The Pros And Cons of Houdini

Thanks for watching!

[videomarknet]

dude....rather than investing time into Houdini ...the more important question is ...in which beard trimmer did you invest? ...that beard is SHARP! ...love it

[HoudiniGameArtist]

A Maya/zbrush artist for over a decade. I describe learning houdini like trying to cross a rip current. The tide makes you crash over the rocks over and over. Learning more through failures than success.

It's intimidating and like you said, hurts the ego to try it again. But then out of nowhere, it just makes sense. You are free from the ripcurrent. And free to do what you want.

Best decision of my career to learn Houdini. Future proofed my resume. Bumped up my salary. And get put on fun and rewarding tasks at work.

But the tool, and the process is not for everyone. And I still feel like an idiot every day. That dang Krueger effect.

[btn]

What I found tricky about proceduralism is that it forces you to get to learn how 3D computer graphics actually works. People get scared about the nodes but that’s like a formality which you get past super quickly. What’s trickier is the more fundamental stuff I.e you have to fully comprehend vectors, normals or how data is stored on geometry and so on.

But as you said in the video, this makes it immensely powerful because you can then kind of ‘remake the Matrix’ as it were.

When you go back to other software again the knowledge comes in handy, it’s like your brain has been rewired and you understand everything so much more clearly. For me it was like a fog being lifted and I can’t really imagine going back.

I also think it’s harder to have a proper understanding of the fundamentals if you’re not forced to confront it directly. In most software it’s all kind of obscured with layers of abstraction, even though all 3D graphics fundamentally work the same way.

[UmairAliMughal]

the best explanation on entire internet… thank you so much, after spending lots of hours… now i am figuring out… Just leaving Houdini and get back to Maya !❤❤❤ thanks man,

[rponnie]

Been using a lot of 3D apps for about 30 years, and since SI was squashed by AD I started using Houdini. Been using it for about 5 years now and to be honest still feel like a newbie. As a freelance artist I'm kind of jack of all 3D trades, but I mostly do character related stuff. And modeling and animation in Houdini feels like eating soup with a screwdriver. But for other things like simulations or medical visuals it's just perfect. Easy stuff is hard, hard stuff is easy in Houdini and it will save you a lot of time and frustration if you use it next a more traditional app.

[radiospank]

Your point on people who want to chill, totally agree, being a tech artist is not for those that like a certain regularity as you get with jobs like environment art, animation etc. these are not easy but certainly not as far ranged

[noc_art]

I played the video 3 times over cuz I truly liked how wise Tyler's assessments on the subject are. Great wisdom from a great artist. I remember like yesterday how much I struggled wrapping my head around Houdini's one-of-a-kind approach to 3D workflow. It took me a whole lot more time to get to an intermediate level in comparison to some of the people I know who have previous programming experience. Mine was only limited to Python snippets at the time. But I was motivated and the source of my motivation in learning Houdini was to be able to build the most water-proof and non-destructive systems open to revision. That motivation alone brought me to a somewhat advanced level, but I really am not sure whether I'll ever consider myself to be a pro in the foreseeable future due to the fact Houdini is just too vast :) I started out building simple 3D models in Houdini and that kinda cozied me up with it a great deal so I can advise newcomers to model something tangible in a destructive manner in order to break the ice :)

[umidjonkomilov]

This advice is very very important and you able to give we for free 😁 I think CG forge is the most popular and the first place learning Houdini. Thanks bro all of them

[hectorescobar]

Good that someone finally bringing this up

[radiospank]

Your point on people with an ego when they don’t understand something, that’s so crazy to me but I see that with people who don’t like math. They just throw the hands up and claim I don’t like math because it’s hard. My personality is the opposite where I lean harder into things I don’t understand and love the challenge

[infinitefx]

Thank you so much for the information! It's been 2 months since I started learning Houdini, And I enjoy every bit! Sometimes I do feel like I am stupid haha! But curious as well so I research everywhere about "that" node or "that" issue

[KidIndia]

Thankyou for making this. I appreciate the honesty

[tomroohan]

I started using Houdini several years ago to try and use it as a solution to the various "curve balls" I get thrown as a freelance artist. I'm a generalist and often times get presented some weird briefs. Knowing how to use Houdini gives me a lot of confidence in dealing with strange requests because I know there would be a way to build the solution. With that said. Houdini is terrible for "Agency" style work. It takes a while to set up systems in Houdini which isn't conducive to a typical agency timeline. However if you get familiar with the agency work then you can build systems that make short work of it anyway.

[abdullahaljalil]

Thanks
I wished you showed us a comparison of the Cons & Pros

[xAvanish]

I'm 37 year old. I have some intermediate knowledge in Blender and I've always wanted to pursue a career in 3D. Do you thing it's too late for me? I'm thinking of starting learning Houdini but I'm not sure if it is worth it to invest all that time and effort. :/

[Bradzy]

Awesome video. Agree with everything here. I will add that for me I have found it best to know when to NOT use Houdini. Sometimes I feel like I force myself to do something in Houdini that would be better done in say blender. I find anything where I am doing a lot of manual selection and moving of specific poligonal shapes is best done in other software and then maybe later importing into Houdini for coolification.

[CreativeSteve]

Thanks for posting this video. I have houdini and wanting to learn it for awhile. I am eager to learn to create things procedurally because I'm more of a visual learner than trying to make things in blender manually. Even though I did get my start in 3D creation from Blender plus I am learning python on the side because the programs I wanna learn all use it. Blender, UE5, and Houdini. Can't wait to dig into it soon. :D

[markusps]

Hey Tyler thx for the great video i think all the point so far were spot on... to add a little more to this topic, I've been using 3dsmax for 20+ years mainly for Archviz and Industrial animation and startet learning Houdini like 1, 5 year ago. With that said, one distinction that might be worth to concider is what industry you are aming for.

for example in both, archviz and industryViz i rely alot on stock models from 3D shops if the budget is thight and that happens alot. Even on the biggest markets like Turbosquid, CGtrader, 3dsky, etc. you'll find barely any models that a prepped for Houdini. That might change in the future but for now it is a little deal breaker.

Also working with CAD-data wasn't the most pleasant experience so far, especially if we are talking really have CAD-data. If you import an object with thousands of parts and you need to assign shaders than proceduralism can bring you only so far. Most of the time it will requrie manual labor and everything manual / non-procedural can get really tedious in Houdini.

I thought your comparison with zbrush was actually very good... No matter how much experience you might have in Houdini, you would probably never pick it for character sculpting. And at least as for now this is also true for other areas.


BUT, here is the best advice i can give to all aspiring artists and for some reason people keep forgetting it... You can learn Houdini AND Zbrush.... How is that for your carrear oportunities ;)

[cgaltruist]

Go with the process of learning, that how Houdini works, it's not about master it, is about learn to find your way with the tools that Houdini provides. I think you become a better Houdini artist when you are thinking like that, with the openness of the tool in mind. It's simply just another way of thinking to deal with process of making stuff, and it all depends on what you are doing, but still, at then it's all interconnected.

[jacobmougharbel]

wish me luck sir, I'm learning both Unreal and houdini coming from a a background of these software: blender, MD, Substance, Embergen. needed this video!