Everything Else
How To: Remove silence from an audio track in Audition 3.0
Learn how to remove silent bits from your audio tracks when using Adobe Audition 3. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular digital audio workstation (DAW) software or a seasoned professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and plugins, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide.
How To: Create DVD menus with Adobe Encore CS4 or CS5
Encore CS4 ships with several gigabytes of content to help you create dynamic menus for your DVDs with ease. But what if you want to take a button from one and a background from another? See how it's done with this video guide. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular DVD authoring software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, inc...
How To: Create volume node textures in Blender 2.5
This is a quick tutorial on setting up a nodes-based texture for 3D volumes in Blender 2.5. Were you aware Blender 2.5 includes a cloud generation script? See how to use it with this video guide. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, including step-by-step instruct...
How To: Work with point density volumetrics in Blender 2.5
This clip offers a quick guide on how to work with point density volumetrics within Blender 2.5. This same technique can be used to make tornados, drifting fog, dry ice and a great number of other things. Were you aware Blender 2.5 includes a cloud generation script? See how to use it with this video guide. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're s...
How To: Create a 3D model of a tornado in Blender 2.5
Learn how to create a full 3D model of a tornado within Blender 2.5. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial from the folks at CG Cookie. For more information, including step-by-step instructions, take a look!
How To: Create wet maps in Houdini 10
This tutorial looks at how to create a map of the wetness left by a particle fluid, so that you can correctly render surfaces with a wet look. It looks at rendering out a point cloud with wetness information, and creating a bespoke shader to correctly render surface using the point cloud. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by ...
How To: Use and work with ForEach SOPs in Houdini 10
This quick three-part series presents an introduction to ForEach SOPs in Houdini 10.
How To: Refine 3D trails in Houdini 10
This one-two tutorial offers advice on how to work with bespoke shaders and compositing networks in Houdini 10. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Refine 3D trails in Houdini 10 - Part 1 of 2.
How To: Use UV mapping in Houdini
This four-part series presents an introduction to some of the techniques for uv mapping in Houdini. This first part introduces the concept of UVs, and looks at UVProject as a way of adding UVs, and UVQuickShade as a way of visualising them. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, i...
How To: Render millions of particles in Houdini 10
This two-part tutorial looks at the techniques for rendering millions of particles in Houdini 10. The first part looks at using the popsolver to manipulate particles using both the standard pop nodes and dynamics forces. We use the interact pop, and random grouping of particles to build an ink like effect. We set up a smoke simulation and use the velocity field of that to advect (move) the particles. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned gra...
How To: Composite in Houdini 10
This video provides an introduction to basic compositing in Houdini. The first part looks at color and alpha planes, the use of matte shading. It also covers generator and filter compositing nodes, and the beginnings of masking. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including det...
How To: Emit smoke, fire & liquid from particles in Houdini 10
This two-part tutorial looks at the basic techniques for emitting smoke from particles.
How To: Use and work with DOP forces in Houdini 10
This three-part series presents a look at the various forces in DOPs and how they work. This tutorial covers all the major forces except for the vortex, bouyancy and fluid forces. It covers both basic aspects and some more advanced techniques (animated masks, using RBD object position to drive a magnet force).
How To: Upres smoke simulations in Houdini 10
This clip uses a smoke example to examine source variations and upres (techniques which are useful preparation for the pyrofx tools). Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Upres smoke simulations in Houdini 10 - Part 1 of 2.
How To: Create a realistic smoke effect in Houdini 10
This two-part tutorial series offers a look at the basics of smoke simulations. This first part looks at setting up a simulation, the fields involved, how to visualise them. It also looks at temperature and bouyancy as well as vortex confinement. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more informat...
How To: Shade with point clouds in Houdini 10
This tutorial offers a look at using point clouds in shading, and the pcopen, pciterate, and pcimport nodes in VOPs. It also gives a further example of a POP network. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.
How To: Instance a light to a particle in Houdini 10
This clip presents a quick look at how to instance lights to particles in Houdini. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Instance a light to a particle in Houdini 10.
How To: Create a particle-based explosion in Houdini 10
This clip presents a walkthrough of how to go about creating a particle based explosion in Houdini 10. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.
How To: Combine keyframe animation with DOPs in Houdini 10
This four-part tutorial series presents a look at how to combine traditional keyframe animation with DOPs simulation. This first part contains an overview of how DOPs differs from SOPs and how to examine DOPs data using the Details View. It then looks at the RBDKeyFrameActive node as a method for combining keyframe and simulation animation. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself wi...
How To: Make lighting models in Houdini with illuminance loops
This clip offers instructions on how to create your own lighting models using an illuminance loop in a VOP network. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Make lighting models in Houdini with illuminance loops.
