Exclusive Offer: Only 142 discounted enrollments left. Secure your spot today!
Pre-Sale Course
HOUDINI & FUSION
TEST – The Deathveil – Production Series Magic FX in Houdini
DENNIS SCHMIDT
415.31 € 236.81 €
Expected Startdate:
02.06.2025
3 Part Course
Level: Intermediate
Project Files: Included
(Except Buildings)
Houdini / Karma /Fusion
Course Overview
Intro to Magic Effects
This is an intermediate production-oriented course focused on creating stunning magical effects in Houdini. You’ll go through the entire process, from initial concepts to a fully rendered and comped shot. Learning industry level techniques to enhance your FX skillset. Whether you’re looking to push your existing VFX knowledge or break into FX for film and games, this course will give you the tools to take your work to the next level.
Magic effects require a deep understanding of motion, energy, and style. You’ll explore what makes magical FX feel powerful and believable, from intricate trails and energy bursts to procedural simulations that can adapt across multiple shots.
What you will learn:
- Core principles behind magical effects
- Scene layout and assembly
- Shading and rendering FX in Solaris/Karma
- Procedural workflows for iterative shot development
- Experimenting with different looks
- Simulating magical volumes, smoke, particles
- Optimizing heavy scenes and renders
- Basic RBD interactions
Pre-Sale:
This course is not available yet – it’s in presale at a discounted price! This is the first sale, launching with the teaser. A second shorter sale will follow with the full trailer and official enrollment, and once the course officially starts, enrollment will close.
Exclusive Offer: Only 142 discounted enrollments left. Secure your spot today!
By joining now, you’ll get early access to updates and lessons, the chance to provide feedback, and help shape the course.
Don’t miss out – secure your spot today!
Exclusive Offer: Only 142 discounted enrollments left. Secure your spot today!
WORKSHOP OUTLINE
Take a look at the workshop outline to get an idea of what will be covered
Part 1: Setup & Magic Theory
Part 2: Trail Effects
Part 3: Infection Effect
DENNIS SCHMIDT
Houdini FX Artist
Dennis is a Houdini FX Artist currently working for feature film. He has worked on various projects ranging from Commercials to Game Cinematics to a bunch of big feature films. Latest titles include “Godzilla: King of Monsters”, “Captain Marvel”, “Antman and the Wasp”, “Aquaman” and many more.
If you are looking for some in depth training on industry proven workflows and techniques for FX in Houdini, check out his training.
Exclusive Offer: Only 142 discounted enrollments left. Secure your spot today!
COURSE GALLERY
By the end of this workshop you will have the skills and knowledge to produce the same images
Reviews
Olivier
As a junior FX artist trying to navigate and prepare myself for the industry, this course gave me the necessary techniques and insights that I was seeking to make high quality Flip simulations. The course is packed full of good valuable tricks, gives great in-depth pipeline techniques and is presented in a straight-forward manner. On top of that, Dennis has an amazing understanding of how it works under the hood and is a natural teacher. All of this greatly facilitated the process of creating my project while still allowing me to exercise my own creativity along the way. There is so much I learned in this course that can be adapted to any kind of future projects. It’s worth every penny!
Yoon
I found them [the weekly lessons] very helpful, and most importantly, I found the solutions and approaches to many of the things that Houdini’s default settings don’t illustrate to be incredibly stimulating and practical.
I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I feel like this is the most practical and valuable course I’ve ever taken.
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why things aren’t working out, and learning that the answers to those questions are woven into this course in a way that’s not obvious.
Thank you so much for providing this incredible course. I wish I had known about it sooner.
Antonio
Thank you for teaching me how to create fluid sim in Houdini. I have managed to follow your course and get the desired result. Some parts of the sim I’ve rendered in Karma to reduce render time since I have 4090 at disposal but not everything went well when I wanted to render on GPU. Final comp is mix of Karma and Mantra. In the meantime I had to learn Solaris as well. I made so many mistakes on this journey which I’m thankful because they helped me to understand how fluid simulations work. This is the result: https://youtu.be/QNJXoyzPSaY
Thank you once again for sharing the knowledge.
David
You just show me that houdini is by far the best software out there and so clear to learn the way you focus on how to do things and understand them. Finally…houdini makes sense!!!
Keep it up guys, you have a die hard fan here!!!
Exclusive Offer: Only 142 discounted enrollments left. Secure your spot today!
Frequently Asked Questions
Pre-ordering gives you a discounted price and early access to work-in-progress content, allowing you to shape the course with your feedback.
You will be notified via Email on a regular basis about any updates.
Before the course starts: You can request a full refund if you decide not to participate. However, keep in mind that if you change your mind later, the course may already be full.
After the course starts: Only partial refunds are possible. The refund amount will depend on how much of the course has been accessed. After the second week of course release and live sessions, no refund is possible.
This Course is the first one starting as a hybrid. So pre-recorded and live. There will be a starting date and weekly live sessions with feedback and Q&A.
All other workshops and courses are prerecorded and therefore not live. This makes it perfect for the individual learner so you can watch at your own pace and decide when and where to watch.
Yes! Since this is a hybrid course with live sessions, enrollment will close once the course begins.
This course includes:
– Pre-recorded lessons covering magical FX creation in Houdini
– Weekly live sessions with feedback & Q&A
– Scene files to follow along with the lessons
– Assets created by the author
However, some assets are not included:
– Tree, bush, and grass assets are not part of the course files but can be found online for free.
– Buildings from the scenes are not included, as they come from Kitbash3D’s “Enchanted” library.
The goal of this course is not just to teach button-pressing but to encourage students to build their own unique projects. To support this, we will provide:
– Alternate basic models for buildings
– Guidance on where to find similar assets for free
– Tips on using free assets from Kitbash3D to add your own creative spin
This way, you’ll not only learn how the effects work but also gain experience in adapting them to your own projects!
The Entire Environment Section is broken down so that you can replicate and come up with your own set for the magic to happen in. If you are unsure or have questions, feel free to reach out to us.
This course is designed for intermediate Houdini users. Some basic knowledge of Houdini is recommended.
The course was made on this machine: 64GB, i7 4960X @ 3.6GHZ, RTX 4060 TI
So, as you can see, not the best workstation. Only the Ram and the GPU is bigger than usual. The better your CPU, the faster your renders will be. BUT: We are rendering with Karma, so nothing will take forever, no matter your GPU. Most gaming cards will be able to handle this. If unsure, please reach out to us.
We will be mainly using Houdini for the FX work and Blackmagic Fusion for comp. If you feel Nuke would benefit you, feel free to suggest it during the course. But most of the comp work is easily transferable to nuke since it is mainly color correction and blur/glow/distort.
All live sessions will be recorded and available for you to watch later.
Head over to the CAMPUS (located on the main menu under “About” / “Account” or your account section) and find your course under “My Courses”. Click on the thumbnail and you will be directed to the tutorial page for this course.
We offer customer support and aim to respond as quick as possible to every customer. We understand that the world of CGI can be challenging at times and we went through the same process ourselves. We’re happy to answer any tutorial related questions you may have!
Also, at the CAMPUS you can connect to other Artists and even talk to our instructors or participate in group conversations.
Please contact support [at] pixelfront.net with any questions you may have. Or use our contact form. We aim to respond as soon as possible.
The main difference between courses and workshops is their duration. Workshops are one time tutorials ranging from minutes up to maybe 10 hours the most.
Courses are longer and spread across multiple weeks. Ranging from minutes up to maybe 5 hours per week. The aim of a course is to go through an entire project from start to finish and cover a wide range of information. These are most suited for those wanting to advance their skills even further.