Hey guys. I'm a VFX recruiter and I recently started working at a new company that has a slightly different pipeline for lighting than I am used to. So all of my lighting contacts are Maya artists, at the old place if they used a variety or rendering packages, their familiarity still allowed them to pick up our Arnold pipeline relatively quick. Houdini

At this new studio, all of the lighting is done in Houdini, using Mantra as the render engine (we are just starting to test Redshift, and used Arnold for 1 job). I have been using a few tactics, like going directly to SideFX local workers and hiring out of their internship programs, and also encouraging aspiring VFX students I meet to pursue some Houdini base knowledge. Of course getting referrals from other good Houdini artists we get in also works. But aside from that, it seems like the general pool for Houdini lighters is much smaller than for Maya lighters. Also, plenty of Maya artists can not necessarily pick it up quickly, especially when we are bringing in freelancers for short turn around job.

Can anyone recommend a good community or place to get Houdini artists from? I see this community is pretty big so any direct recommendations are also cool. Our studio is in LA.

Houdini Sites with Job Forum:
https://www.sidefx.com/forum/60/ [www.sidefx.com]
https://forums.odforce.net/forum/44-studios/ [forums.odforce.net]

Discord:
discord.gg/b8U5Hdy

Meetup around LA:
https://www.meetup.com/LA-Houdini-User-Group/ [www.meetup.com]
https://www.meetup.com/orange-county-houdini-user-group/ [www.meetup.com]

hope it helps.

Thank you! Have begun to scour these sites.