Deborah R. Fowler
Houdini Introduction
Updated on Aug 27 2024
- Advanced Users see section topics
- Beginner Users see also Quick Guide
Google list I have recently started here
SideFX's
digital
library summary (last update was Nov 2023)
My previous list here
(here for my archive)
Resources
- Houdini Tips and Tricks This section of my website contains tips from class and frequently asked questions as appropriate
- SideFX Learning Paths
- Houdini 16.5 Mantra
Users Guide by Scott Keating (Useful, although we are moving
toward Redshift and Karma)
- There are now so many
resources available, my top picks are (and all free):
- SideFX Documentation
- Go Procedural on Vimeo and SideFX tutorials (may want to use the three tracks above to sort)
- Paul Esteves quick intro to nodes
- Entagma (new every 2 weeks)
- Henry Foster
(Toadstorm) fantastic blog information
- Junichiro Horikawa dives into vex, kinefx, volume wrangles etc.
- Peter Quint on Vimeo including access to the hip files
- Len White has two
excellent wrangle node videos
- Escher in Houdini: Spirals (if you run into troubles I have created a hip file based on the tutorial)
- Escher in Houdini:
Sphere Spirals (the key is in the profile curves, try it and if
you have difficulty, I have created
a hip)
TIP: anytime you see a new node introduced read the documentation about it by clicking on the ? button in Houdini
For those of you starting Houdini do not ignore the
documentation. Two important user forums exist:
- odforce
forum (as well as useful
information at odforce
wiki)
- SideFX Forum
There are an ever growing number of tutorials. Often the older
tutorials have excellent information as well. Broad generalization
- for foundation concepts, older material is still valid, for
dynamics be version aware.
Some of the older tutorials exists on
the vimeo channel Go Procedural (November
2010, Houdini 11). The
pdf versions are no longer accessible. (Go Procedural User Guide,
First Steps, Next Steps). These are quite dated and there are many
more resources available, however much of the information
contained is valid.
TIP: google
is your friend - the search engines in the forums don't always
give you the answer you want - search on google and then look
for the forums in the results.
Getting Started
GENERAL - in addition to the resources listed
above
- In the Houdini Help documentation, review the pages linked to in the “Getting started” section of the Basics page. The pscale attribute that was added in order to vary the scale of the trees in the procedural forest is described briefly in Instancing point attributes as part of the Copying and instancing documentation. More importantly read about Packed Primitives.
- You also should do a cursory review of
- Expression functions and
- Global expression variables also
- Global Anim Opts
- Edit Parameter Interface window
- Beginning Houdini User's here is Andy Nichols cheat sheet - this is a good synopsis of useful documentation.
- CGWiki for Houdini - really like the comparison to Maya
- GridMarkets (cloud rendering for Houdini) also has featured artists on their site
- These are for version 14, however the
information is still valid: Houdini
Beginning Essentials
- H14Intro - my mini overview for beginners of the interface here
- H14RenderToFiles - mini overview for beginners to render to files here
- Excellent
documents for rendering since 12.5 and up are more
"opinionated and focused on practical advice and tips".
- For the majority of what you do, you will be using PBR. You will see noise in your renders - be sure to read the section on noise level, ray samples and pixel samples in the documentation noted above
- Third party rendering
(Arnold) is available for Houdini on Linux and the Renderfarm,
however the Apprentice version does not support this and
Mantra will be used for 350/721
- odforce post Nov 14/2012 an excellent explanation by Jeff Wagner (old school) on understanding PBR (thanks Zach Z!)
SHADING
INSTANCING AND PACKED PRIMITIVES
- Packed Primitives
- Procedural Corn Maze by
Scott Keating (I have
created a document highlighting some of the essential features
of Instancing here that
you will need for 350/428.)