It seems like there are fewer and fewer commercial tutorials for Houdini.

Since it's not profitable anymore and AI has stolen the spotlight, fewer and fewer people are willing to put so much time and effort into learning CG software.

wanglifu
Since it's not profitable anymore and AI has stolen the spotlight, fewer and fewer people are willing to put so much time and effort into learning CG software.

Although it's the same reason I thought it was, it still made me very sad to hear it.

Creating paid tutorials comes with a big burden of expectations. You will have to create unique free tutorial to get the attention of viewers, but for paid one's uniqueness becomes a necessity, and also you have to make it feel premium.
I don't think ai is much big of an issue, with all the ml related lower level toolsets + the higher level tools, it will make better effects and cgi creatable for even an individual, just like the effects we created with cgi softwares we couldn't with only a camera.

Umang_Raj
Creating paid tutorials comes with a big burden of expectations. You will have to create unique free tutorial to get the attention of viewers, but for paid one's uniqueness becomes a necessity, and also you have to make it feel premium.
I don't think ai is much big of an issue, with all the ml related lower level toolsets + the higher level tools, it will make better effects and cgi creatable for even an individual, just like the effects we created with cgi softwares we couldn't with only a camera.

I still think this arises from the shock of AI

I think it's because it's not really financially beneficial for the person creating the tutorial. I was approached once or twice to make paid tutorials by a 3rd party, and you basically get a small flat fee for spending months on making a tutorial that will have many revisions, and requires you to give feedback and reviews of students' work for a long time thereafter. Basically 3-6 months work for about $5-10k

I'm still creating commercial Houdini training. My Pragmatic VEX course actually received a major update recently, and I'm currently working on Volume 2 as well, which I hope to release soon.

From my perspective, producing this kind of material is definitely a significant investment of time, especially when you want to cover more advanced topics in depth and keep the material updated as Houdini evolves. But I don't think commercial Houdini training is disappearing entirely. There are still people creating it