houdini rocket ship

part 1 – modelling the rocket ship

Content Details – 10 Video Chapters (with Audio)

Duration – 2 hrs

lesson plan

• Rocket Shape – Setting up the basic Rocket shape using VOPs
• Cockpit – Modelling the cockpit using the Ray SOP and the Cookie SOP
• Rocket Panels – Adding details to the Rocket body by dividing it into panels
• Control Panel – Adding charging lights on one of the panels
• Cable – Adding a fuel cable to the side of the rocket.
• Rivets – Modelling rivets on the rocket body and controlling their size using Pscale
• Rocket Nose – Modelling the rocket nose and ensuring the size is linked to the size of the rocket
• Exhaust – Build the rocket exhaust by extracting curves from the base of the rocket body
• Rocket Body – Constructing the rocket body
• Rocket Final – Adding finishing touches to the rocket model

part 2 – modelling the scene and animation using chops

Content Details – 8 Video Chapters (with Audio)

Duration – 2 hrs 20 mins

lesson plan

• Air Pump – Modelling the air pump using the poly modelling tools in Houdini
• Launchpad – Building the foreground hill on which the Rocket stands and adding the grass
• Hills – Using a combination of cellular and noise textures to build the background hills
• Trees – Modelling the trees on the hills
• Flowers – Adding some flower like structures on the hills
• Clouds – Modelling custom clouds using the Cloud SOP and the Clouds noise SOP.
• CHOPs – Animating the rocket body and the air pump using procedural animation curves generated using CHOPs
• Rocket Animation – Adding additional animation to the rocket using simple keyframes

part 3 – modelling the scene and animation using chops

Content Details – 9 Video Chapters (with Audio)

Duration – 2 hrs 27 mins

lesson plan

• Cable RBD set up – Setting up the RBD set up for the cable animation
• Constraints Network – Adding the constraints to the RBD set up
• Cable Construction – Constructing the cable out of the simulated RBD objects
• Smoke Set up – Setting up the elements required for the smoke simulation
• Smoke Simulation – Simulating the smoke for the exhaust
• Lighting – Lighting the scene using a combination of HDR images modified using COPs and the sun and sky system
• Materials – A basic explanation of the Mantra Surface and building the materials required for the scene
• Takes – Setting up takes and passes for the final render
• Rendering and Compositing – A brief look at the Mantra render setting and the final composite in After Effects