Create a Realistic Sun and Flares With Houdini

NASA’s “Thermonuclear Art, The Sun in Ultra-HD” is a sight to behold. It’s a magical constant flow of particles, explosions and solar flares. Pretty amazing. Even more amazing, is that you can recreate all of these effects in 3D with Side Effects Houdini to mimic a realistic sun.

Thanks to 3D Artist Bogdan Lazar, who posted a great tutorial on how to build this realistic sun complete with magnetic fields and solar flares. Bogdan insists that he has more of a penchant for the artistic side of things rather than the technical. Still, the tutorial covers a bit of VEX coding, some vector calculus, VDB Volumes, particle simulations, magnetic fields and much more.

Interestingly techniques like using a vector field to create and simulate an actual magnetic field, other than “faking it” sides on the realm of “pretty badass”. Hopefully part 2 will emerge soon!

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