Houdini Tutorial Base

[Krakatuk]

Hi, I'm in fact totally a newbie in this software, but willing to learn it. Some problems I could solve reading posts and pieces of info all over the net, something I figured out on my own... but why Houdini is not so well "tutorialized" as 3ds max, Maya, Cinema 4D, modo, ZBrush? There is very few of the stuff (has to do with only early versions) and no any comprehensive and overwhelming things about some certain parts of the workflow like: materials, rendering, dynamics, rigging and so on? For a newbie like me sometimes it sounds like: yeah, it can be done in Houdini... but not a word on how it works in some more complex cases.

There are 2 Gnomon's and some of cmiVFX DVDs... well, haven't seen those of cmiVFX, but after Gnomon's DVDs... I can now drop teapots... and that's it... Gnomons have issued 2 DVDs on VRay rendering of exteriors and interiors explaining different techniques... why there's nothing for Houdini? Lots and lots of stuff for Maya and 3ds max, having learned which I can say "yeah, I can do it, and I know how, and if I don't - I have enough of knowledge to figure it out myself!"... but why is it so? - the more powerful software is - the less info on it can be found?

[michael]

two things

1 - documentation has long been a problem in Houdini, but this is improving rapidly, also great efforts are being made by SESI to release more tutorials.

2 - 3rd party tutorials/dvd etc are made with the expectation that there are people who will buy them...and the simple fact is that there are far fewer Houdini users than there are Maya/max/etc users...so for a company like Gnomon it's better to make a vray DVD than a Houdini DVD...I think this will change, but it will be slow.

if there is something you'd like to do in Houdini just make a start and whenever you hit a wall just dive into the documentation then come to the forums here and at SESI - /search/ for your issue and if you can't find any info about it make a new post and ask for advice/help...most of the Houdini users you'll find here and at the SESI forums are using Houdini in production and are very helpful.