Hi,

First of all please excuse me for posting previous questions on both the Learning Houdini and on the Houdini Apprentice Forums. It's that I had not read the definition of the two forums.

The reason for this post is to say that I have probably chosen to learn Houdini's vfx section at a tricky moment. Houdini 13 is different to everything else that has been done until now at least in terms of writing expressions and in terms pf setting up of particle effects, which makes many on-line tutorials outdated.

I saw the introductory videos on-line and it all seems very exciting.

It is a problem for guys like me who are learning it now as the transition adds an extra layer of complication that makes the learning process even more difficult, though I have found that overcoming the difficulties has been very educational.

The question or suggestion would be for you guys to think about a kind of transition guide for beginners to Houdini 13, as most of the tutorials are directed to previous versions. Would that be possible? Is it on it;s way?

Hopefully this post makes sense :-)

Many thanks,

Richard

You should be able to download Houdini12.5 and use it to run the older tutorials.

I know that, but honestly I see no point in studying something that eventually will be discontinued.

Your call of course and you may not see it yet but, honestly, there is lots of value in studying old parts of Houdini as all the new stuff builds on the old.

You can always put an Request Feature Enhancement in the Support menu above for your idea of a transition guide.

edit: wouldn't the transition guide be only useful if you already know how the older system works? Therefore you would have to learn the old stuff anyways…

You will admit that this is a convoluted way to learn a software,

Richard Klein
You will admit that this is a convoluted way to learn a software,

Nope. If previous software knowledge apparently has no value to the current software version, then by that logic, experienced users have no advantage or skills over new users.

One can ignore all the training available out there in hope of understanding/waiting for a transition guide or one can use what is available.

As said before it's your call.

The main thing for you is to just learn Houdini. I haven't used older versions myself, but 12+ is all very similar. Once you get a good grasp of the software, new stuff or stuff that changes with new versions will be a lot easier to understand.

I believe you can still use the old particles in H13 as well, so you should be able to follow tutorials for that without using older versions. And as you say yourself, overcoming difficulties is a great way to learn - so why not do that particle tutorial using the old particles, and then try to achieve the same with the new ones?

Now that I have advanced a bit, I see that it is true that once things start making sense one can start working one's way around this extra layer of complexity, but for a total begginner it is very confusing.

There are some things that simply don't work in 13 and the scripting is all different.