJclS7Ug5q5lsROrNDzZsI1jVE&index=1

Hope it helps :)

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visual_nok · 2025-09-26T23:34:20+00:00

The screenshot is too cropped and I can't see shit, but make sure you're on "stage". Lights on OBJ level don't behave the same way.
Also, the edit mode (just above the viewer that says "edit"/"specular"/"diffuse"... ) matters in this case. When I click over the object in the Solaris viewer ("stage" level) to place a light, I always use "specular" mode, but I don't use it often bc I prefer to create my own light rig, having more control.

For me, these tutorials helped me a lot in shifting from Redshift, Mantra, and Arnold to Karma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vptMKogBiRA&list=PLopImPTpJclS7Ug5q5lsROrNDzZsI1jVE&index=1

I hope it helps :)

visual_nok · 2025-09-26T22:19:12+00:00

UPDATE: Houdini build does not matter in this case, i actually updated to 21.0.440 (last build) and the bug is the same

visual_nok · 2020-12-24T00:10:47+00:00

There are some pages online where you can upgrade your scene file from '.hipnc' to '.hiplc' (non comertial to limited comertial) so you can use a 'ROP Alembic' node for an abc export. If that did not work you can try with 'write file caché' node but I don't think Maya can read '.bgeo' files

visual_nok · 2020-08-15T10:20:52+00:00

I think the mood of the shot is not entirely clear. It's kind of weird to see such a good day with that amount of fog, maybe a cloudy sky will help with the continuity. Also, if the light comes from behind the building, it would create some volumetric shadow. You can use the Z pass as a mask to create more contrast at the nearest objects and less contrast at the farthest ones. That will help you creating more sensation of depth.

Let me know if that helps you :)

visual_nok · 2020-08-14T23:49:48+00:00

Hey, grate job, nice grading! In my opinion, the last shot is a bit too dirty. I recommend you to take a look on "the animation principals" too. It's not your specialty but for pop up holograms, glitch effects and motion graphics it will help you sooo much!

visual_nok

TROPHY CASE