Foreach Loops in Houdini for Beginners

In this video, I demonstrate how to create an unique model using just the foreach node. I compare how the for loop in coding VS foreach node in Houdini.
Download Houdini File & Javascript code:
bubblepins.com...
SideFX Documentation for Loops:
www.sidefx.com...
#houdini
#sidefx

[@gtrzdaddy]

Whoa~ by far the most easy to understand Houdini tutorial ever!

[@Cloroqx]

You are by far one of the best Houdini teachers on CZcams. Everything is thoroughly and calmly (not frantically like with most spazzy Houdini artists) explained and easy to follow along with.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for the awesome comment!

[@pankajswani3d]

This is the best way to teach a beginner, while watching I had confusions and she explained it in very next seconds.
Loved it.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks! You'll love the for loops in Houdini, it comes in handy for procedural modeling so much!

[@quoiquedon7002]

Thank you very much! This is the most comprehensive tutorial on "for each loop" I've ever found.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching! I'm going to make another "feedback foreach loop" coming soon! Stay tuned!

[@alexchiang8593]

Ik this video is two years old but thank you so much for doing this. My current 3D prof is boring as sin and is explaining all of this in a very confusing way. You keep things simple and you enlarged the node window so I can actually see what's going on. Great Job!

[@bubblepins]

Thanks! Yeah I made the node window larger on purpose, you are the first to notice that! I figured people would want to see the nodes more than the 3D viewport, because it's a tutorial and everyone watching probably wants to recreate the nodes. Thanks for the awesome comment!

[@maurypb]

This is very helpful in demystifying the settings of "feedback" vs "merge". Thanks!

[@bubblepins]

Thanks! I've been planning to create a new video on more details on the feedback foreach loop and how to use it for procedural modeling. Hopefully that'll be released soon!

[@letrang2183]

Im crying watching this at night, tricky thing but you make it easier to understand, thanks

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@aeko]

7:00 - Every time you do this merge with Fetch Feedback you're duplicating the input. So it goes exponential which is why Houdini runs out of memory. Each iteration: 2 boxes, 4 boxes, 8 , 16, 32, 64, etc.

[@MrJayVFX]

This is a pretty good tutorial. I came to learn and I did. However, I recommend you write down/organize your thoughts and/or re-record certain sections if you need to. The part where you were explaining the merge each iteration vs feedback each iteration, it was completely jumbled and you ended up having to re-explain things because of unexpected results, like when the first cube was NOT copied because your merge was taking the iteration before the translation.. Everything made sense, but it was quite messy.
BUT.. I thank you. I did learn more about for-each stuff.

[@quinnzhou8730]

This is the most clear tutorial for foreach loop! Thanks so much!

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@RonnieMirands]

Wow! A lot of people need this: Houdini concepts made simple. Like you did. Thanks and Congrats!

[@bubblepins]

Thanks so much for the awesome comment!

[@anroidanicver6783]

This is so well thought out and well talked through, best Houdini tutorial I’ve seen yet.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks so much!

[@PauloCesarDuarte]

Very helpful, thanks. Waiting for more videos...

[@squantrill]

Yep these for loops are tricky little monkeys to grasp at first. This has really helped me. thank you.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@SnutiHQ]

Thank you for spoon feeding me this for loop, really takes a bit of time to sink in, when you are used to coding! 😅 👍

[@bubblepins]

I agree! In coding it seems like it's so different, but once you get over that hoop, you'll realize it's the same but with visual nodes.

[@artadecram_9624]

Very detailed!!! Cool!!!! I need more!!! :)

[@bubblepins]

Thanks!

[@serialvision]

Great tutorial! thanks for sharing

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@Stenjus]

The way you going over it makes this really easy :) Thank you

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@ll6a6]

Best Explain ever. Thank you.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for the comment!!

[@kourage94]

I was using this foreach loops correctly already, but I have the feeling I will use it even more correctly now lol

[@bubblepins]

It's all good as long as it works!

