Master advanced Houdini hair grooming techniques
The Gnomon Workshop has released Creating Creature Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini, a masterclass in current VFX production workflows recorded by ILM groom artist Kristin Farrensteiner.
A detailed guide to advanced techniques in Houdini’s grooming toolset
Over the course of nearly eight hours of video training, Farrensteiner explores how to use Houdini’s hair and fur grooming tools to create a groom for a photorealistic cat model.
She begins by setting up the mesh from scratch, revealing how to separate specific regions of fur, then sets out her techniques for grooming short, medium and long hair.
The workshop explains how to troubleshoot issues like memory lines, clump patterns and mesh transfers.
Farrensteiner also shares her look development techniques and her approach for setting up grooms for rendering with Houdini’s Mantra render engine.
The workflows demonstrated can be applied to any character or creature and are optimised for an interactive workflow in a high-paced production pipeline with tight deadlines.
About the artist
Kristin Farrensteiner is a groom artist at Industrial Light & Magic, having previously worked as a groom TD and character effects artist at DNEG.
She is best known for building and simulating digital hair and fur for Marvel and Disney movies, including Avengers: Endgame, Cursed and Wonder Woman 1984.
Pricing and availability
Creating Creature Hair & Fur Grooms in Houdini is available via an online subscription to The Gnomon Workshop, providing access to over 300 tutorials. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $490/year.
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