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Houdini Cookbook

all animation copernicus flip geometry lighting pyro rigging rigid body shading solaris vdb vellum vex
28 recipes by "snay" Clear
Smooth Object Motion
sop Smooth Object Motion

Setup to smooth the motion of any arbitrary rigid body geometry, no rig required. Our use case was to quickly smooth motion data coming from a tracking software.

Jan 11, 2026 · 20.5.584 · animation · by snay
object tracking motion kinefx noise
Animated Stitches
sop Animated Stitches

Procedural animated stitch setup. Stitches follow an initial base curve, and are projected onto a surface. The surface is deformed as the stitches progress, to mimic a swelling of the skin or fabric.

Dec 08, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
fabric skin stitch embroidery animated geometry heart
Starter Crowd Setup
sop Starter Crowd Setup

This setup is a quick start to a crowd simulation. It supports custom characters as agents, layers for clothing, and motion path avoidance, and terrain adaptation. This snippet was stripped down from our crowd simulation work for the Cant Wait music video.

Nov 30, 2025 · 20.5.584 · animation · by snay
crowd simulation character animation cantwait
Vellum Guide Geometry
sop Vellum Guide Geometry

Setup for a vellum simulation that follows a guiding geometry. This is useful when you want to blend a geometry into its final form, while taking into account self or external collisions.

Nov 25, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
vellum attach constraint collision kkf flower
Vellum Peel
sop Vellum Peel

Art direct the crack and peel of a surface geometry, using voronoi fracturing and a vellum cloth simulation.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
voronoi final destination peel organic skin fabric
Gyroid Spherical Coordinates
sop Gyroid Spherical Coordinates

Twist on the basic gyroid, using the formula on spherical coordinates instead of cartesian. This should conform nicer to spherical shapes. This is also an example on how to warp the gyroid shape and get more custom formations.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
vex volume pattern nature organic structure detail
Gyroid Cartesian Coordinates
sop Gyroid Cartesian Coordinates

The gyroid is a geometry with a detail and a continuous surface. It is found in nature, contributing to the structural coloration of butterfly wings and efficiency of honeycombs. This example is done on basic XYZ cartesian coordinates, but it gets interesting when you start to warp the space that feeds the Gyroid.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
vex gyroid nature organic structure surface pattern
Ship Fire Simulation
sop Ship Fire Simulation

Quick setup for a pyro smoke simulation ready for VDB export. Includes nodes to control initial shape, density, velocity, wind force, colliders, openCL compute and VDB output settings.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · pyro · by snay
smoke gaia animation thruster
Vellum Leash
sop Vellum Leash

Vellum wire setup that supports animated soft pinning on the tip and tail of the wire. Useful setup for art directing a wire simulation.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
pin animation harri
First And Last Point Group
sop First And Last Point Group

Common vex snippet used for assigning point groups to the first and last points on a curve. Useful when needing a group to pin on a vellum hair sim.

Nov 09, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
vex point prim curve tip animation pinning
Unfurling Flower Pod
sop Unfurling Flower Pod

Building up from the unfurling stem example, this snippet assembles the stems into a flower pod. The animation includes a rig attribute wrangle as the main control, and a kinefx secondary motion for extra livity.

Nov 08, 2025 · 20.5.584 · animation · by snay
kinefx plant organic unfurling secondary motion kkfrag
Simple Petal
sop Simple Petal

A few nodes to create a basic petal shape, with common masks, deformation, and UVs. This should provide a good base layer of detail to feed into a vellum simulation.

Nov 05, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
flower kkfrag plant nature organic
Unfurling Stem
sop Unfurling Stem

Create a plant like unfurling animation by converting a line to a KineFX rig and applying a compounding rotation.

Nov 05, 2025 · 20.5.584 · animation · by snay
nature organic plants kinefx rig stem kkfrag
Obstacle Avoiding Lines
sop Obstacle Avoiding Lines

Compute a line flow given a goal, starting points, and obstacles defined on a surface.

Nov 04, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
obstacle lines path gradient
Equidistant Edge Inset
sop Equidistant Edge Inset

Takes the boundary edge of a surface geometry and insets copies of it towards the center with equal spacing between iterations. Works best on Convex shapes. This was created because the built-in copy and transform with scale of 0.9 creates uneven spacing as the iteration progresses.

Nov 04, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
edge inset geometry polygon operations copy transform pattern
Bake Point Attribute To Texture
sop Bake Point Attribute To Texture

Bake point attributes to textures in COPs. Doing vex calculations inside of COPs allows for smooth textures that can scale to any texture resolution. Geometry obviously will need UVs

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · copernicus · by snay
COPs entagma bake texture favorite
Tearing Cloth Simulation
sop Tearing Cloth Simulation

Art direct seams in a base geometry, and use them as tearing points in a vellum simulation when under stress. Can be used for skin tears as well, ex. thorns growing out of skin.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
simulation tearing cloth rui thorn vellum
Morph Sdf
sop Morph Sdf

Smoothly morph one SDF volume into another.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vdb · by snay
vdb volume transition morph sdf
Phyllotaxis Sweep Operator
sop Phyllotaxis Sweep Operator

Distributes objects along a curve using phyllotactic spacing principles. Creates organic, natural-looking distributions for scattering elements like leaves, flowers, or other organic features along paths.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
phyllotaxis sweep nature packing botanical organic favorite
Glass Shatter
sop Glass Shatter

Simple base setup for a shatter effect. Uses Voronoi fracturing and rigid body simulation. Can be applied to any starting geometry.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · rigid body · by snay
shatter no pain voronoi glass simulation rbd
Phyllotaxis Flat Operator
sop Phyllotaxis Flat Operator

Creates a flat phyllotactic spiral pattern using the golden angle. Points are distributed in a natural spiral formation commonly found in plant structures like sunflower seed heads and pinecone scales.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vex · by snay
phyllotaxis nature packing botanical organic
Embedded Object Edge
sop Embedded Object Edge

Adds a raised edge to an embedded object, mimicking swelling of the skin.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
vdb detail nature organic skin favorite
Breathing Chainmail
sop Breathing Chainmail

Converts a surface geometry into a moving, breathing, chainmail fabric. Apply this modifier to any clothing element that needs extra BLING. This pattern was inspired by 3D printable fabric prototypes.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
fabric curvature vex breathing chainmail vellum clothing detail
Soft Pin Constraints
sop Soft Pin Constraints

Guide a vellum simulation by softly pinning part of the geometry to an animation. Control the softness of the pin over time with an attribute.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
vellum cloth pin constraints favorite
Spider Web
sop Spider Web

Creates a spider web from guiding surface geometry. Recommend to do a few frames of vellum simulation, and then tweak the web to your taste with the vellum brush.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
vellum telerana nature organic environment
Ventral Ridges
sop Ventral Ridges

Embellishes the simple sweeped curve with ridges inspired by the underbelly of some reptiles or worms.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
sweep detail nature organic
Points To Surface
sop Points To Surface

Manually art direct the position of multiple points, while still having them snap to a surface. Each point can be manually rotated, scaled, and positioned using Rig Pose.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · geometry · by snay
surface kinefx rig pose points raycast transform
Animated Rest Length
sop Animated Rest Length

Animate and update the rest length parameter during a vellum simulation. Uses vellum constraint properties inside the vellum solver.

Nov 03, 2025 · 20.5.584 · vellum · by snay
vellum cloth restlength restscale constraints favorite