[@kourage94]

@@bubblepins Your way to explain is great =), it's really entertaining. I'm learning VEX at the moment and it would be so good to get some kind of tutorial like that about "pcopen", "pcfind", get an attribute from another point etc... of course it's just an idea ^^.
Thank you

[@bubblepins]

@@kourage94 Yeah definitely I want to dive into VEX and hopefully soon get into CVEX for Houdini. Just building it all up. Right now I'm finishing up one last video on RBD Tools Guided Sim then pyro, then I am going to fulfil one of the requests that I got about explaining a chipping cube animation I did before and there's a camera tracking. And then I think I got most of the basics of Houdini covered to prep me for VEX. Long list ... But will get there soon. Stay tuned!

[@Smoluck]

Really great and Polished Tutorial Bubble Pins. Thanks

[@bubblepins]

THanks!

[@L..24]

wow you are so good at this

[@bubblepins]

Thanks!

[@alexandraternovskaya1460]

Thank you for your video! Now I understand something

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching! I'm working on another tutorial about Feedback Foreach Loops, hopefully I can get that out soon.

[@OnkAnCa64]

A really big thanks, after few days, to cry with thoses loops, Victory!

[@bubblepins]

Awesome!

[@OnkAnCa64]

@@bubblepins, everything is clearly explained, I hope that will the same for your other videos ^^ have a nice week end

[@bubblepins]

@@OnkAnCa64 Thanks! Stay tuned for a Mantra tutorial Part 1 video that should be released tonight... I just have a couple of last things to edit

[@OnkAnCa64]

@@bubblepins, for sure even if I work for the game industry, it's always interesting to learn something. About game, if you have some times to make a deeper video on creating hda, thanks in advance ^^

[@mjparent222]

I really appreciate your detailed explanations. Thank you.

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for all the awesome comments! I'm really glad you're enjoying all the videos!

[@awesomeguitarshorts]

Great Tut !!! Thanks a lot !!!

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@vahidkani4197]

Thanks for the video.

[@alexanderkingkwame241]

This was really helpful, God bless ya, love ya

[@bubblepins]

Thanks!

[@alexanderkingkwame241]

@@bubblepins n also try n check ur inbox @instagram, I sent a message

[@bubblepins]

@@alexanderkingkwame241 I don't think I got your message. And I didn't know IG has a message box! Double check if you have the right alias, there's another bubblepins on IG. My IG is: instagram.com/bubble_pins/ with an underscore.

[@user-vs9sl2nz8h]

you saved my life

[@bubblepins]

[@StriderSeiryuu]

whahh i finally understand this node
thanks a lots

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

[@Arne1998]

thanks!

[@nihatozdemir445]

thanks you

[@FeatherandtheWind]

Really enjoy your tutorials. Thank you. I hope you make more. I have a question... What's the point of the output null node in this project?

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching! The output null nodes are just for organization, because as the projects get bigger, its good practice to put null nodes to indicate what the networks. The name "OUT_" helps find the output nodes later when you need to link the networks and makes it easier to find it in a list because the nodes are usually listed alphabetically.

[@psychedlicavfx6646]

@@bubblepins another possible use of nulls is to have them act as the "OFF" node with the Switch SOP :)

[@bubblepins]

@@psychedlicavfx6646 Yeah good point! When you got like a dozen of things to toggle on and off, it comes in super handy!

[@raneemFX]

Best 👌

[@bubblepins]

Thanks!

[@felipe_ai]

Love your videos!!!

[@ananan4469]

I came as soon as the alarm went off :)

[@bubblepins]

Thank you! Best fan ever!

[@kasali2739]

super explanation

[@KarelChytilArt]

Thank you

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!

OOHHAAAAA how many tutorial Videos I had seen in my life like Pluralsight Gnomon and others but.. believe me I just opened my mouth while I am watching this tutorial it is so amazing explaining like illusion
thank you so so so much
int thanks;
for(int i=0; i

[@bubblepins]

Thank you for the gracious comment!
int urWelcome = 0;
for( int j=0; j

[@fernandacavenaghi5918]

thank youuuuuuuu :D

[@bubblepins]

:)

[@dannys_85]

thanks great video perfect explanation, i have some object in houdini and for each of this object i want to store the size of object in array but without lack i do merge each iteration but i am getting just first iteration of the size multiple times can you help?

