Helge Maus

11. December 2020

NUKE 12.2 Practice Hour

11. December 2020 By admin

Today I have finished the first module of our „Nuke Practice Hour“ with the last tutorial about Linear Color, 32Bit Floats and EXRs in Foundry Nuke 12.2. The title of this Module is “Let’s start in NUKE 12.2“ and I have covered the most important concepts you have to learn when starting with node-based Compositing in NUKE.

Thanks a lot for all the positive feedback.

The next module will follow soon 🙂

01 Introduction to the NUKE 12.2 Interface

02 Making your first compositing in NUKE

03 Layers, Channels & Shuffle Nodes in NUKE

04 Understanding Premults & Alphas in NUKE

05 Linear Color, 32Bit Float & EXRs in NUKE

Here is my YouTube for all my tutorials about Houdini, Blender, Nuke & more:
https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

BTW, if you want to support my work with these free tutorials, please subscribe to my YouTube channel, give me a ThumbsUp for the content you like. Also, I have a Patreon page, starting with $1 per month. That’s a nice way to say “Thank You”: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

If you like Helge’s Tutorials, give him some support to go on!

If you want to support Helge Maus for publishing more free tutorials, you can join his Patreons:
https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or if you want to buy me a coffee or pizza, here’s my Tip Jar:
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=72PHXB852BW5A

Thanks for your support!

Find more information on www.pixeltrain.de

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

26. October 2020

Blender 2.9 – Comping of Light- & Data Passes & Rendering in Cycles

26. October 2020 By admin

The first module of my „Blender 2.9 for Production“ series is done. In this first module we’ve talked about the build-in node-based Compositor of Blender 2.9 and how to work with it in an effective integrated workflow. You have learned how you set up Render-Layers and -Passes and how to work also with external OpenEXRs from other 3D-Applications and Renderers. My conclusion is, that this Compositor is a really powerful addition to every workflow and I am hoping for more improvements in the future.

01 Introduction to the Blender Compositor Workflow

02 Basic Compositing Tasks in Blender 2.9 Compositor

03 RenderLayers, Collections & Ray-Visibility

04 RenderLayers, LightPasses & DataPasses

05 Working with Light- & Data-Passes, Alphas and much more

I hope, you enjoyed this series and learned a lot. But for now I will dive into the new Houdini 18.5 stuff.

Let’s say it like that „I will be back“ 😉 Blender 2.91 is around the corner and I will continue this „Blender 2.9 for Production“ series with the 2D- & 3D-Tracking system.

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

If you like Helge’s Tutorials, give him some support to go on!

If you want to support Helge Maus for publishing more free tutorials, you can join his Patreons:
https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or if you want to buy me a coffee or pizza, here’s my Tip Jar:
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=72PHXB852BW5A

Thanks for your support!

Find more information on www.pixeltrain.net

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

1. October 2020

Blender 2.9 for Production

1. October 2020 By admin

Learn the Compositing Workflow inside of Blender!

Today, I have started a new tutorial series for Blender 2.9 “Blender 2.9 for Production”.

This tutorial series „Blender 2.9 for Production“ focuses on Blender 2.9 as a full Production Suite for (Indie) 3D- & VFX Productions. In this tutorials, I will explain how to work with the different Modules of Blender 2.9 and how they are connected to each other. I will give you an introduction of the specific functionalities, but also the production context and workflows, which can help you to use Blender in your productions.

The first tutorial is online now on my YouTube – enjoy!

These topics are covered:

Overview over the series
Understanding the Blender Render Process
Rendersettings
Image Editor Window
Direct Saving of Render Results
Images in Blender’s Memory
Re-open a previous render
Slots for Comparison
View Layers (Renderlayers) & Render-Channels / Passes / AOVs
Differences in saving Stills vs. Animations
Understand Blender’s Post Processing Pipeline
Adding Channels in the View Layer Properties
Denoising Data, Mist, Cryptomatte Passes
Renderlayers & Composite Node
Loading pre-rendered images or sequences
Outputting compositing results as EXRs
Adding Output Channels for the EXR export
Using the Node Wrangler
Adding useful Keyboard Shortcuts
Node Search Shortcut
Adding some Quick Favorites
Adding Nodes to the stream
Deleting Nodes
Working effective with the Viewer Node
Backdrop Image / Image Viewer
Saving out final stills directly
Finding the control widgets for special nodes
Performance Settings
Sampling Colors
Float normalized Colors Adding a Glow
Rendering & Comping a whole animation at once

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

If you want to support Helge Maus for publishing more free tutorials you could join his Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

https://www.viewconference.it/

25. September 2020

NEW Online-Events > Learn Blender!

