Mikael Pettersén shows how you can use Houdini Vellum to inflate objects with air quickly.

Since around the release of Houdini 17, we’ve seen some impressive simulations that use the Vellum Solver. Houdini Vellum uses position-based dynamics to simulate things like hair, cloth, and even grains. The solver is a fast and reliable tool for creating these kinds of complex sims. A new tutorial from the Short & Sweet 3D channel on Youtube (Mikael Pettersén), details how to inflate objects using the vellum solver in Side FX Houdini.

Pettersén notes that “I got this question a while back, so I decided to make a tutorial about it.” The setup is quite simple for such a complex mathematical problem. A while back, Tim van Helsdingen offered some insights into creating an effect where bubbles inflate from a surface, that covered a bit of packing and a bit of inflating. Check out that tutorial here.