I am a professional Lightwave artist ……………………………..
…………………… ( just waiting for everyone to stop laughing)
I am trying to move into Houdini, eventually toward the FX and Dynamics applications. I have been working through the tutorials and videos. I feel though that this is a little sporadic and dis-contiguous. Can any one suggest a more organized learning flow path. I am mainly looking for a solid baseline in the overall software, following with a focus on the FX and Dynamics. I am a working professional so a formal school is out of the question. I have to do this on my own in my limited spare time. If anyone can suggest a “road map”
or path to follow that would be greatly appreciated.

-Matthew Zeyn
Disenchanted Lightwave Artist

This is the one I recommend because it is the one I am using, it is great:
http://www.3dbuzz.com/xcart/product.php?productid=61&cat=11&page=1 [3dbuzz.com]
Here is a comment about this course from:
http://www.vfxtalk.com/forum/sidefx-houdini-9-5-t16867.html [vfxtalk.com]

“If you're looking to start off with style, you can begin your journey into the world of Houdini by picking up the Houdini FastTrack bundle, containing the first two volumes of the Houdini Production Fundamentals series!

This exciting set includes many hours of video to help you start thinking like a production-level Houdini technical director! Through a basic introductory project, you'll see how to create a final animated movie through the development of digital assets, placement and manipulation of lights and cameras, as well as how to setup a full production-ready render pipeline that will automatically break your shots down into a series of described render passes. You will also explore the process of post production using Houdini's build-in compositor. In the compositing phase, you will learn how to create digital assets that will make managing shots with over 80 layers a breeze!

The Houdini FastTrack bundle also includes: a bonus hard copy of all of the streamed videos over Houdini 9.x available on 3D Buzz. These videos are provided in exclusive high-resolution format. Titles include:

* Houdini Fundamentals
* the Bridge and Elevator Asset videos
* the complete current list of 3D Buzz's ”How Do I“ videos!

There is no better way to kick start your Houdini career then getting on the FastTrack!”

This does look enticing, it seems to be geared toward Houdini 9. I'm new to Houdini so I don't know what the difference between the two builds is. Does anybody think this would be a problem?

Thank you Ignacio.

Hi Matthew,
I'm using the latest Houdini (10.0.465) and I am halfway through the course and I have not had any problems.

Hi Matthew,

This is my story:
I started 10 months ago with Houdini all by myself,
and before that I have done 5 years on Maya and sometime Realflow.

This has been my personal course I've organized by myself:

1 - Starting with the Help from the “Nodes” section and try each one in Houdini, see what it does and what happens with each different attribute. (I completed it in 40 days)

2 - Then the “How to do things” section (9 days)

3 - The “Examples” in the Help (21 days)

After this rough introduction (that took 2 months and an half),
let's start with something more exciting:

4 - I downloaded all the free tutorials and lessons from 3DBuzz (Issue 1-2-3-4) and SideFx (Old school, apprentice blog, houdini 6)

5 - I bought the “Fast track” DVD from 3DBuzz

6 - Then the “Technical Fx” DVD from 3DBuzz

7 - Study the “Bridge asset” and the “Elevator asset” case studies

8 - I bought the “Technical rigging” DVD from 3DBuzz

9 - I came back to the Help to study all the expressions (Just to have a full overview to understand which commands exist) (15 days)

10 - Then the VEX (30 days)

11 - I bought the “Intro to Particles” from CMIVFX

12 - I bought the “Fluid FX integration for TD's” from CMIVFX

After 5 months I started my first personal project:

a whole procedural short movie that you can see here:
http://www.leleberti.com/res.asp?job=0 [leleberti.com]

After that I started a bunch of experiments and RnD:
http://www.leleberti.com/research.asp [leleberti.com]

And last week I finished my second personal project:
http://www.leleberti.com/res.asp?job=9 [leleberti.com]

Well, as you can see, it has been a very methodical approach.
I prefered to spend more time on basic and general concepts to better understand how Houdini thinks and works and what is his usual workflow.

I thought, because I was coming from Maya, I had to change my point of view, to change how I use to approach the way to achieve a particular result or to solve a problem.

I know this “course” could be sometime boring or frustrating, particularly at the beginning when you can't see anything coming out from your studies.
I believe if you have a strong passion and you are well motivated it will give you a lot of satisfaction and strong bases,
at least I hope so…

Cheers

Emanuele