Creating Sci-Fi Electrical FX in Houdini

Step-by-Step VFX Workflow using Houdini & Natron with Maria Barbadillo

Learn how to use Houdini to create high-quality visual effects for science-fiction environments in this 3-hour workshop by Lead FX Artist, Maria Barbadillo, whose experience spans Thor: Ragnarok and Deadpool 2. In this step-by-step tutorial, artists will start with several visual references and discover how to bring them to life to create a unique effect worthy of their portfolio. 

This workshop details key Houdini tools, including procedural modeling, simple simulations, and small animations, demonstrating that complex and heavy simulations are not necessary to create impactful and effective visual effects. Maria also showcases shading and lighting techniques to enhance and emphasize the effects created, and demonstrates how to use Karma for rendering and to efficiently optimize render times.

While following this workshop, artists will create their own pre-comp to visualize the combination of all the elements and learn all the basic composition principles to improve the final result by adjusting render layers.

This workshop is aimed at intermediate-level artists. By completing the workshop, artists will have developed the skills to create their own sci-fi effects using a simple yet efficient workflow. They will also have the understanding to model unique assets procedurally, render layers, create shaders in Karma, and build an entire scene from scratch, starting with a layout and finishing with the final composition.

Maria used Angelo Ferretti’s free Sci-Fi Scene and Madzersolo’s free Floating Spherical Robot 3D model. Natron, available for free from GitHub, is also used in this workshop.

Project files provided with this workshop include the full 3D scene to support artists as they work through the various lessons.