Learn How to Craft Game Effects using Houdini & UE4

A guide for experienced film VFX artists to start their journey into real-time graphics.

What you’ll learn

Learn How to Craft Game Effects using Houdini & UE4

Take visual effects knowledge you’ve gained through working with Houdini in the motion picture industry and understand the basics of how to apply it to the video game industry.
Understand the importance of optimization in real-time visual effects.

Requirements

The audience should be familiar with 3D Visual Effects workflows. This means understanding basic math, and concepts such as UVs, Normals, and node-based workflows.
Basic familiarity with Houdini is required to get the most out of the presentation.

Description

This 45 Minute Lecture was originally given to the Vancouver Houdini User Group in August 2016. It is a talk that was designed for an audience familiar with feature film visual effects workflows, specifically those which use Houdini. The goal is to increase awareness of limitations in real-time game environments and to help filmmakers take steps towards transitioning into interactive media.

Feature film effects artists are typically used to working with millions of particles, polygons, and voxels. While it’s acceptable for a render farm to chew through heavy data over several hours for the film; current game platforms are not designed with this kind of geometry in mind. It’s up to the effects artist to understand this and produce visuals that are as light-weight as they are beautiful so that game engines can spend their efforts on more than just the visuals.

Who this course is for:

Experienced visual effects artists who have worked in a professional film environment.
Those who are looking for a transition from film to video game visual effects.
Those who are looking for a broad introduction without the slow step-by-step procedures are typically offered in tutorials.