FX ONLINE COURSE
STUDY UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
A TOP FXTD
FX ONLINE COURSE
DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC STUDIES
Director of Academic Studies, teacher - former Art director and Production designer - PIXAR Studios
Anthony Christov is an internationally renowned art director and production designer for the award-winning Pixar Animation Studios...
THE BEST IDEA FOR NEXT-GEN FX ARTISTS!
COURSE INTRODUCTION
Enroll in one of the most dynamic FX programs in Europe!
IDEA Academy offers the one and only animation course directed by Anthony Christov, former Art Director and Production Designer at Pixar Animation Studios.
The course is taught by Francesco Giugliano, an experienced professional who works mainly in Feature Films, TV Series and Advertising collaborating with some of the biggest post-production companies in the world on titles like Alien: Covenant, Terminator: Dark Fate, Hellboy, The Witcher Season 2, The Wheel of Time, Shazam! and many others.
IMPORTANT: Applications should meet the minimum entry requirements to pursue the program. Applicants are required to sit through an interview with IDEA Academy’s staff.
Courses are taught in English in an online live streaming format
LAY DOWN THE BASICS IN HOUDINI
FX
MODULE 1
Duration: 12 weeks
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Introduction to Houdini’s UI, folder structures, aliases, project variables and Houdini’s Online Documentation.
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Procedural workflow: what it is and how it works. Pros and Cons, comparison to other DCCs.
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Houdini’s contexts: explanation of the *OPs family.
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Points, vertices, primitives, details. How Houdini “sees” geometry data. Vectors, floats, integers, matrices, quaternions.
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Attributes: what they are, how to leverage them and how they can logically represent real-world properties of a subject.
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VOPs and VEX, uses, pros and cons. Hscript and expressions
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Geometry creation and manipulation: destructive and non-destructive tools, best practices, common uses, case study
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Grouping methods and expressions.
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Basic animation tools, keyframes, curves interpolations
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UV tools, procedural and non-procedural approaches
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Procedural shading, lighting, rendering in Houdini with Mantra and Karma
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Introduction to Particles
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Attributes, and properties
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POP VOPs and POP Wrangles to control behaviours
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VDB Collisions methods
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Custom forces
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Caching tips
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Memory optimizations
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Specific rendering techniques
SHOWRELL PROJECT 1
Simple procedural project from start to finish. Hardly any simulation involved. (focus on Commercial and Advertising type of work)
FX
MODULE 2
Duration: 12 weeks
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Rigid Body Dynamics
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Copying, instancing
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Randomness, varying objects and properties
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Packed Objects, fragments, primitives
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Static, animated or deforming Active states
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Collision shapes, methods and optimizations
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Constraints
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Custom rules, custom solvers
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Forces and interactions
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Low resolution simulation, High resolution visualisation
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Intrinsics attributes, restoring transformations
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Debris with particles
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Debris with RBD
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Pyro simulation for smoke elements
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VDBs workflow, fog and SDF volumes
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Volume gradients, volume samples
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Simulation shaping, disturbance, turbulence
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Volume collisions and interactions
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Specific shading and rendering
SHOWRELL PROJECT 2
RBD project from start to finish. (focus more on Feature Film type of work)
FX
MODULE 3
Duration: 12 weeks
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Vellum soft bodies
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Constraints types
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Case usage for the various types
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Pyro with combustion models
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FLIP fluids for runny elements (drips, blood)
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POP fluid for runny elements
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Viscosity and sticking controls
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Basic terrain creation with Heightfields
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Procedural texturing for terrains
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Cloud tools
SHOWREEL PROJECT 3
Wrap up project with various techniques and increased difficulty
TEACHER
ENROLLMENT DATES 2022/23
Enrollment deadline: subject to availability
Starting and ending dates
MODULE 1: September 26, 2022 - December19, 2022;
MODULE 2: January 9, 2023 - April 3, 2023;
MODULE 3: April 17th, 2023 - July 17, 2023;
TIME SCHEDULE
Monday: 9:30AM - 1:30 PM CET/CEST
Thursday: 9:30AM - 1:30 PM CET/CEST
IMPORTANT: The school reserves the right to change the course's schedule
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Course language: English
Required tools:
- Computer;
- Webcam + microphone;
- Houdini Apprentice (can be downloaded for free after creating an account at this link: www.sidefx.com/download)
COST
The cost of each module (12 weeks) of the FX online course is 1750€
The sum is to be paid at the enrollment