25. September 2020 By admin

Start your Blender 2.9 Journey now!
Blender 2.9 – A full production suite for 3D, VFX and Animation.

Next to my beloved Houdini FX, Blender is for me the solutions for Modeling, Animation and PreViz.

As you may have seen, I have published the last days 4 free tutorials about the new features of Blender 2.9.
You find them on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

If you now have the feeling, that you want to start seriously to learn this great free production suite, here are some event tips, where I will be teaching Blender for you.

>> VIEW CONFERENCE 2020, Oct 18 – 23

The next live workshop will be at the exciting VIEW CONFERENCE 2020 – on-site and online
I will give a 2-hours Workshop:

“Blender 2.9: The Free Production Studio for Indies“

in Room Mezzanino on Sunday 18th Oct 2020 in English.

You find more Information about the Online-Workshop here: https://www.viewconference.it/article/384/blender-29-the-free-production-studio-for-indies
And, don’t miss all the other great Keynotes, Masterclasses and talks. This conference is great!

>> Blender-Trainings – Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz, Nov & Dec 2020

https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/

In Cooperation with Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz, I will teach again some online sessions for small groups of 4-8 attendees. This is in german language. If you are interested in an English workshop, please let me know!

Blender 2.9 – Einführungskurs

Date: 26 and 27 November, 2020 – online
You find more Information about the Training here: https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/bildung/blender-einfuehrungskurs/

Blender 2.9 – Rendering mit Eevee und Cycles

Date:04 December, 2020 – online
You find more Information about the Training here: https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/bildung/blender-vertiefung/

Blender 2.9 – Animation & Rigging

Date: 10 and 11 December, 2020 – online
You find more Information about the Training here: https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/bildung/blender-animation/

If you have questions or your company wants to adapt Blender (or Houdini FX) to the pipeline, get in contact. I’m happy to help!

17. August 2020

Houdini Practice Hour: CoffeeCup completed!

17. August 2020 By admin

Hello Houdini Beginners,

The first module of my free “Houdini FX Practice Hour” project “CoffeeCup” is finished!

Over the course of 13 lessons, you will learn the basics of the Houdini Polygon Modeling tools and how to get into a procedural approach with selections, groups and a little bit of HScript.

You will learn how to work with UVs and build a workflow between Houdini and Substance Painter.

We will render our scenes in Mantra.

In two bonus lessons, we dive deeper into the Classic Material Workflow between Houdini and Substance Painter 2020 and the new UDIM based workflow.

I hope, some of you find this useful.

Here is the full playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp90cx0wSyKadoPBBcMQCSwtTAMBtXPIM

These lessons are meant as an addition to the other two Houdini Practice Hour projects (Banana and Toothbrush), so if you want to follow the complete learning path, you should begin with these.

Have fun!

Helge

If you want to support me for publishing more free tutorials, you could join my Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or you can download the Project files on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/pixeltrain3d

This tutorial series „Houdini Practice Hour“ is meant for newbies in Houdini FX, who want to learn the basic tasks of modeling, uvs, shading, lighting and rendering on a project base in Houdini FX. I will explain you step by step the workflows and tools, so you can follow along and then experiment to deepen your knowledge. Learning means „getting your hands dirty“. This series doesn’t give you the most effective, elegant or the “only right way”, it’s concepted to give you a solid learning experience.

If your are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

Link to the YouTube-Playlist “Houdini FX Practice Hour”:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp90cx0wSyKZ2Nxnyp4W-EeaEQBp53k-f

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

1. August 2020

Mantra Shading Workflow, UVs & UDIMs in Houdini FX

1. August 2020 By admin

Dear Houdini FX Enthusiasts,

What keeps you up in long nights sitting in front of your screen?

