what'sup guys, i really need a big help over here cause i feel confusing after almost a year of learning houdini.I know basics and some fundamentals of common topics such particles, destruction … etc but i feel lost when trying to apply all info i've learned into my own project … is that normal for beginner? or i'm following wrong way to learn? i need to learn for your experiences ..

that's normal for any learning process.
if you're having trouble with a project, start a thread here and post questions

Hi Mohamed,
it took me two years (but not full time) at daytime i use other software.
Now i feel, ok but sometimes things that first seem very basic are not basic in houdini.
I am confortable with materials and shaders, but my prior knowledge was quite big.
I understood now what to use vex / vop or python for (that took me a year alone).
Houdini is powerfull but also a massive huge beast.
So my advice is to realy fokus on one topic in houdini that you have good knowledge about anyway.
When things come together in houdini it gets very powerfull.

Keep up learning, have fun and look at the example scenes, play around.


kind regards

Olaf

To further in this vary topic, I would like to know “how” to watch and learn from video tutorial. Everyone has own studying style, but I just don't know how to do it efficiently in my own case. I find myself going back and forth and still not getting them all in my head. Did you all have to watch a couple of times to really get them too? Do you still need to go back to tutorials when working on your own as well?

I have been through basics and learned the philosophy of certain setups but the more advanced videos I watch the more I feel lost. Sometimes instructors would go back to add this and then go further back to hack that and I get confused big time. I also wonder, when working on my own, should I apply the same steps instructor teaches or I should layout all first and work along the way?

Well there is tutorials that are done well and there is others. Some tutors think about educational theory, most dont.
And some are nice to follow along some are not. My experience is that learning Houdini is a very big task. I recently revisited some tutorials that at time i watched them for the first time where like gibberish to me. No i can follow easily.
Tutors say things like “In SOP context its different from VOP context” or “Just unhide the hidden parameter”
The hidden parameter thing was something that realy made me mad. Now i know what it is and it all makes a lot of sense to me.
The tutorial that maybe did it for me was Rohans tutorials about Materials and Shaders, i think they are great. But i watched so many now… 3 years ago the tutorials available where lets say not so good. Now i have to say its great, real great stuff out there. (do i sound like Trump?) And the database that sidefx did is wonderful.

@davidave - if only learning could be done by watching a video…. it will only give you the framework and context, but you have to learn that ‘area’ as you always need to different tools. i.e. if they use some vex command, then you need to go and understand vex, if they use some modelling tool then you need to learn modelling etc. unless you of course want to build exactly the widget they are building.

davidave
To further in this vary topic, I would like to know “how” to watch and learn from video tutorial. Everyone has own studying style, but I just don't know how to do it efficiently in my own case. I find myself going back and forth and still not getting them all in my head. Did you all have to watch a couple of times to really get them too? Do you still need to go back to tutorials when working on your own as well?

When I'm watching tutorials, I usually jot down notes of important points that I want to remember. I also open up Houdini and follow the steps myself as I'm watching the tutorial, then I save the files. If the tutorial is teaching a concept that you really want to cement into your head, every once and a while you can quickly scan through your notes or files as a refresher. It's a lot faster to quickly scan through some notes instead of watching the whole tutorial over again.

davidave
I have been through basics and learned the philosophy of certain setups but the more advanced videos I watch the more I feel lost. Sometimes instructors would go back to add this and then go further back to hack that and I get confused big time. I also wonder, when working on my own, should I apply the same steps instructor teaches or I should layout all first and work along the way?

You have options when you come across something that doesn't make sense. You can pause the tutorial and work backwards, researching the topic until you figure out what's going on. Another option is accept the fact that you might not understand everything 100% and make a note to go back to it later. There's still value in seeing how the whole puzzle comes together from a big-picture perspective, even if there are still individual puzzle pieces that aren't crystal clear. Just be sure you're pacing yourself when you are learning. Try to recognize if the tutorial you're watching is too advanced for your level. If you don't go through the process of building a strong foundation you're only asking for trouble.

If any beginner wants to learn houdini, should he contain enough experience about former graphics softwares including Cinema 4D , Maya 3D and Nuke?

Weirdly…it kinda depends (with the exception of Nuke).

Basically having past experience with CGI modeling can help in the sense that one is already familiar with the basics (polygons, UV textures, XYZ space, etc.).

On the negative, coming for instance from Cinema 4D can actually be also a bit of a downside. Everything in C4D is basically layer-based, particularly the texturing/shader operations. Jumping into the node-based approach in Houdini can be initially much more confusing than if someone had not used C4D before and simply assumed nodes is how everyone does it (I can see the opposite being true if someone goes from only knowing Houdini to C4D). What helped me was that in the year prior to me switching to Houdini, I was using Arnold and Redshift in C4D, and hence I was already familiar with node-based operations. Houdini of course introduces hundreds of much more complex nodes which makes the transition the massive PITA that it is for most new users, but at least my head had already wrapped around the basics of nodes which helped a lot.

Hi, @Mohamed Saeed2,

There is no other way to learn Houdini. Sidefx is the best platform for learning Houdini. But if you are facing some problem than can contact the designer who has the good experience. Here I am sharing with you the designing experts programming community. Here is the link:
https://hackr.io/tutorials/learn-houdini [hackr.io]