Stunning Forest Stream Simulation Made with Houdini
CG and Character Artist Enrique De la Garza created this amazing liquid simulation using Houdini, showing a picturesque forest stream and sharing a sneak peek of the creative process with a WIP shot.
Introduction
I am currently the CG Supervisor at Frame48's Los Angeles studio. Over the past 7 years, I've grown a lot with the studio, starting as a lead artist and now being responsible for designing and maintaining our custom CG pipeline, as well as managing and mentoring artists across productions, supporting the studio's ability to deliver complex, high-end CGI work efficiently. I consider myself a generalist, and in my free time I like to work on personal projects featuring quirky characters and, lately, simulations as well.
Software Choice
I usually complete all the work almost entirely within SideFX Houdini, since it is what we use in work projects and what I am most comfortable with. Houdini is an amazing tool because it allows me to quickly prototype any idea I have and then, if I see potential, its procedural nature lets me quickly begin polishing that rough prototype.
The other great tool I've been using, and what drives the main simulation in this piece, is Theory Accelerated's Paradigm solver by Matt Puchala. This is a GPU-accelerated fluid solver that is orders of magnitude faster than Houdini's native FLIP solver. This plug-in has been a game changer for me since speed is very important when you are doing little experiments like these after work, simulating and rendering everything on a single computer.
Inspiration
This particular piece was inspired by a backpacking trip to Big Sur that I went on with my girlfriend last year. We were at a beautiful campsite with a river stream just like this one, and I wanted to pay homage to it.
That, and maybe my body is craving another little trip and some quality time touching grass.
Challenges
This particular project was honestly a breeze. Rendering foliage with stencil maps in Karma XPU is blazing fast, and even though Paradigm is still in open beta, the developers are super quick to address any reported bugs you may find. I believe that overall, without rendering time, this project took me about 8 hours to complete. It was a great weekend sidequest.
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