Hi!

I'm a wannabe 3D artist who just installed Houdini for the first time ( apprentice H16 ). I'd like Houdini to become my main ( and if possible, only ) 3D app for creating 3D/VFX live action shorts ( and possibly fully animated shorts ).


There is no day-one intro to Houdini 16 tutorials, so i was wondering what was the best way for me to start? Should i start with pluralsight Intro to H15 and them move to new features in 15.5 and after that to H16? Is there a better way for me to start?

I'd appreciate any help ;D

Go to the tutorials section and filter for H16.

Just go through all the ones with “Network” in them.

After that chew on any tutorial you feel is something of value, like the pluralsight one you mentioned.

If there seems to be some discrepancy ( that you can't do something in H16 that they are doing in the tut ),

just chime in on the forum with your question.

…and keep checking the H16 tut section…I just saw a new one there that must have been put in today, since it wasn't there with the others yesterday.

I think they will be rolling out some more as time goes on.

I finished watching Rohan Dalvi rocket tutorial and now following along in Houdini 16 - I highly recommend that tutorial! It covers a bit of everything. I'm also new to Houdini starting with 16.

http://www.rohandalvi.net/rocket/ [rohandalvi.net]

Thanks for the pointers, I'm in the same boat - want to focus on H16 for the next year; plan on using it along with UE4 and Unity.

In my case I'll be moving away mostly from Maya LT and Blender.


-Will

SonK
I finished watching Rohan Dalvi rocket tutorial and now following along in Houdini 16 - I highly recommend that tutorial! It covers a bit of everything. I'm also new to Houdini starting with 16.

http://www.rohandalvi.net/rocket/ [rohandalvi.net]

Purchased, the resultant animation w/the rocket puffing up is so cute! Can't wait to dig in and learn how to accomplish the things shown in this video!


-Will

WillBellJr

SonK
I finished watching Rohan Dalvi rocket tutorial and now following along in Houdini 16 - I highly recommend that tutorial! It covers a bit of everything. I'm also new to Houdini starting with 16.

http://www.rohandalvi.net/rocket/ [rohandalvi.net]

Purchased, the resultant animation w/the rocket puffing up is so cute! Can't wait to dig in and learn how to accomplish the things shown in this video!


-Will

Hey Will,

How are you doing with rocket tutorial? I might skip some parts(since much of the stuff is repeatative,i.e. using carve). I also plan on learning some Unity this year.

Rohan Dalvi has some good ones out there. I am currently working through his “Floating Islands” and going to do a beginners approach series on that project on youtube.

Also fairly new on houdini.

SonK

WillBellJr

SonK
I finished watching Rohan Dalvi rocket tutorial and now following along in Houdini 16 - I highly recommend that tutorial! It covers a bit of everything. I'm also new to Houdini starting with 16.

http://www.rohandalvi.net/rocket/ [rohandalvi.net]

Purchased, the resultant animation w/the rocket puffing up is so cute! Can't wait to dig in and learn how to accomplish the things shown in this video!


-Will

Hey Will,

How are you doing with rocket tutorial? I might skip some parts(since much of the stuff is repeatative,i.e. using carve). I also plan on learning some Unity this year.

Hey Son, the pace was a bit too fast for me in this tut, and I felt it assumed a lot more familiarity w/Houdini than I have at the moment, I'm finding that the PluralSight tutorial's pace and hand-holding fits my experience level much better.

I'll come back to this tutorial when I have more Houdini experience under my belt.

-Will

One thing I will recommend is that you stick at least for the first month with one particular subject. Say modeling, pyro, fluid or anything you find exciting. I found houdini to be so vast and the possibilities so huge that you may get lost if you try to tackle everything at once. I have been playing around with houdini for a year already and still havent got a chance to test the marvelous ocean tools yet!. But if you stick to one subject you will probably familiarize yourself with the environment enough to later be faster at familiarizing with other subjects.

Hope this helps,
Nico.

PS: Rohan Dalvi's tutorials are excellent for motion graphics!

As Nicolas Heluani said Houdini is so huge and probably can't cover all Houdini's contexts in early years…
There isn't any complete tutorial about any context of Houdini in internet therefore it's hard to introduce specific tutorial in terms of deep understanding.
It's really easy to get lost and drown in ocean of tutorials.
Nevertheless after working with houdini for a while you can watch FXPHD - HOU102_ Introduction to Houdini 12, Part 1 & Part 2 tutorials.
It covers more than the others but you still need to watch lot's of tutorials.

I am nearing the end of the Rocket tutorial (lighting next). I am now convinced it is some way from beginner level. There are a couple of problems. Firstly the Houdini way is very technical and with a video recording all you can do is rewind and watch again. This is much much easier to do with a written technical exposition. It can for example be very hard at times to follow where in the node tree he is making changes.

But my biggest issue with the training is the wood from the trees problem. The training is many hours for following micro activites. What he is doing at a macro level is not at all well explained. For example you build geometry for a rocket but use a proxy of the rocket for rigid body sim (mixed in with some key frame animation), and the smoke sim, as this is much more efficient that using the full rocket geometry in simulations. And then you throw away the simulations since you can apply the resultant rigid body animation to the full geometry and you can render out the smoke sim as geo that you can reload from disk. I think this macro strategy stuff is not explained at all.

To benefit from this training you have to be at a mid level. Not know enough and you will just get lost. Know too much and the training will not be needed.

I don't regret buying - just. I have got the rocket one, part one of the engine, and just the modelling part of the updated desert one. I am getting enough out of the training for my investment - but I am unlikely to invest in any more.

I am just finishing the rocket tutorial myself. With no Houdini knowledge, I was hopelessly lost within seconds. I spent a few days just playing with Houdini unguided and that helped me with the basics of Houdini.

I then tried again to follow along with the tutorial, endlessly replaying several parts, often still missing very important details. For everything to work you have to catch many key bits of information that rocket by and aren't clearly narrated. Some of the node names and functions have changed with Houdini 16 and that added to the difficulty of following along although it's common to most every tutorial ever.

In the end I just mostly watched the videos and focused on understanding what he was doing while exploring the finished scenes he provides. That's a huge plus, being able to load the working files, since I wasn't going to be able to recreate them myself.

It definitely isn't beginner stuff but I feel like it was worth the money. It's almost as if he built the rocket in the most complicated way possible but it does a good job of dipping into many areas of the toolset.

Yes good point. I thought about using H16, and then said no stick with H15 for the Rocket tutorial. I would strongly advise anyone else to do the same.

mmc
Yes good point. I thought about using H16, and then said no stick with H15 for the Rocket tutorial. I would strongly advise anyone else to do the same.

I see your point but…
A small recommendation from an old timer is that you should not focus on the specific “how to” guide of tutorials in general. But rather just learn the “philosophy” that they are using and translate that to your own tool, in this case Houdini.
Of course there are exceptions to this, but in general learning the “philosophy” rather than the procedure will help you a lot in being flexible for whenever the tool changes.