The Complete Houdini: Introduction (1/x) (Patreon)

Recently I've been pondering what to do for my next major tutorial series. After much consideration, I finally decided on a topic... everything.

Everything about Houdini that is! I think it will be very interesting, valuable and entertaining to cover every aspect of Houdini from a practical standpoint.

Why is Houdini so hard to learn?

People who have been using Houdini for a long time "get it" and tend to forget how difficult it is for beginner and intermediate users. Its notorious learning curve has been thoroughly memed:

Computer graphics and 3D are by their very nature hard to learn. For a generalist, the field requires abstract thinking, knowledge of advanced math, physics, color theory, animation, and much more.

The concept of "easiness" comes down to how quickly one can adapt to an app's workflow and get stuff done. Cinema 4D is generally viewed as easier because, despite still requiring a lot of knowledge about 3D, it's streamlined to make certain tasks approachable and efficient. Blender might also be in that category. Maya is quite a bit more difficult to get a handle on, as is 3ds Max.

And then there's Houdini. What about it in particular is so difficult? People will have their own take on this, but I think it comes down to two main factors:

1. Houdini does everything. Every aspect of its interface and workflow is designed to give you total freedom and total control. Every parameter is exposed, everywhere. If a feature is missing you could code it in Houdini's native scripting language, VEX. Or you could use VOPs, Houdini's visual programming interface. Or you could use Python. Or you could even use C++. Houdini is, in some sense, a very complex development platform.

2. The interface is... old. Side FX has never been big on making things slick and shiny. This topic is a bit of a source of friction in the Houdini community, with newer users hoping for a move towards a more modern interface, while old pros are happy with the status quo. Side FX is unlikely change course on this front, so we're stuck working with Houdini's quirks, for better or worse.

The Complete Houdini

The goal of this series is to explore every part of Houdini needed to build a comprehensive 3D workflow: interface, modeling, simulations, terrain, scene assembly, rendering, and a whole lot more.

Having identified what makes Houdini difficult (nearly infinite flexibility combined with a resolutely obtuse interface), we can develop a plan to make learning it as smooth as possible.

First off, I want to focus on solutions to real-world problems. Working with Houdini as a practical tool will help avoid getting bogged down in minutiae.

Secondly, I'll spend time showing how to organize Houdini in a way that makes sense for you. If you often do fluid simulations, for example, you can isolate only the features you use and banish the other thousand parameters to another tab in the interface, never to be seen again (unless you need one later).

Combining these approaches should result in learning the software at record pace.  

I sometimes refer to my other long tutorial series as "epic," but this one will be the epic-est! I put part 1 out of "x" in the title since, well, who knows how many parts this will be. 25, 50... 100? Maybe!

Coming up next

Soon we'll start our journey with interface basics and general concepts. This series won't just be for beginners, although we'll start off gently. Intermediate users will find a ton of value, and advanced CG artists fluent in other apps will pick up a lot of new info too. There will be something for everybody.

With that, welcome, and enjoy the ride!