Introduction to Collisions in Houdini

This course is a part of Houdini: Core Skills, a 13-course Paths series from Pluralsight.

We'll start with a general overview of dynamics in Houdini and discuss the key concepts behind working with simulations. We'll explore the idea of animation without keyframes and the role of solvers in Houdini's dynamic context. Next we go over how to properly set up your scene for working in the dynamic context and how to avoid common mistakes. We'll talk about basic rigid body techniques for creating object interactions. We'll go over how to set up effective collision geometry, and wrap things up by taking a look at the Finite Element Solver and cloth simulations. This course was developed for an artist with a solid understanding of basic 3D concepts and a general understanding of Houdini's interface. While this Houdini training covers the fundamental concepts behind dynamic operators, it is not intended to cover every parameter of every solver. We will instead focus on the ideas and workflow of the dynamic context and the key parameters that will easily allow us to direct the behavior of our simulation.