Right, Coffee 🙂 Today, I have finished the first 4 hours module of my new free “Houdini FX Practice Hour” project “Coffee Cup”.

My focus this time was showing you the first steps in approaching procedural Polygon Modeling in Houdini FX. We talk about groups, channel referencing and we write some snippets of HScript. We also talk about different UV Tools inside of Houdini and look into the exchange workflow of the Model with external Painting Applications like Substance Painter, 3D-Coat and Mari. Yes, I also show how to layout UVs in a UDIM workflow. At the end of this first module, we build a Mantra Rendering scene and use the painted textures. I will release some bonus lessons about the Painting process in Substance Painter and 3D Coat, using UDIMs next week, so please have some patience.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

These lessons are beginners level and are building on the other two finished Houdini Practice Hour Projects “Banana” and “Toothbrush”.
I hope, you find them useful and have some fun.

Kind regards,
Helge

In this tutorial, you will learn how to unwrap the coffee cup and the lid with different UV nodes inside of Houdini FX.

We will take a look in the powerful UV Flatten node, but also UV Project and UV Unwrap.

Then we talk about layouting your UVs and I show you how to work with UDIMs.

These topics are covered:

UV Flatten Node
Cut Seams Tool
Making Cuts & Loop Cuts
Sew Tool
Visibility Node
Finding UV Distortions & UV Overlaps
Unwrapping the Cup
UV Project Node UV
Unwrap Node
Unwrapping sequentially
Pre-Selecting areas with Groups & expressions
Preserving existing seams
UV Layout Node
Layouting the islands
Layout with UDIMs

If you want to support me for publishing more free tutorials, you could join my Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or you can download the Project files on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/pixeltrain3d

This tutorial series „Houdini Practice Hour“ is meant for newbies in Houdini FX, who want to learn the basic tasks of modeling, uvs, shading, lighting and rendering on a project base in Houdini FX.

I will explain you step by step the workflows and tools, so you can follow along and then experiment to deepen your knowledge.

Learning means „getting your hands dirty“. This series doesn’t give you the most effective, elegant or the “only right way”, it’s concepted to give you a solid learning experience.

If your are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

Link to the YouTube-Playlist “Houdini FX Practice Hour”:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp90cx0wSyKZ2Nxnyp4W-EeaEQBp53k-f

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

17. July 2020

Houdini Practice Hour: Learn Expressions

17. July 2020 By admin

This time I talked too much and so our “Houdini FX Practice Hour” tutorials are a little bit late. But, I think you will like them. 3 new lessons …

This time we finish the lid of our coffee cup – again with procedural Polygon Modeling – and you will learn a little bit more Houdini HScript expressions as helpers. Also you will see how to make your own Houdini shelf, add a node presets …

Ok, enough, here is the link to my YouTube:

See you next week and if you like the content, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE 😉

In this tutorial, you will learn the conceptional differences when working in a direct or procedural modeling approach.

Also, we discuss, how you branch out in larger trees to add more details and use channel expressions, again.

These topics are covered:

Direct Modeling vs Procedural Modeling
Discussion, why to use boolean sops as helpers
Fast ways to set flags in large node trees
Branching out for cup lid
PolyExpand2D Node
Using Channel References
Finishing the top of the lid

Playlist: Learn Houdini VFX with Helge Maus / pixeltrain

This tutorial series „Houdini Practice Hour“ is meant for newbies in Houdini FX, who want to learn the basic tasks of modeling, uvs, shading, lighting and rendering on a project base in Houdini FX.

I will explain you step by step the workflows and tools, so you can follow along and then experiment to deepen your knowledge. Learning means „getting your hands dirty“. This series doesn’t give you the most effective, elegant or the “only right way”, it’s concepted to give you a solid learning experience.

