Reviewing all kinds of tips and tricks from various artists, they all advice not to rely on only one 3d software.
After approximatly one year of Houdini I'm still a novice but want to slowly extend my 3d horizon.
So first of all, is it good idea to mix up the training? So e.g. one day of Houdini and Maya the other day? Or should I first get a solid background of some years and then acquire skills in my secondary package?

Second: Which package at all? There are many out there, but I guess there are some which play better with Houdini than others?
I'm mainly into vfx with destruction, fire, water and that kind of fx. I'm definately not into texturing or sculpting, but I like motion graphics. So far I used after effects for that.

So any advices or lessons learned you might tell me?

I would not bother to purchase a second product to “extend my 3D horizon”. If you want to increase commercial job opportunities, yes, it would be good to learn Maya. You get a lot further staying with one program and learning it well, rather than half learning two overlapping programs. For many people, the other programs they have are ones they learned on and already feel comfortable with, or ones that fill out some of the gaps in Houdini (like zbrush, substance painter, unfold 3D, etc.). If you have a specific need that is not being met by Houdini, and it is not an issue of your knowlege, that would be a time to add in another program to help you get to where you want to be. If you asked how to work with fluids, you might want to learn realflow. For most vfx, there isn't really a need to look beyond Houdini. For modeling, it might be easier to do things faster in one of the well known programs (3ds max, C4D, Modo, Maya, etc.). You might also want to learn a different rendering engine than Mantra (and how to do materials in that program).

Since I learned a little of Softimage, Maya, C4D, Modo, Houdini, 3D coat, Unfold 3D, Mari, Substance designer, and Substance painter (and took lessons on the piano, recorder, violin, drums, etc.), I can assure you that beginner knowledge in a variety of programs doesn't count for much.

Blender. The low-end always replaces the high-end sooner or later. Blender is very limited at the moment, but is actively developed, popular & is being used to create great artwork… I doubt it will ever compete with Houdini given its ill-conceived core design, but its a useful fallback.

Wouldn't bother with Maya or any other Autodesk program as you'd be competing with every man & his dog who wants in on vfx. Houdini will be the same in a few years (or sooner).

Also keep an eye on veejay and webGL tools…

Hey there,

thanks for replys
I just asked, because of many tuts out there, which are using Maya and Houdini in conjunction.
Maya for modeling and Houdini for fx; for example I have some motion capture data (in .ma-format) which i want to apply to a character, and then export as an abc to try some particle motion trail fun in houdini.

Regarding Blender: In fact, I started to learn blender as my first 3d app but rejected it after a couple of tutorials/weeks. Did the space vfx series from creative shrimp, but despite the great course i couldn't get along with blender. Clumsy Interface, too many shortcuts, and I couldn't get out any photorealistic results out of the cycles renderer, but that was probably the lack of my skill.