How To: Create fire and smoke using Pyro FX in Houdini 10

The new Pyro FX in Houdini 10 are very impressive with improved workflow. The Pyro FX are great for creating 3D fire and smoke effects. And in this video tutorial series, you will learn the Pyro FX workflow in-depth and the parameters used to create fire and smoke effects. You will also see how volumetric data is created and recorded, and how to visualize it.

1. Beginning Setup

This video covers the initial setup of the working file that's referenced throughout this series of lessons.

2. Initial Tour

An overview of the various editors and node sub-networks. This video provides a straightforward opportunity to become familiar with navigating the networks.

3. Visualize Data

An introduction to specific names and data types, and how to visualize them in Houdini.

4. New Desktop

Re-configure the Houdini desktop layout to better suit your needs for working with Pyro FX.

5. Shading Fire

An introduction to the Pyro Shader and a detailed look at the parameters used for shading fire.

6. Shading Smoke

Drawing knowledge gained in the previous lesson, continue to explore the Pyro Shader and the parameters used to shade smoke.

7. Scattering

Scattering is used by the Pyro Shader to simulate the diffusion of light created by fire within a smoke cloud. Scattering is the next logical step after tweaking the look of fire and smoke.

8. Voxels

Step away from Pyro FX to consider the fundamentals of volumetric data, how it is generated and recorded in Houdini.

9. Pyro Node

This lesson focuses on the Pyro node and examines how data is initially created, what types of data are created, and how it is managed. Referenced are previous example of voxels.

10. Lowres and Upres

In this concluding lesson, see the transition of the low-res simulation data to high-res form. Also see what type of data needs to be generated, saved, and rendered - including shadow maps, scattered pointclouds, and dynamic data.