https://www.fxphd.com/details/676/

• This course, taught by Liam Whitehouse, covers how to create detailed fire and smoke pyro simulation effects for a destroyed wooden siege tower, for a warfare scene set in medieval Europe. It covers Houdini Pyro workflow in detail for sourcing, creating pyro attributes, simulation and adjustment of simulations, visualising sims using the pyro bake volume, and setup of materials and rendering pyro sims using Karma XPU.
• It also covers the new Axiom GPU sparse solver which is a very fast and efficient simulation plugin which can dramatically reduce simulation times for Houdini pyro fx simulations at high detail. Members will also learn how to setup sourcing, influence fields, wind, turbulence, dissipation, shading and setup of advected secondary simulations in Axiom to create beautiful detailed fire and smoke renders for high end visual effects shots.
• Liam Whitehouse is an Australian based Senior VFX artist who has been in the 3D industry since 2003. He has worked on various projects over the past 21 years including most recently environments in The Fall Guy, underwater environments in Aquaman 2, Lindon forests in The Rings Of Power, photorealistic canyon environments for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus, and the hollow earth environments for Godzilla vs Kong, as well as photogrammetry rocks in Avatar 2.

• This course, taught by VFX supervisor Charles Chorein, provides a comprehensive guide to creating and animating a crowd scene using motion capture data and various assets from our VFX308 course. Starting with the acquisition of models and motion capture from the Mixamo database, you will create and enhance assets in Maya, then import and set up these assets in Houdini. The course covers the application of motion capture data, adding props like swords and shields, and managing all elements within a single agent. You will learn to incorporate the terrain, perform rigging adjustments, and populate your scene with varied agents. The course also delves into simulating agent collisions and interactions using DOPnet and introduces techniques to add variation in animations based on different triggers, ensuring a dynamic and realistic crowd scene.

• Our latest project-based course will work through a scene over time from concept to completion, supplemented with discussion in our private Slack channel. Classes will be released weekly or bi-weekly, covering all aspects of the shot from footage prep to photogrammetry to animation, effects, and more.  The classes will be led by a variety of artists who contribute to the shot, based upon their specialty in the field. Leading the overall project and many of the classes is Charles Chorein, a London-based VFX supervisor who has taught many courses for us over the years. 

FXPHD - HOU231 - Rigid Body Destruction Dynamics in Houdini

Language: English (US)

Designed with the graphic artist, effects artist and editor in mind, this course will provide a solid foundation of knowledge of production and post production audio. Taught by audio mixer/designer Cory Coken, the course will center on four core areas of audio: dialogue, sound effects, music, and mix. The course will be a series of on camera classes covering techniques and approaches.

https://www.fxphd.com/details/269/

This course follows up on the Vue201 course, and offers intermediate and advanced Vue artists an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the program and to acquire new practical techniques for production work. In the first half of the course we will concentrate on specific areas and tools in Vue, while the second half will essentially be a detailed work-through of a VFX shot involving Vue – from initial planning stages to final Nuke compositing. Throughout this course we will also get a chance to explore and use the great new features of Vue 9.

This term, to mark our 10th Background Fundamentals, we've got a blockbuster in store for fxphd members. Throughout the term, we'll look at what it means to be a Visual Effects Supervisor. What are the pressures, the roles and how do you manage a large Hollywood film? To find out, we engage in lengthy discussions with the world's best supervisors including John Knoll, Scott Squires, John Dykstra, Pablo Helman, Dennis Murren, Mike Fink, Ken Ralston, Kim Libreri and others. These are some of the finest visual effects specialists in the industry with a stunning 5 technical or special Oscars, 24 Oscar nominations and 14 Academy Award wins between them. This truly one of the most accomplished group of visual effects experts ever assembled.

FXPHD - DIR301 - Directing

https://www.fxphd.com/details/184/

In this course, award winning Jason Wingrove provide his experience in what it takes to direct. Wingrove has years of experience gaining brilliant performances from actors, children and telling stories that have a humanity and warmth. Wingrove works primarily as a TVC director, having started his career in the Camera department and worked his way up. Many of you will know Wingrove from the fxguide Red Centre podcasts and we have had numerous requests for Wingrove to work through a real production from pre to post.