Is Houdini Hard to Learn?

is really hard to learn this is probably one of the most asked questions about this 3d program and this video will try to answer this question and hopefully will give you an overview that can help you out to a certain extent because there are a lot of nuances that need to be considered the origins of Houdini the first software that was created by site of tags the developers of Houdini was called prisms and was a 3d graphics program based on procedural generation prisms laid the groundwork for Houdini and how it was used by artists in the 90s in a period when 3d software were a new thing Houdini is one of the old programs that has a prioritized adding new features over changing the way it is used like most of the 3d software we have today but the way Houdini works is so different which makes it seem difficult and intimidating in many respects a different paradigm Houdini takes a unique approach to 3d production with procedural ISM unlike other software which allows artists and studios to create assets and then have a system in place for controlling many aspects of their projects this is especially useful for creating simulations and effects rather than having to start from scratch if you decided to do a simulation differently and this is one of the reasons why really excels and why it is favored by Studios that work on complex projects with its node based architecture all the projects function as one machine this differs from other programs that may just keep a log of changes that you have made but the history is usually temporarily stored using notes in nudity is an essential part of the workflow because it allows artists and Studios to be flexible in production but unfortunately the same thing that makes Houdini powerful makes it less desirable and intimidating for artists who are new or come from a background of using a software that does not operate the same way coders versus non coders unlike the other 3d software Houdini is entirely procedurally based you are not performing a series of steps with discrete outcomes and assembling the into finished scene with your Dini instead you are building a recipe of instructions for Houdini to follow to produce the desired result which means you are literally painting with code this is Houdini's greatest strength and yet presents the greatest barrier to entry for most artists it is a combination of both aesthetics and pure logic requiring the routine artist to be a blend of both a creative artist and a technical artist the best winning artists straddle the line between being an artist and a coder especially with the fact that writing code to achieve things sometimes is necessary I remember the first time I saw Houdini used in action it seemed like working in the backend meaning people who write code to develop software work rather than working in the front-end or artists usually work in other software of course that was my exaggerated reaction back then the thing is routing is built from a practical mindset rather than aiming to be the most user-friendly when you make something in unity you will have to rely on nodes sometimes complex nodes depending on the scope of the project in addition to writing code when necessary using a visual scripting setup if you don't have a solid background using nodes and addition to writing code which does not come easy for most artists you will probably have a hard time using and learning Houdini modeling when it comes to modeling a lot of artists feel like it does fall short compared to the other 3d software in terms of speed and efficiency especially I don't think it is a good thing to want to do a hundred percent of the work knowing procedurally because you are denying yourself many tricks you won't have a non procedural medians to be honest a lot of the plugins and add-ons are created to bring more automation and procedural ISM to the other 3d software because doing everything manually isn't healthy especially when we are limited by time or projects are just too big the current issues with modeling in Houdini have less to do with its procedural nature and more to do with other factors actually the way Houdini works can be very effective in terms of the necessary effort and time wise as well especially when modeling environments and natural scenes 3d software such as three years max blunder cinema4d or Maya are very good and easy to use for modeling so you probably want to use them because it's commonly used for this purpose and a lot of artists and studios do that by the way because a pipeline does not have to rely on one software the problem with Houdini is that there is still a gap in the ease of use for modeling I mean the little things that you need to toggle on and off quickly which can throw people off sometimes for anyone sees something for the first time be model in Houdini especially if they use to model using other fuji software the first thought that will probably come to their mind is there is more time and effort that is being spent to model stuff that can be modeled easily and relatively quickly in other software but at the same time Houdini will surpass their expectations due to the belief that Houdini is not good in the Department of modeling that's why I believe a lot of artists that come from different backgrounds find it difficult because in their minds they want it to work the same way they are used to model in their original software anyway side effects is trying to make it more appealing to normal users in every release animation when it comes to rigging and animation Houdini can be different especially for artists coming from other software such as Maya but Houdini now is going in the direction of the mainstream method of how animation works to make it better and easier those newcomers might find the interface different but usually it is the least of their worries because it is very customizable it just takes few minutes to set up to make the UI simple enough for animators if you are not an experienced animator you can use reading automatic rigging tools and find a way to adapt to the way animation works and for experienced animators the availability of developer tools in Houdini makes the rigging and animation department is so interesting and promising it isn't the best for sure because it's user experience leaves a lot to be desired but at the same time Houdini has experienced a fundamental paradigm shift over the last few releases which makes it more appealing to animators effects when it comes to effects especially things get very complicated for most people because it works differently since it is heavenly on nodes and Kody and from what I can see coding is what scares people the most however if you have a good eye and can figure out clever ways to do something without a complex coding there is usually nose for whatever you are trying to accomplish there are actually many effects artists who get wrapped into their coding to the extent that they can lose track of the big picture or end up wasting a lot of time coding something that can be done with a node that does the same thing meaning Houdini does not have to be hard if you know your way around it Houdini is phenomenal with particles and simulations like fire smoke water explosions and so on it's great and it is worth it a professional versus a beginner also a very important point I want to discuss here is the difference between what the beginner considers difficult and what a professional considers to be difficult I would say experienced artists will not find Houdini that hard because they just need to adapt to the way it works to work on their projects of course it is not going to be extremely easy but professionals have more knowledge and flexibility in their minds that allows them to be able to learn anything no matter how hard it is there are actually many examples of animation and effects artists who worked professionally using maya 3dsmax cinema 4d or even blender for many years sometimes even more than a decade but when they had to work for a studio that uses Houdini they were able to get the hang of it and they started producing featuring quality effects in less than a year at most some of them managed to be good at it in few months because they knew they are qualified in addition to that they had to be good at it because this is what they do for living on the other hand artists who don't have enough experience might find it very hard because they kind of like the qualities that professionals have for the most part they put more energy into why it is terribly hard instead of finding ways or at least compelling reasons to learn it this reminded me of the famous quote from Henry Ford that goes something like this whether you think you can or you think you can't you are always right I think what Ford is trying to say here is that if you think that you can learn Houdini you can because you will find reasons why you can do it and if you think you can't you will always find reasons why you can't therefore you won't hard means more potential also another thing Houdini is not different and hard generally speaking just for the sake of it because when you pay the price I don't mean in terms of money of course you will get many other things in return that are hard to get otherwise once you are comfortable with the Houdini and it's unlimited potential it becomes hardly to go back to the old ways of working on projects especially large and complicated ones Houdini is becoming more valuable in the commercial films because it is more capable and often has more complex setups for complex projects Houdini artists are employed more and more especially with the explosion of CGI heavy films and TV shows which makes the effort to learn it even more worth it as a conclusion I would say Houdini is different in a way that makes it hard to learn and use because they are conditioned to use 3d software a certain way in addition of course to the fact that coding and nodes are not easy in the first place if you want to learn Houdini you can do this because there are a lot of free and paid courses that you can rely on to start your journey I hope you found this video useful if you have something to add please leave it in the comment section below also you can check some of our previous videos thank you very much and I will see you in Venus one [Music]

Channel: InspirationTuts

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Id: ufWL1y8RtaE

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2020