Hello there,

this is my first post, I'm very happy to be part of this community!
..and a bit frustrated

I spend something like one month studying houdini, it's fantastic… but there's some bad things in this learning curve.

Watching the procedural modeling, first week about HOUSES, I saw something really common for a lot of tutorials, about 15min. in the video Ari Danesh explain how to split the curve using Carve thee times, the first Carve was just for nothing…I mean, you don't see any difference happening, ok, but you have to do it, after I check it and see it's the only way to do all the carves.

keep going, later is necessary to apply a fuse because something was wrong, and after a Fuse, a Join… and so on…

Where's the intuitive process of this workflow? Watching this process I think I can't figure out how to build simple pipes by myself, it's scary… looks like I'm missing some classes / broken the box.

I have good experience as 3d generalist, working since 2007 (c4d, modo, 3ds max) and also 5 years with scripting for web…

I don't know I keep studying, but it's hard. If anyone has some experiences to share, I really like to read!

Thanks guys!

I spend something like one month studying houdini, it's fantastic… but there's some bad things in this learning curve.

Hi you cannot expect to learn in Houdini in months for starters you have to get into a different mind set. The learning curve is steep but then that's what sets apart Houdini TD's from the rest …….. .

Start with bite sized chunks of learning and master the building blocks. Once you know that > you can do anything. Keep a note book and collect and explore all the example files and ask questions

Each node if you click on the help for it carries lots of example files, theres no better place to start than the point sop.

Rob

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?/topic/17105-short-and-sweet-op-centric-lessons/ [forums.odforce.net]

`old school` !!

heys guys, thank you i'll definitely keep this advice!

I remember my first houdini panic… I was trying to figure out how the hell to create maya's equivalent of a lattice deformer, using the Lattice SOP. It was a very frustrating and confusing moment for me when I realized it required an input, consulted the documentation only long enough to see that it recommended using a Box SOP. and I tried to use a hastily scaled Box SOP to deform it, and that didn't seem to be enough points for deformation, so I started extruding the box and awkwardly going back and rescaling things… all I wanted was a quick lattice deformer, not a modeling excursion, which was already a pretty rocky experience…

Much later, I accidentally dropped a Box SOP on a wire and learned that if it had geo plugged in, it would match the input's bounding box. And I had also since found out that it's easy to add divisions to a Box SOP in Primitive mode. I hadn't even tried using the Lattice SOP for months, but I instantly and intuitively understood its intended use with Lattice… it's such a simple thing, but so difficult to know without guidance.

I totally understand your frustration.

All that said, the Houdini documentation is great, especially for an application of its scope. Had I taken the time to read the Lattice (or Box) help cards more thoroughly, I'd have found workflow tips and detailed example files… sometimes it can be a little spotty or sparse, and you might find some deprecated workflows if you dig through some of the guides - and these things are very frustrating when you're just trying to learn how to do something quickly - but the documentation has been getting some pretty great revisions lately (see for yourself), so, it has that going for it.

Sometimes I joke that Houdini makes it really easy to do difficult things, but difficult to do really easy things… it seems that way at first. But if you approach learning Houdini as trying to learn a totally foreign language, or culture, or studying, taming, and training a wild animal, as opposed to learning an application, you'll feel a lot more comfortable. I know that sounds absurd, but I think it's apt.

Learning Houdini requires the patience to really learn the application; but you never get diminishing returns with the time you put in to learning a new node or workflow.

It just takes a lot of patience.



I'll also say that, as a web coder, I think you'll be able to appreciate approaching Houdini as one would a programing language.

Also - the best $30 you can spend towards your Houdini tuition is on the book, The Magic of Houdini by William Michael Cunningham, in my opinion. I can't stress that enough.

I really appreciate it, thanks man!