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1) HD seems to complex to show realistic result output in a Tutorial is also false IMHO. Houdini files utilize persistent node networks to do your work for everything. No need to "delete history" or bake out geo from the stack. This is unique in the industry at this time for 3D software. Because of this, the actual scene files become the lessons. No one can hide anything from you. No blind script that is run that needs to be taught/documented. No set of complicated steps that need to be documented in a lengthy tutorial. Just nodes. Quite simple actually. Just like Nuke or Shake. Ever noticed why we share Houdini scene files or assets and not scripts or programs on other app's forums? There's a reason for that. The scene file "is" the tutorial! Best one I know. You can copy-paste parts of the scene file in to your own and move forward or use that scene file and build up on it. Nodes that blindly process input data are awesome! Houdini nodes have always supported comments on nodes. Recently we added network boxes and network notes to make comments in networks even more in-your-face. Houdini scene files are self-documenting. Over the many years I've been at Side Effects, I can read a Houdini scene file in very short order. Yes I said "read". With some old school users, I can actually tell the author by just looking at how the network is laid out and the approach taken. It's nice that we don't re-lay out the DAG every time you open it. The networks document how someone solved an issue. There are a great many tools that you can use to help dissect a scene file and glean a great deal of insight in to the approach. I purposely use very simple geometry such as spheres, tubes, cubes and teapots because the whole intent is for the user to copy/paste the nodes in to their scene and not have the networks polluted with complex settings. Fyi HDA's are a spin on this. Just a simple encapsulation of nodes with a customizable interface. Once you give in to that way of seeing Houdini, there are thousands of example scene files for most of the nodes in Houdini that show you how to use the nodes in different contexts. The easiest way to get to a node's example files is to pop up the help for that operator and scroll to the bottom of the help. This is where the references to example files live. This is required as many nodes can take on different behaviours. Copy SOP is an iconic example of this. This is to be expected. Side Effects has been adapting SOP networks for over 20+ years. It stands to reason that there are a lot of time honored ways of using the operators to do various tasks. This permeates itself in to "Houdini Speak" which seems to just happen once you start seriously using Houdini. These example files are found in the documentation. Oh and there are an infinite number of ways to use nodes. We're not just dealing with a single context compositing node network. Here are some tips to help you read Houdini scene files: Use the Technical Desktop instead of the default Build Desktop. The Technical Desktop is a hot rodded Build desktop with a full Tree View on the left hand side plus a details view/spreadhseet and python/hscript panes below the main viewer. Given that Houdini is an actual file system internally with folders and files (houdini scripts that build the operators), you can quickly traverse the scene file using the Tree View without having to navigate in the networks blindly. You won't get lost using the Technical Desktop. This begs the question: Why do we still ship with Build as default? You can set the Technical Desktop as the default in the Houdini Edit > Preferences > General User Interface dialog tab. Turn on Dependency Links. In any node network, hit the "d" key or press the eye icon. From the Network Display Dialog, go to the Dependency folder and enable all the options but the very last one. Now you will see any dependencies between the various operators. This chases all dependencies including those buried in expressions. Now you can see which operators have dependencies on others. These dependency links are a cool feature that few know about and IMHO should be enabled all the time for new users, especially those coming from Maya who are used to seeing this in their DAG. Operators with comments on them have the name highlighted in a dark blue. Learn to spot these operators. To read the comments, use the MMB (MiddleMouseButton) on the tile icon to see the operator information. The comment shows up near the bottom of the pop-up information. For more hard-core scene evaluation, turn to the Performance Monitor found in the Windows main menu option. You can enable updates and see which operators evaluated when you change a parameter. If there are time-based operators, pressing forward will tell you what nodes evaluated in order based on their dependencies. There are many more tips I have for tearing scene files apart in short order but these are a few key methods you can employ to investigate and learn from any Houdini scene file. Then ask lots and lots of questions. It really helps to actually do something that "you" want to do and plow ahead and ask lots of questions. Houdini couldn't be easier to learn. Once you are familiar with navigating the scene (Technical Desktop please and turn on dependency links in netowrks), it's all about the operator nodes. Nothing more. Nothing less. No myriad of thousands of cascading menus to weed through. Just nodes.