FXPHD Height Fields in Houdini Part 2

Class Listing

#### Class 1: LPEs and OptiX

The course begins by creating a snow and tree shader with textures. An exploration of Light Path Expressions (LPEs), which provide extra layers of control for our AOVs in Nuke without a single line of coding. Finally, for those with an NVIDIA graphics card, how to use NVIDIA's OptiX technology in Mantra to denoise renders on the fly using the GPU.

#### Class 2: Dealing with noise

Samples and noise can be time-consuming and difficult to handle. Mantra provides a lot of control to optimize and get the right values for noise-free renders. This class includes an exploration of multiple tests to examine the possibilities and obtain the right settings.

#### Class 3: Lighting

Now that all technical aspects of our scene have been addressed, we work towards matching the image reference as closely as possible in order to integrate the mountain into the background. An analysis of the lighting in the background image and how to re-create it with an HDRI, SkyLight and AreaLight.

#### Class 4: Final steps before rendering

Before launching our final render, we add additional AOVs which will allow us to be able to adjust and rebalance our image and lighting directly in Nuke without re-rendering. Don't under estimate Cryptomatte in Houdini Mantra....it's very simple to set up and extremely useful in Nuke for creating masks.

#### Class 5: Slap comp

With the renders complete, we export the camera in Houdini via an Alembic file and re-create the 3D setup in Nuke in order to match the camera movement. Creation of a slap comp in Nuke, rebalancing the image using ourAOVs, Cryptomatte, and multilights inorder to improve and finish the comp.