Hi Werner..

Well, the survey has enlighten me quite a bit…

114 responses

60% voted for rich media ebook
53% voted for PDF
11% voted for ebook on its own
11% voted for printed

Clearly PDF is the winner for me given rich media is a very time consuming task and thus will be prohibitive unless there is a big user based (which i am sure will be at some point though)

Mostly PC based 71% vs iPad 43% and other tablets 23%

Funny enough I though mobility was important but apparently it is not that much. :-P

And overwhelming 55% prefer the whole book rather than chapters 9%, although 36% would like both.

My impression is that PDF format is the one that fits it all, the whole book and seems the price range is quite wide with quite a few people ready to splash $50 although the bulk is around $20, that is equivalent of 4 pints of beer.

:-P

It is encouraging and now that I see more clearly the market it may be something to put together so I am at the moment considering redoing it all for Houdini 14 including all the new things that are there which will of course take me a bit of time and I am too busy right now so may be before Summer I can start.

What do you think? Seems fair interpretation?

I know this format is not listed there, but I'm gonna vote for it anyway:
video.
Nothing beats video, with explanations based on examples, and whatnot.

I can't know for sure since I never did it, but I think working on a book is a lot more time consuming than recording your screen and voice and then simply encoding the output with a popular codec.

McNistor
I can't know for sure since I never did it, but I think working on a book is a lot more time consuming than recording your screen and voice and then simply encoding the output with a popular codec.

Only if your main language is english. Just to make 5 minutes long tutorial I need to record 5-7 times as much. Small mistakes here and there and all goes to hell and you have to repeat. It's not that you have to know english on some super level, but if you are not speaking in it on a daily basis it gets hard to talk for 10 minutes and don't fuck up something

I have to figure out some good system to record first and than add soundtrack.

Or use subtitles.

I have tried that and I must confess I feel very embarrassed and it is not as easy as it looks… a good 5 minutes truly need 30-40 minutes trying… just happens…

But I guess you are right, it would be even easier… will think again.

:-)

No, it´s not easy. Specially if you want to convey real info, and not just filling time.
I´m long-winded, so I make recordings three or four times longer and then I have to edit all my blahblahs and my yaddayaddas.

It does take time and contrarily to what many people thinks you probably deal with LESS topics for an standard length video compared to a PDF.

Just want to announce that after watching H15 at the London event I have been thinking about a major overhaul of the guides, letting these die is not my intention so and I am happy to announce I will embark on a full revamp of the guides although this time will be less Softimage focused.

After the poll it is clear the way to go is eBook mode and although I still need to clear lots of things from my intray first (testing authoring tools, deployment, video snippets? fonts, style, layout and more) today seems like the perfect day to announce it, after all it is my birthday!!!

Given this will be a bit more serious I will like to have two Houdini experts to help me out polishing and commenting before I do a full publish, if you are up for the ride please let me know either privately or directly in this thread.

Also, for those of you with interests in certain areas I will run another poll soon to see what things need addressing in a bigger extent or cut down.

Hope you are as happy as I am of what is ahead and hopefully we can bring more people into Houdini.

Jeff, I will need your help. ;-)

just one thing: happy B-day Jordi :-)

Happy birthday and godspeed in your new enterprise.

Hi to all,

My name is Kalin and I was user of Softimage xsi from the very beginning. Now I am a proud Houdini user. In a constant search of better animation tools I already explored the power of rigging in Houdini, it’s great but the speed is a big issue at the moment. Here are some suggestions:
1. The idea mplay to retime the animation is great but it’d be great if we can save the curves to be reapplied later.
2. In CHOPs blending the animation to be more visual. When blending two clips will be more helpful to have an overlapping control in Motion FX View, like all other motion elements. I love Motion FX View, but it needs a visual revamp. For “constrains”: Fetching the matrix of one object and applying to another is quite slow wen you have a complicated character rig. I really do not want to have Softimage inside Houdini, it’d be great if the current toolset improve into a more user friendly interface and a proper speed. A few versions back particles were out of DOPs, now they are part of it. Maybe is time Motion FX View to be part of animation editor? For channel editor and dope sheet fixing the bugs will be more then I need.

Well, considering the patience you all had I wanted to break the news that I am now officially working on the new guides and hopefully soon will be in a position to add some info here.

I am very keen on having some quotes from Houdini artists and/or artists that have transitioned (with or without the help of my guides) to Houdini for the new book as I want to add a nice layout and quotes could be fun and a very human touch to it.

Send me a direct message better (that way we keep them secret ;-)

Your effort is appreciated and there's not much more one can ask from a single individual to contribute to a knowledge-base.
In my opinion you have a Venn diagram like problem on your hands in translating XSI into Houdini and regarding the intersecting part, it will be easy to draw a direct “XSI to Houdini” parallel, but the outside parts where the two apps don't really intersect will be a PITA to explain and work-arounds (god, I hate that concept) are inevitable.
I'm hoping H16 will increase that intersecting portion significantly.

Very true McNistor, for this very reason soon I will be opening the gates to contributors (let's see if anyone is interested…) right now my Saturday morning and a bit on Sunday is the only time free I have to do this so it's slow as you can imagine.

This time around will be more focused on Houdini with references and inserts on both XSI and Maya instead.

Well after a long maya job that had me feeling very down, and the hard fact hitting home that i just cant enjoy working in Maya. Plus the H16 announcement video has me returning , i just bought a copy of Indy for myself, and this time i plan on committing to sticking with H. So that book would be very much appreciated and i would love to chip in .

very very very very soon.. ;-)

holding breath…

Thank you for opening this thread. Another happy XSI user with some ICE experience here, joining to SideFX.

Hi there! Just recently I also decided to switch from SI to Houdini and want to thank Jordi for starting this thread. Looking forward to seeing what you will come up with. Your guides will hopefully make the - often daunting - transition a little bit easier for rookies like me
Best regards

Hello again, I'm aware it's already been a while that the first guides were released and if I understood Jordi correctly there will be revised guides (?) soon, but is there any chance to download the old pdf somewhere? All links that I've found so far seem to be dead… Thank you very much in advance

HHaynes
Hello again, I'm aware it's already been a while that the first guides were released and if I understood Jordi correctly there will be revised guides (?) soon, but is there any chance to download the old pdf somewhere? All links that I've found so far seem to be dead… Thank you very much in advance

Hello,
I'm new to Houdini coming from Softimage,
I'm very interrested in this guide too!

thanks