First Steps | Intro

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 1 The objective of this class is to help you become familiar with the Houdini interface and comfortable navigating around Houdini. We will work together through a few basic examples as we study how data flows through Houdini. This session is a repeat of the “Intro to Houdini” workshop taught at Side Effects, Santa Monica.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 2 In this module we will delve deeper into Houdini’s unique user interface and become comfortable using Houdini’s traditional modeling tools. Building a small hard surface model, we will learn how to group geometry, use the poly bevel, extrude, split, and knife tools. In addition we will look at the creep and ray tools.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 3 Now we understand how to use the basic modeling tools it is time to learn how to think as a Houdini artist and create procedural models. We will use the model created in week 2 and derive what an artist down the pipeline will want to modify and make those parts of the model procedural. We will then package up the model as a Houdini Digital Asset and save it as a shelf tool

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 4 This module will focus on Houdini’s traditional Keyframe animation tools. We will learn how to do keyframe animation, explore Houdini’s Channel Editor, how to create Channel Groups, and understand Houdini’s different ease in/out functions.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 5 We will be learning all sorts of expressions to drive your animations. So blow off the dust of your old high school math book at let us begin.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 6 This module focuses on understanding point, primitive, and detail attributes. We will explore the standard attributes and create user defined attributes.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 7 This module will start by blocking out your shot. We will explore the different parameters that are utilized in a Houdini Camera. We will then focus on understanding how to set up lights in Houdini.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 8 We will learn how to set up our models for texturing. We will first learn Houdini’s uv tools to layout out our geometry correctly and then look at the Mantra Surface Shader to add materials to our geometry.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 9 This week we dive into VOP SHOPs and create a procedural shader from scratch. We will explore the VOPs the nodal equivalent to the VEX language.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 10 This module focuses on Houdini’s two particle systems. The POP SOP and Particle Network.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 11 This module focuses on Rigid Body Dynamics.

First Steps - Intro Series Lesson 12 The final module for this beginners webinar series focuses on Houdini’s built in compositor. We will explore the IMG context as a general compositor and a tool to use 2D images and animations to drive 3D effects.

First Steps - Light, Shade, & Render Series In this bonus lesson, you will learn how to work with Houdini's LSystem tools. LSystems offer a formal grammar used to model the growth process of plant development.