Mario Steinbrecher

Hi, I was forced to use Maya in the first 3 months of my study too and beside the fact that I hate it's UI and working in it and that I failed our first test, it costs me a lot of nerves to get my teachers to allow me to switch to 3ds Max ,which is similar to Maya, and to do every test (except the animation test, which i barely succeded) etc. from then on with 3ds Max. However as far as I can say from all the help here and from my first days of learning Houdini it is a lot different, the only things that are similar is the radial menu (when you press C in Houdini) and that you can set the controlls in Houdini to be like the standard controlls in Maya.
When I would be in your position with a full time job, nearly no free time at all and evening classes I would switchto Houdini when I finished the evening school, just trying to get along with Maya, get personal help from the teachers, try to find some free time and do some stuff in Maya etc. When I've done that, I would start using the Houdini Engine inside of Maya.

However you might wanna read this here: https://www.quora.com/Which-is-better-SideFX-Houdini-or-Maya [quora.com]

It's a comparrision between Maya and Houdini.

I hope I could help you, at least a bit.

Logan

I will just write a message when I need an answer immediately and cannot wait any longer, which will likely nearly never happen. And I will just ask those who are online atm. When that's not the case I will definitely ask around in the forum.
However thanks for your support.

Guys let me thank you a lot for all of your help, sharing your experience, thoughts, opinions, etc. I learned a lot from it.

And I got hooked up by Houdini, I think it's kinda my new “love” besides Max.
I played around, watched tutorials and followed them, wrote down notes, … in other words learned Houdini yesterday until it was 4am and today it's going to be like that again, probably. ^^
Don't worry I took some breaks, too.

Working with Houdini makes much more fun than with Max, it's much more intuitive, that you can edit everything from the very first step onwards is just amazing. I were able to do all kinds of stuff much faster than I could ever do with Max (I tried several things like modeling assets I did in Max in Houdini or f.e. making and baking normals) and it is far less bulky, covoluted and confusing aka difficult to use.

All in all it's an awesome programm what I will use from now on and someday in the future hope to master. ^^

So thanks again for the help and sorry I asked so much Artye, I am just damn curious about things I am interested in and when there isn't a video, text etc. which is already answering all my questions, well then I'have to be a bit annoying and ask around in forums, sorry.


So after that I'm going back to Houdini now. At least I have to get rid of this: It's an awesome, very friendly, helpfull and polite community here, so pls never change!

See you around,
Logan

P.S.: When I have questions, strugling with some functions of the programm and can't find a solution by my own, but need one fast, do you mind if I message you guys then?