Five Steps to Learning Houdini Quickly

I get a lot of individuals who ask me how long it takes to learn Houdini and how I went about learning to use it. Well as always it’s different for everyone. Some learn Houdini in 6 to 7 months and for some it can take years. I have been using Houdini for over 9 years now and I can honestly say I never became completely comfortable till about after a year and a half.

Now there’s a reason that it took me about a year and half to become fully comfortable in the software package. That is because I would use it on and off. I never fully dedicated myself, in the beginning, to use it fully on a project. I would switch back and forth between Maya and Houdini, using tools that I knew I could use well and that was mostly fueled by deadlines. If I didn’t have the time to fully learn something in Houdini, I would switch back to Maya and get the job done, because I was more comfortable there.

Many years later I now only use Houdini and have ended my Maya Subscription. So for me it took around 4 years to become sooo proficient with Houdini that I could do anything with it. So what was the catalyst, what drove me to finally make the leap? I want to give you the 5 steps to learning Houdini Quickly based off of how I went about learning the massive application.

[abdulrahimfatani]

STEP 1: User Interface
STEP 2: Start with SOP's
STEP 3: Attributes and Groups
STEP 4: VOP's and VEX
STEP 5: Digital Assets

[cosmotect]

This makes the learning path quite evident. Thanks for the info!
I would love to see similar videos for intermediate level progression. What to get into, and what are the bread and butter nodes for game vfx, or simulation, etc.
Also what are things like vellum, solaris, and all the other named modules within houdini

[CreativeSteve]

I just discovered your channel while looking for beginner-friendly tutorials for Houdini. Just recently downloaded Houdini indie to getting used to prcedual creation, after messing with it in blender for 5 months. I liked the way ya explain things earned a sub. :)

[morphtek]

step one : be lazy and not wanting to do manual work that can be done proceduraly
step two : have a need in your project and a deadline
step three : sacrifice a monkeys hand
step four : have a month of hell of using houdini and integrating into project and using it at the same time
step five : now you know houdini

[jaypatrick]

Great advice. this was great even looking at it late.

[leetipping]

Thanks, I've been looking through the menus for days. Creating and deleting like crazy, but not learning a great deal.
This helped to direct my attention.

[williamleebuckley]

Hey Kenny! Big fan of your Udemy courses, didn't realize you had a YouTube channel until today. Just wanted to toss you a thank you, as I really enjoy both your attitude/approach and your choice of toolsets. Coming from a Cinema 4D production background, Houdini has always been a bit intimidating. That said, having gotten interested in game dev, procedural modeling techniques seem like enough of a workflow breakthru to push me through the learning process. Anyway, great job!

[RahulGupta]

Thanks. Exactly what I wanted to know.

[TalesOfNalstoneTeam]

First step: Makes sense.
Second step: Whaat?
Third fourth and fifth step:
Last step:

[andyp]

Thanks for another excellent video. I love quick tutorials like this that give the viewer just enough to get going without getting bogged down in concepts they already know.

[shaielconde]

BROOO thankyou so much, this really helped and the tutorial was really easy to use as well :)

[denislavpetkov]

Thank you so much this helped a lot!!!! You saved my life

[inkofuro]

step 2-a: practice in sop. step 4: expressions. Step 5: vex builder. Step 6: sheider lighting+vex builder

[defonten]

Hi Kenny, thanks a lot for the great article and the video! I have a question, you mentioned that in order to get the real power out of Houdini - Trigonometry and the Vector Math is needed. Trigonometry is all clear, but what do you mean by Vector Math? Sorry for this maybe stupid question but English is not my native language so I'm a bit confused translating it. Also could you recommend some Udemy course maybe on both topics? Thanks a lot!

[hericpan]

Great Introduction! Thank you so much!!!!

[RedBattalion]

Please make fundamental Houdini tutorial by "latest version_v19 higher".
Can you do that?

[samduss]

Do you know what is a list of tutorial i can foll in order to go throw those step.. like SOP tutorial references ?

[bot_vfx]

Thanks for sharing this. I really appreciate.

[shivsharma]

Thanks for you help I’m a total beginner..🙏🏻😇

[lgtwzrd]

Cool little tutorial. But what bothers me is nobody tries to explain the data types and compatibility between connecting the nodes. You can't just connect stuff just because they have an in and an out. Or can you? I'm used to the old school node behaviors where at least you know if something coming out is a float, or an integer, or a 3D vector etc. This blind connection of nodes is missing some context from my POV as a new user.