Subtopics
Getting started
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New features and changes in Houdini 18.5.
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The basics of working with Houdini’s user interface.
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How to use and customize the icons on the shelf at the top of the main window.
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How to use the network and parameter editors to work in Houdini.
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Example files showing how different nodes work.
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How to use the online help and document your own tools.
Using Houdini
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How Houdini represents geometry and how to create and edit it.
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How to use copies (real geometry) and instances (loaded or created at render time).
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How to create and keyframe animation in Houdini.
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Digital assets let you create reusable nodes and tools from existing networks.
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How to get scene, object, and other data in and out of Houdini.
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How to define dependencies and schedule tasks using TOP networks.
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Using Houdini’s stand-alone image viewer.
Character FX
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How to rig and animate characters in Houdini.
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How to create and simulate crowds of characters in Houdini.
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How to create, style, and add dynamics to hair and fur.
Dynamics
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How to create particle simulations.
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How to use Houdini’s dynamics networks to create simulations.
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Vellum uses a Position Based Dynamics approach to cloth, hair, grains, and softbody objects.
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How to simulate smoke, fire, and explosions.
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How to set up fluid and ocean simulations.
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How to break different types of materials.
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How to simulate grainy materials (such as sand).
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How to create and simulate deformable objects
Nodes
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Object nodes represent objects in the scene, such as character parts, geometry objects, lights, cameras, and so on.
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Geometry nodes live inside Geo objects and generate geometry.
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Dynamics nodes set up the conditions and rules for dynamics simulations.
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VOP nodes let you define a program (such as a shader) by connecting nodes together. Houdini then compiles the node network into executable VEX code.
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LOP nodes generate USD describing characters, props, lighting, and rendering.
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Render nodes either render the scene or set up render dependency networks.
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Channel nodes create, filter, and manipulate channel data.
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Composite nodes create, filter, and manipulate image data.
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TOP nodes define a workflow where data is fed into the network, turned into "work items" and manipulated by different nodes. Many nodes represent external processes that can be run on the local machine or a server farm.
Lighting, rendering, and compositing
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Solaris is the umbrella name for Houdini’s scene building, layout, lighting, and rendering tools based on the Universal Scene Description (USD) framework.
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How to render images and animation from the 3D scene.
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HQueue is Houdini’s free distributed render and simulation manager.
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How to assign materials and create custom materials for shading.
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Houdini’s compositing networks let you create and manipulate images such as renders.
Reference
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Explains each of the items in the main menus.
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Viewer pane types.
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Documents the options in various panes.
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Documents the options in various user interface windows.
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Houdini includes a large number of useful command-line utility programs.
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How to script Houdini using Python and the Houdini Object Model.
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Expression functions let you compute the value of parameters.
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HScript is Houdini’s legacy scripting language.
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VEX is a high-performance expression language used in many places in Houdini, such as writing shaders.
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Properties let you set up flexible and powerful hierarchies of rendering, shading, lighting, and camera parameters.
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Pre-made materials included with Houdini.
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How to write and combine multiple environment variable definition files for different plug-ins, tools, and add-ons.
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Documents the Houdini Engine C and Python APIs as well as the SessionSync utility.