GO PROCEDURAL USER GUIDE

The creation of 3D animation and visual effects involves a number of stages which come together to create a complete artistic vision. Throughout this process, 3D artists like yourself explore and refine ideas in order to meet the creative needs of the project while hitting many tight deadlines.

With Houdini, you have access to a node-based procedural workflow which makes it easier to manage and control the underlying flow of data which defines how your models, materials, animation and visual effects are working. This control makes it easier to step in and make changes where needed as the nodes update to show the new results. This frees you up to explore and prototype ideas early in production then come back and refine and scale the solution to create final shots.

As you work through these lessons, you will see how Houdini’s procedural approach has been designed from the ground up to support artists and technical directors working in production. It’s procedural architecture makes it easier for you to create directable CG shots, explore multiple iterations and hit deadlines no matter how tight they are. And most importantly, you will accomplish all of this using a friendly set of tools which are easy to access.

To better understand Houdini, it is important to explore its workflow in the context of a real project. With Houdini’s node-based workflow being such a key component of this exploration, it is important to start learning how to think and work procedurally. In this lesson, you will learn how to create your own custom tool using the procedural nodes and networks to define its function and interface.

Lesson Goal | To create a custom tool that turns any given 3D shape into toy bricks.