The lack of Quality books for Houdini astonds me. Max and Maya must have hundreds of books, but Houdini(maybe the Best) all I can find is two. The “Magic of Houdini” is good, but it was written for H8, and “Houdini on the spot”. The latter basically just tips for the intermediat to the advanced user. I think someone could make a whole bunch of $ for a beginner to intermediate level of H9.

Authors (and Publishers) go where the money is.

Houdini, while excellent, does not yet have the huge market share of Maya or 3D Studio Max.

Having said that, SESI is working very hard to make Houdini more accessible, easier to learn, and to grow market share. I myself am a new convert trying to learn the program.

In addition to books there is also the 3D Buzz On-line Houdini classroom:

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_houdini.php [3dbuzz.com]

as well as Digital Tutors training:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/store/product.php?productid=3423&cat=84&page=1 [digitaltutors.com]

and CMI VFX:

http://www.cmivfx.com/product_houdini_fundamentals.asp [cmivfx.com]

Either of which sounds well worth the money.

Either Magic Of Houdini should be updated for H9, or SideFx should write a book themselves.
I want to learn Houdini, but cannot rely on 3DBuzz's uncertain commitment(not their fault, dependent on people's interest), or a few DVDs presenting particular facets of the software.

Don't be so concerned with the version of the software used. These are great books.

I have The magic of houdini book, and I still use it to do stuff on H9, I find sometimes the only big difference is that I do a lot less steps than before, houdini still works like it did before, I've seen people that hide all the NEW interface and it actually looks like H8 again.

so, the book is still a very nice way to learn houdini, also a nice way to learn is EXPLORING the examples that come with the software, there's a lot of them, in houdini, having a scene file is so great, is almost like reading someones recipe, you just need to follow the network and you can almost read the creator mind, find cool surprises and understand a loooot of stuff, you also get a lot of ideas, and cool new way to use some nodes.

Houdini works a lot like my brain and I consider houdini not as a 3d app, but as a 3d OS.

The first thing is to not be afraid of houdini, go on, try everything, nothing will break, is all software, you can just start a new scene.

l8r

varomix
intelia_animate

varomix, you totally convinced me to read The Magic Of Houdini, and I am relieved!