Creating A Realistic Sea In 3D Studio Max With Houdini Ocean

Creating A Realistic Sea In 3D Studio Max With Houdini Ocean

on Nov 8th 2011 with 29 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a realistic animated ocean surface in 3d Studio Max using the Houdini Ocean modifier, part of the free Houdini Ocean Toolkit (Hot4Max). Creating realistic waves and other water surfaces can be extremely difficult to achieve in 3D, but with the integration of this fantastic plugin, you’ll be rendering out realistic ocean scenes in no time!

Additional Files/ Plugins:

Video

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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Chandan Kumar is chandank13 on 3docean
 
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My name is Chandan Kumar and I am a CG and VFX artist/trainer from India.  

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  • Dee

    could you explain the installation of the plugin, not sure if I’m doing it right

    • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar
      Author

      You just need to copy .dll and.dlm files and paste into plugins folder of 3ds Max. A text file is included with the plugin, just follow the simple steps written in that.

  • Hooper

    Kumar is a GREAT teacher!

    keep ‘em coming!

    • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar
      Author

      Thanks Hooper for your words.

  • Beno

    GRAAAACIAS!!!!

  • fariz

    How to make object interact with Houdini Ocean?

    • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar
      Author

      Hi Fariz, object interaction with the sea can be done with constraints. I would try to cover “constraints” in my future tutorials. Hope it will help you then.

  • ze

    the render seem somehow choppy, i can see the triangles in the water, even if i put the subdivisions to a high level, and im not sure what im doing wrong.

    nevertheless, nice tut as always! :)

  • Luiz Pimentel

    Thanks, I installed and made an ocean. Easy and good plugin. Just found it hard to handle in view port. I have nvidea quadro 4000, but I thought good plugin. Great man you are. hehe

  • dexter

    it’s a good tutorial,,and good plug in too.. but i don’t have the arch & design mat in my material editor,, can anyone help me??..tanks

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1207284994 Tayz Bennie

      @Dexter, to have access to arch & design you need to change the renderer from Default scanline to Metal ray. You can do this by pressing F10 then scroll down to were it says assign rendere….

  • http://www.fakeword.com/baby/ Professor List

    This was strange and amazing. It looks so beautiful and realistic. I wasn’t able to do everything perfectly, but I’m not very experienced yet in 3DSM, but I’ll get there. Thanks for taking the time to make this tute.

    PS = I love your accent. Brilliant teacher.

    • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar

      Thanks for your words!

  • Oussama3d

    Good tutorial but how can i render the frames

  • Oscar Pires

    Thanks Chandam Kumar for this knowledge.
    greetings from Portugal

  • Farshad

    Hi Dear Kumar

    Tanks For Your Graet Tuts ….

    ———————

    I can Download Hot4Max Plug-in from Code.Google
    Also, I had search allover the Net; But I can’t find other Link.
    Can You Upload it in any Host ?!
    [I Use from 3Ds Max 2011 32-bit]

    Tanks & Best Regards
    Farshad

    • http://www.vfxrider.com Chandan Kumar

      Hi Farshad, Thanks to like the tutorial.

      The one which is for Max 2012 would run in Max 2011 too. Give it a try and do let me know if you get success!

      Chandan

  • http://Ashis.dey/facebook.com Ashis dey

    Its really amazing plz submitt more.

  • Weish

    Thanks mr kumar.You are better than akshay kumar lolz i can say.But I am having a problem here.I am new to 3ds Max,and i have installed the 2011 x64 version.I did all the steps you have shown in your tutorial,but it is not getting good.Do you have any suggestion on that kumar ?Thanks.

  • tvhater

    This is the best tutorial ever ! Tnx so much !

  • Ritesh

    The video is not working.

    • http://www.bentateonline.com Ben Tate
      Staff

      Hi Ritesh,

      Sorry about that!

      Blip.tv (which hosts our videos) seems to have several glitches that cause videos to drop for no apparent reason. (happens all the time!) No worries though, I’m in the process of re-uploading them now and should have everything working shortly.

      Cheers,
      Ben

  • http://www.bentateonline.com Ben Tate
    Staff

    Fixed! Should be working now ;)

  • Ben

    I can’t get the plugin installed, i added them to the plugins folder and max just gives me an error “The program can’t start because libffw3f – 3.dll is missing” when its in the folder.

    I even went to the plug in manager and selected the plug in, it works then but when i quit the application and open it again its gone ?

    This is really annoying!!!!!

    • http://RemingtonM.com Remington M

      You need to install the libff3f.dll or whatever to your root directory in 3ds Max. I agree that was definitely frustrating and it would have been nice to have some install instructions come with the plugin. But oh well, it’s free! :)

  • Mourad Ifrane

    Copy libfftw3f-3.dll to your 3ds Max root directory
    Copy hotOcean_Max_2010.dlm to your 3dsmax\plugins directory

  • ally

    hi i have installed the plugin and its in the right folder but when i open up 3d max its not there…any ideas of what could be the problem??

    • http://RemingtonM.com Remington

      Try reading the above comments :)

  • Max

    Hi Chandan

    I’m Max From France
    i like this tutorial
    Thank’s for this.
    I hope you can make many Tutorial like this

    I run under 3dsMax 2013 and it’s work Fine

    See u