[@bubblepins]

I believe you want a feedback foreach loop. To my understanding you want to feed in the same object into the foreach loop multiple times applying the block stuff again and again in an array of some sort? A feedback foreach loop will take the result of 1 iteration and feed it into the next iteration until the foreach loop is done. I did a mini-series on feedback foreach loops:
czcams.com/play/PLqovuMX-teVNe0lstXx1XEYuoS3FnR3Gh.html
Hope this helps!

[@emepicuta3899]

Hello again! Has ever happened to you that when doing this "for each loop" with booleans substracting spheres from other objects, with over 1000 instances in 6 or 7 meshes, somehow those meshes start appearing hollow? Like if there was so much to calculate that it empties some meshes by mistake or smth. Do you know if there is a solution?

[@bubblepins]

I don't recall hollowing spheres happening to me, but I remember that Houdini crashed on me several times when I ran the scene too long for more instances and more meshes, due to the growing polygon count as it cooks forward. In my case where HOudini kept crashing, I believe it was because I ran out of memory and couldn't handle the large polygon count. You can try converting the polygon to a vdb and replace the boolean with a vdbcombine and do a vdb union or vdb subtract. See if that will help? This helped me because vdb's are more memory efficient, but I don't know if it'll help with your hollowing spheres. Let me know how it turns out!

[@aeko]

7:00 - Because every time you do this merge with Fetch Feedback you're duplicating the input. So it goes exponential which is why Houdini runs out of memory. Each iteration: 2 boxes, 4 boxes, 8 , 16, 32, 64, etc.

[@bearstudios101]

How did you add the block begin node into the for each connected piece. I'm struggling to get that

[@bubblepins]

It should be dropped down automatically when you choose for each number, but you can also manually drop down a "block begin" node from the Tab menu and then hook up the newly "block begin" node with the foreach group by selecting the foreach group just like how its shown at 23:47 in the video.

[@bearstudios101]

Thanks alot. Whatever they are paying you it's not enough.

[@videocmevideocme5675]

I think adding a merge node with feedback each iteration will NOT do the same as changing the for-each to merge each iteration. You will have more than one cube in the same position, the way you showed when four cubes looked like three. Taking out the merge node and changing the for-each to merge each iteration does not give overlapping cubes.

[@armantalee9359]

It has been a year since this tutorial was released but i still cant find thoes 2 upcoming videos( 26:24)

[@bubblepins]

It's right here:
czcams.com/video/rGNtGkuZdsA/video.html
It's titled, "SOP Solver for Beginners in Houdini"
Hope that helps!

[@user-xjcltmddn]

Can you make grains tutorial?

[@bubblepins]

I'll add it to the list, but it's a very long list... May take awhile before I get on it.

[@Iknoursiingh]

what is meta data node for??

[@bubblepins]

The meta data node is for the attributes in the details that the foreach loop creates. It has values for the iteration number available if you need to use that within the foreach block.
Hope that helps.

[@JelezoNah]

This voice is too good for such boring things.

[@bubblepins]

You're too kind!

[@dynamo2014]

finally you havent 10 spheres 10 times on each cube. Check it. You have 10 iterations on all your cubes

[@aeko]

7:55 - Sorry, but this is not correct. You can compare the difference between having a merge in your For-Loop and the isolated result of Merge Iteration if you pack your geo before the loop. The number of Prims in the geo spreadsheet is drastically different. Merge each iteration will create 4 prims for 4 iterations, meaning each iteration result is isolated and merged. Feedback Each Iteration with a Merge in it the way you have it will create 16. prims and it will go exponential.
If you want to keep the first object, then you should merge in the initial geo after/outside the for loop.

[@ertar0]

thank you

[@bubblepins]

Thanks for watching!