Beginner ask for help

[coffeestains]

Hi every one !

I'm a total beginner in Houdini , although a 5 years studio experience maya user. I decided to explore Houdini as alternative software. Although I watch a few video tutorials , read a couple of articles and such ... still the biggest challenge for as beginner is to set myself challenges that are suitable for my beginning skills ( and not following step by step tutorials ). I decided to ask more advanced users for help to set those challenges and eventually rate them or point out good and bad ways in my approach. if any body is willing to help, and mentor some small stuff it would be really helpful.

thank you in advance .

[jim c]

Sure, what exactly are you looking for help with?

[Scratch]

Hey

I'm also learning Houdini at the moment. I found the following links very helpfull, maybe they are helpfull for you too.

PQ-Houdini Tutorials are step by step, superb explained, and aimed on beginners. And they provide thouse little challenges you are looking for. Just follow the tutorials, and then try to alter it a bit, play around with the nodes and stuff when you've understood them. Also the other tutorials I posted below can be used as a base, and then you go beyond and alter it for further fun . I'm as said a beginner too, and i for myself got into a houdini class, since it is there, where you get hands on help, hands on learning, and are motivated to do little assignments with the certainty that you can fallback on the help of a mentor if you need it. I very much enjoy learning this way. Its fun!

Here are the links:

pq-houdini, vimeo channel -> FREE! I started there, excellent free houdini tutorials

http://sites.google.com/site/pqhoudinitutorial/

very cool introductional tutorials directly on the Houdini Homepage:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=192&Itemid=351

digital tutors -> houdini section

www.digitaltutors.com

cmiVFX, more advanced tutorials:

www.cmivfx.com

Online course i can highly recommend (doing it myself at the moment, it is very cool!)

www.vfxlearning.com -> Houdini. Alvaro Segura (Houdini TD, BlueSky Studios is the Mentor for the course!)

CG-workshop at cgsociety.org -> Houdini

www.cgsociety.org

[coffeestains]

@ Jim C

well anything that would trigger a proper procedural/houdini thinking ... im more looking into dynamics then modeling and uv layputing but kind of asigment would be helpful.

@scratch

Hell yeah man ... thats all good, and tutorials are great way to learn sofware ... but the point of this topic is to get assignments from more experienced houdini users and use skills already gained in tutorials more then following step by step ( tutorial wise ). but thanks for that links all go thru all of them soon... if you beginner like me you will defenetly like these https://vimeo.com/user2030228 this Peter's tutorials are really good ....

[Scratch]

My first link I've posted above also leads directly to Peters tutorials

They are absolutely awesome, for sure!

I for my part can only say experiment!

Try to take what is given in the Tutorials and alter it. Try to come up with a new idea how to use the learned techniques and explore what you can do. And while on the go, I'm sure you encounter endless new challenges.

Annother way (which I'm going at the moment) is real mentored training (like on cgsociety-workshops or vfxlearning.com)

there you have a pro, telling you where to go, and what assignment would be best next, with a predefined, designed learning path.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Scratch

[coffeestains]

@Scratch ... jest sir ... im going tutorials , and experiment on them to get different effects ... thats not bad but still is not like creating a project from scratch ... but any ways thanks for help and opinion ill work on and mos def get challanges form it .