It's official, Redshift is having another sale starting today February 8th, 2019 through to February 15th, 2019. Receive 20% off new node-locked licenses. Bringing the price down to $400. If you have been waiting to buy, now is a good time. - https://www.redshift3d.com/buy
Free Windows QuickLook Tool - SEER /
Hey guys! Just wanted to share this really useful quick look tool for windows users "SEER". Its free too. Runs like MacOS quick look for images, text, files and more. Just hold down the spacebar key with the file selected and you get a quick preview. Enjoy! http://1218.io
Patreon - Houdini 17 - Custom HeightField Redshift Instancer Tool - Tutorial /
Hey guys! In my last Patreon #13 covering the new Height-field scatter SOP features in Houdini 17 I mentioned that I was planning on building a custom HDA to easily replace the packedprim scatter with Redshift instances or Redshift proxies using either the Instance or InstanceFile system.
This custom HDA lets you do this easily without having to write VEX or any attribute wrangles each time you need to instance proxies on Height-Field Scatters. Watch the tutorial to learn how to use it, to install it just drop it into your Houdini OTL folder.
The Download link can be found on my Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-houdini-23152516
Upscaling Methods Showdown /
Testing out some different Upscaling methods, in this test I upscaled some 720p footage to 1080p. This is a cropped in close up of the test results.
A custom Nuke TVI method is by far the best but I will say the Red Giant Plug-in Instant 4k did pretty good and got 2nd best. After Effects, built-in Detail-Preserving Upscale was mediocre and finally just a Nuke Reformat node which provided the baseline generic upscale.
The results speak for themselves, Nuke TVI methods are on another level but for Non-Nuke users, the Instant 4k plug-in works surprisingly well. Recommend one of the two above options if your up-scaling CG renders.
New Houdini 17 Master Class - Terrains part 2 /
Part 2 of the new terrains tutorial by SideFX covering some of the new features for environments in Houdini 17. This new tutorial focuses on the new terrain height field scatter improvements.
The new H17 height field scatter is very powerful with a lot of built in features to control your scatters. It is very similar to the Maya MASH Ecosystem node. In the future when we build more environments I will be using this new system moving forward.
I still recommend you learn the standard method of scattering and creating your own attributes though for further control but having this new feature does make things easier. Enjoy!