If you are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

Helge Maus teaches 3D- & VFX Applications for 20 years. His focus lies on VFX, but he also works with many studios and agencies from different visualization areas. If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

If you want to support me for publishing more free tutorials, you could join my Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or you can download the Project files on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/pixeltrain3d

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

10. July 2020

Houdini Practice Hour: Modeling fully procedural

10. July 2020 By admin

Ok, Friday is release day and the next “Houdini FX Practice Hour” project has started. We will start this week building a Coffee Cup Scene with some beans flying around. Also, we will dive into “procedural” Polygon Modeling in Houdini FX and, later for the beans, into Retopo and Rigid Bodies.

So, for people coming from other 3D applications, you will find a whole bunch of important Houdini FX concepts like selection, groups, automatically generated groups and channel expressions with HScript. Everything step-by-step, so that you can build your own scene.

Let’s start this week with fundamentals and build these paper cups – procedurally.

Thanks and have a nice weekend,

Helge

If you want to support me for publishing more free tutorials, you could join my Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or you can download the Project files on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/pixeltrain3d

In this tutorial, we will talk about the ideas of the Coffee Cups & Beans project, collect references with the help of PureRef and setting up our Houdini FX Project. It’s about learning how to start a new project.

These topics are covered:

Setting up a new Houdini Project
Understanding $JOB & relative paths
Importance of References
Using PureRef (https://www.pureref.com) to collect references
Moving & Resizing the PureRef Canvas
Finding the Key Bindings Re-arranging Boards
Entering Nodes /Text in PureRef Presenting Images
Adding Images to a PureRef Board
Optimize Boards
Exporting a PureRef Board as PNG
Loading Reference Images to Houdini FX

This tutorial series „Houdini Practice Hour“ is meant for newbies in Houdini FX, who want to learn the basic tasks of modeling, uvs, shading, lighting and rendering on a project base in Houdini FX. I will explain you step by step the workflows and tools, so you can follow along and then experiment to deepen your knowledge. Learning means „getting your hands dirty“. This series doesn’t give you the most effective, elegant or the “only right way”, it’s concepted to give you a solid learning experience.

If your are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

Link to the YouTube-Playlist “Houdini FX Practice Hour”:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp90cx0wSyKbb3jldZ43aRyHv-IrMyjCJ

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

11. June 2020

Houdini Practice Hour: Mantra

11. June 2020 By admin

It’s done – today I have finished the complete “Toothbrush” series of my “Houdini FX Practice Hour”.

16 FREE lessons, over 3 hours of training about Houdini FX, Grooming Hair, Substance Painter and Mantra Rendering.

Now I am planing the next project 🙂

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings

Thanks for subscribing and sharing!

If you want to support me for publishing more free tutorials, you could join my Patreons: https://www.patreon.com/pixeltrain3d

Or you can download the Project files on Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/pixeltrain3d

Link to the YouTube-Playlist “Houdini FX Practice Hour”:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp90cx0wSyKZ2Nxnyp4W-EeaEQBp53k-f

If your are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

In this tutorial, we will finish our project by adding Mantra Shaders for the Brushes and the Bristles.

You will learn to add the external textures from Substance Painter and how to get the right look.

Also, we talk about subnets and how to pack the whole brush into a subnet as a preparation for a later HDA workflow.

These topics are covered:

Making the Bristles setup moveable
Working with Subnets
Re-caching Guide Groom data
Principled Shader
Adding Textures (from Substance Painter)
Normal Maps
Base Color, Metallic, Roughness Maps
Houdini Hair Shader for the Bristles
Changing the Hair
Generation to SOP Working with the tree view
Rendering the final image

This tutorial series „Houdini Practice Hour“ is meant for newbies in Houdini FX, who want to learn the basic tasks of modeling, uvs, shading, lighting and rendering on a project base in Houdini FX. I will explain you step by step the workflows and tools, so you can follow along and then experiment to deepen your knowledge. Learning means „getting your hands dirty“. This series doesn’t give you the most effective, elegant or the “only right way”, it’s concepted to give you a solid learning experience.

If your are searching for a complete introduction into the fundamentals of Houdini FX, you can take a look here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/houdinifxfundamentals

If you have questions or topics, which should be added, please let us know.

Find more information on pixeltrain.de YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pixeltrain3DVFXTrainings