Hey there,

So I'm making a shift from corporate and wedding videography into learning 3D FX. My friend recommended Houdini over Cinema 4D and Maya, saying that it's easier to learn, and a lot of companies are utilizing it.

My ultimate goal is to get good enough with this software that a studio will hire me. How many hours a week am I looking at to be hirable by a studio that hopefully offers benefits within a year?

Any advice as far as what learning resources I should look at. Are there legit free resources? Should I pay for classes, and if so, what courses are effective and recommended?

Thanks in advance for advice and your experiences

Hi Tim,

welcome to Houdini!

It usually takes a few years, lots of passion and hours and hours of learning until employers can make money with what you do. This is especially true for Houdini, which has a reputation of being the hardest of all 3D packages.

A good read into Houdini that is usually recommended is the CG wiki written by Matt Estela:
https://www.tokeru.com/cgwiki/?title=Houdini [www.tokeru.com]

..or the learning paths on the SideFX website.

I made a tutorial video specifically for this question:

C4D would be much easier to learn. It has limitations especially for fluids, smoke, and particles. What kind of FX are you planning to do? C4D mograph is pretty easy. I much prefer Houdini, but ease of use when getting started would not be accurate.

timjeghers
Hey there,

So I'm making a shift from corporate and wedding videography into learning 3D FX. My friend recommended Houdini over Cinema 4D and Maya, saying that it's easier to learn, and a lot of companies are utilizing it.

My ultimate goal is to get good enough with this software that a studio will hire me. How many hours a week am I looking at to be hirable by a studio that hopefully offers benefits within a year?

Any advice as far as what learning resources I should look at. Are there legit free resources? Should I pay for classes, and if so, what courses are effective and recommended?

Thanks in advance for advice and your experiences

If you're looking just to learn, Cinema 4D or Maya might be a bit pricey. Houdini is the only major DCC that offers a completely functional free version (called ‘Apprentice’) to learn with that doesn't expire.

While I can't speak for Maya as I haven't used it in over a decade, I can do a quick comparison to C4D. In the feature-set and performance comparisons, Houdini runs circles around Cinema 4D, so once you get going with it, there's not much it cannot do out of the box, whereas with C4D, especially for FX work, the in-built tools are sorely lacking.

As to the learning curve - I won't sugarcoat this: Houdini is significantly heavier to get into than Cinema 4D, but the resources available out there are plenty, with several beginner guides to get started with, so bring along some determination and you're set. Good luck.