How To: Use and work with surface shaders in Houdini 10
An introduction to building a surface shader in VOPs that combines an image texture with procedural shading. This is a rather longer set of videos than normal as it is a complete walk through of creating a shader. The videos are in total are roughly an hour long. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. ...
How To: Replicate an object's animation with CHOPs in Houdini
This Houdini 10 user's guide offers a look at how CHOPs can be used to replicate animation from one object to many, or more precisely to vary that animation. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Replicate an object's animation with C...
How To: Draw the Barack Obama logo using Inkscape
Barack Obama is one of the most powerful, divisive, and above all important men in the world. His logo, largely unseen since his election in 2008, was a monument to simple, effective graphic design. Now you can recreate the iconic logo in Inkscape (the popular free vector graphics drawing program) after watching this video. Not only will you have your own replica of the logo to use however you like, you'll also learn the basics of Inkscape, allowing you to draw all sorts of things. Draw the B...
How To: Create a caustic lighting effect in Houdini 10
This clip demonstrates how to create a caustic lighting effect using Houdini's Mantra PBR rendering engine. The first part starts with a refresher on refraction. More generally, guide looks at setting up normals correctly, then at the glass shader in Houdini, faux caustics and shadows, and using an environment light in PBR to generate 'background' reflections. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acq...
How To: Create and use volumes in Houdini 10
This tripartite tutorial series presents an in-depth look at how to use volumes in Houdini 10 — creating them using the volume and IsoOffset SOPs, and adjusting their values. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Create and use volume...
How To: Create music-driven animations via CHOPS in Houdini 10
This three-part tutorial offers an overview of the the basics of Houdini CHOPS, providing two examples of music driven animation. The first part looks at how to bring data into a CHOPS network, and export it using lag as an example. Create music-driven animations via CHOPS in Houdini 10 - Part 1 of 3.
How To: Set attributes and local variables in Houdini 10
This clip offers an introduction to using attributes and local variables in Houdini. It covers vertices (vertexes), points, primitives and details. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Set attributes and local variables in Houdini 10...
How To: Create a burning match effect in Houdini 10
Learn how to use the Houdini SOP solver to create a realistic burning match effect within Houdini 10. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Create a burning match effect in Houdini 10 - Part 1 of 4.
How To: Create a motion blur effect in Houdini 10
This clip covers how to enable motion blur in Houdini, the difference between standard and deformation blur, motion blurring dynamics simulations, motion blur quality settings. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Create a motion blu...
How To: Use physically-based rendering in Houdini 10
This four-part guide presents an introduction to physically-based rendering in Houdini 10, covering what PBR will and won't do for you, sampling settings, environment lighting, objects as lights, shaders, issues with specular highlights. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, incl...
How To: Create flyingletter title text in Houdini 10
This two-part tutorial presents a look at how to form a logo from flying pieces of letters in Houdini 10. The first clip demonstrates the effect, the second is a walkthrough of the setup used to create it. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, tak...
How To: Create and work with polygons in Houdini 10
This clip presents a look at one of the basics of Houdini: Polygons - point, vertex and primitive data, smoothing and faceting, subdivision, removing inline points, orienting polygons and making polygons planar. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instruction...
How To: Model a brick-wall rigid body collision in Houdini 10
A tutorial covering a classic rigid body simulation of ball crashing through a wall of bricks. The first two parts cover building a (procedural) brick wall, and the final two parts cover converting it into a RBD simulation. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed...
How To: Export light passes in Houdini 10
This very short tutorial looks at using image planes, and the new 'per light' option in Houdini 10 to create extra image planes to separate out diffuse, specular, and gi lighting. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Export light pas...
How To: Create object trails in Houdini 10
This quick tutorial demonstrates how to create object trails in Houdini, and then add a turbulence effect to them. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.
How To: Create and render a glowing neon sign in Houdini
Learn how to create a glowing neon sign using Houdini's renderer and compositor with this clip. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Create and render a glowing neon sign in Houdini - Part 1 of 2.
How To: Render a scene with depth of field in Houdini 10
This clip presents a quick lesson on how to render a scene using depth of field (DoF) in Houdini 10. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Render a scene with depth of field in Houdini 10.
How To: Use global illumination in the Houdini Mantra renderer
This clip presents a quick tutorial on using global illumination in Houdini's Mantra renderer. It covers ambient occlusion, full irradiance, path tracing and photon mapping. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Use global illuminatio...
How To: Create and use grouping points in Houdini 10
This tutorial presents a guide on how to use grouping points and primitives in Houdini. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Create and use grouping points in Houdini 10.
How To: Use and work with bundles in Houdini 10
This clip discusses the use of bundles in Houdini. Bundles serve similar purposes to groups of objects and layers in other applications. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look. Use and work with bundles in Houdini 10.