I touched on this in a post I made about Game Tools (now SideFX Labs) but again today I ran across this issue. Quite often, SideFX will post a video that discusses a great new feature in the latest version. They show how things used to work and how this new tool/feature/whatever is significantly better. The problem is, 9 times out of 10, they leave it at that. There's no link to a detail page, no additional tutorials, nothing.

For example, there was a recent video showing how the Houdini viewport and latest (principled) shader updates can give you a view of your model/scene that is nearly the same as what you'd see in Substance and nearly the same as a Mantra render. But there's nothing on how the feature works or how to use it.

Perhaps for the experienced user this is all trivial stuff, but not everyone knows Houdini that well.

At the moment I can't even seem to find the video on the SideFX site.

In any event, SideFX, if you're putting out a demo video of a new feature/tool/etc., that is available in the shipping version of Houdini, please include links to more detailed information/tutorials/etc. It's really frustrating to see something that would be a big help, only to not be able to get information on how to implement that thing.

Sorry for the slight rant - I just finished a small project that involved lots of PBR materials on objects and I never was able to view them properly in Houdini.

-Paul

Supposedly the functionality was simply by utilizing the Principled Shader for your geometry which would then display properly in your viewer (depending of course on the power of your machine).

It's really up to guys like us to create these tutorials, which is what I'm (slowly) trying to do with my YouTube channel.

Unfortunately very few companies seem to do these expanded tutorials in-house, but in my experience SideFX is one of the best actually.

C4D has Greyscale Gorilla to thank profusely, Aftereffects has Video Copilot. Houdini has Entagma which I like a lot, but who unfortunately leans a bit too nerdy/technical with a lot of their tutorials, as well as making heavy use of VEX which turns off a lot of potential users.

i have the same feeling, they always show nice setups with the new features.
If they could just include these scenes…
I think even advanced users would lose much less time starting a setup with new features.

Wim