Tutorials Poll

[peterr]

Dops is the area I have the biggest concern with.

The shelf tools are great of quickly setting up the dynamics you wish to work with, then however you drop into a giant black hole

as you go inside the dops editor and are presented with a vast array of esoteric functions(for the new user and those not deeply involved in dynamic simulations).

Since dynamic simulations become so specific so quickly people are going to run into shelf tool limitation very quickly.

So we need to lift the vale on dops.

Mantra/rendering and Soho use are my next biggest topic that needs to be covered.

[chunkified]

My vote is for Advanced DOPs (Fluids)....

definetely!

haven't had the chance to sit down and have a look at h9's fluids etc...

if not Advanced DOPs/Fluids then...

POPs Fundementals (General FX,Sprites, i3d, point rendering etc...)

Houdini & Renderman

General Lighting and Rendering

CHOPs

[canadianboy]

hey marc great idea! I would love to see some DOp or particles tutorials at an intermediate level maybe? Hope this actually pans out I love new learning material!

[Marc]

Hope this actually pans out I love new learning material!

Me too . Finding the time to do something is always a problem (day jobs, free site ), but hopefully we can get the ball rolling on some tutorials soon.

M

P.S. If anyone has any desire to write any tutorials then pm me and we can discuss it.

[pclaes]

Me too . Finding the time to do something is always a problem (day jobs, free site ), but hopefully we can get the ball rolling on some tutorials soon.

M

P.S. If anyone has any desire to write any tutorials then pm me and we can discuss it.

I read this and thought this might make a change when it comes to making houdini tutorials/example files.

An user based example archive might be very useful. I know there is the exchange, but like you mentioned finding time can be a problem and I guess creating a new example takes less time than an entire tutorial or hda.

Tuesday, Febuary 26, 2008

Houdini 9.1.166: Added two scripts to $HFS/houdini/scripts/python/ for users who are creating their own help or example files. index_help_pages.py will reindex the help. index_help_examples.py will reindex the example files.

index_help_examples requires the hou module, so you should run it with hython (using an HBatch license) or from within Houdini.

Use "scriptname --help" to see available options. Both scripts automatically index the help/examples under $HFS. Specify any additional directories (e.g. $HOME/houdini9.1/help) you want to index on the command line.

These scripts are experimental, and are provided to help customers experimenting with creating help and examples for their own custom assets.

[wick3dParticle]

I voted for more intermediate tutorials geared towards particles, Dops and shading(shader writing). I think that many of the tutorials/books out there are either for really advanced people, or people who are just beginning. I have been experimenting with Houdini for about 4 months now. I am a beginner, but would like to be intermediate. I think that more project oriented tutorials along with the challenges that are popping up here- I would be on the right track.

Thanks for the initiative!

Ilan

[AndrewMelnychuk]

Uh I just started my career so I cant really call my self a professional. But I have been using max for the last 10 years and dabbled in all the others besides Houdini. I ve started to play with Houdini and it blows my freaking mind but I wanna learn how to do the complicated stuff I do in my day to day workflow and the stuff that I cant do. Ive done the CMI VFX sops by david gary and those are about right on par for what I like to learn. He teaches the advance stuff and the underlying principles that you need to know to get the full extent of the software.

I voted for Advanced Dops and particles cause thats what I do.

[Guest Swann]

VOPSSSSSSSSS, no code please, just Node based tutorials from Begginer to Advanced about everything. From Shading to making Calculator for 10000 $ from Houdini , and Character tools,

Edited March 18, 2008 by SWANN

[kemijo]

I also voted for advanced surfacing, DOPs, and CHOPs. (I had to stop myself from checking them all). I find it interesting that there's no option for SOPs. I suppose Modeling was supposed to cover that, but from the productions I've been on, it all comes back to SOPs as the workhorse of Houdini, and not everything in SOPs could be considered modeling IMO. SOPs in existing tutorials rarely go beyond illustrating why a procedural workflow would be useful. Yet I have worked with senior Houdini TDs creating incredibly complex, useful (and sometimes abstract) networks, and there's no analog to that sort of workflow in any other app. Maybe some production examples of real networks used on cutting edge feature films? While in these studios, there's often the dog'n'pony show where TDs will show others how they solved a tricky task. That stuff would be great to see a video on. It would be great to see more tutorials about how a complex task was solved using Houdini as a whole package.

[ofer]

I voted for advanced characters and chops.

[andrewlowell]

It's interesting to note that if you combine Character + CHOPs ... which could be seen as very interrelated; than it would gather around 25%, and be second only to shading/rendering.

I'd really like to see someone pick-up-the-ball and make a complete character animation book or series of videos similar to the likeness of character studio/rigging resources in Max's game animation glory days.

I voted for advanced characters and chops.

Edited March 24, 2008 by andrewlowell

[zasid]

Chop chops and just chops so Chop up some tutorial.

[Vinz9]

I voted for advanced tutorials also, because there are already quite a few tutorials on the basic stuff (digital tutors, 3d buzz, new cmi vfx, gnomon).

It would be a good thing to gather all the old tutorials somewhere (techimage, sesi pdfs and vis), I manage to hunt some of them with web.archive.org, lots of interesting stuff.

[mmontoya]

I cast my vote for modeling and character for a simple reason: While most sensible people will agree that Houdini is the tool of choice for visual effects, these same people (myself included) will turn to other packages for traditional character animation and modeling. This is probably more due to my own unfamiliarity with the workflow for achieving the same results as in traditional packages within Houdini than any deficiency within this great application. As such, any tutorials that would provide some insight into this aspect I'm sure will be appreciated by all.

While I'm sure most of us here know how to model procedurally with SOPs, what is lacking is an understanding of how to use these same concepts to model a tradtional hero character without having to lay down a gazillion nodes or losing the nondestructive paradigm by working solely within an edit SOP. I'm thinking that most people probably lay down a spline skeleton, then sweep geometry along these backbones and then perform some sort of polystitch to unite appendages to the torso or something like that. This would then give one the best of both worlds whereby one could parameterized length and width of limbs and vary proportion with a digital asset. These sort of tips would be invaluable. But also, more advanced concepts like how to set up muscle-driven skin deformations and the like would be immensely useful.

[Sla]

Could someone make a precise explanation of stamp method which seems to me as very important part of Houdini. thanks a lot.

[edward]

What is lacking in the Copy SOP's helpcard and examples?

[Netvudu]

Isn

[masstapro]

Shading/Rendering, Beginner (even though I've been using for a few years now, mostly Touch Software (good for the person looking for CHOP examples)

Why not take on a project instead of a tutorial.

Start with a simple character and move towards rendering.

Example, a hand animated into a fist that slams down on a table in a dust filled room.

You could have 5 or more tutorials inside one project.

We could all submit ideas, vote on a project, then various users could contribute.

[cellchuk]

sounds cool.

might work.

[iluvblender]

Being a total n00b with Houdini, I'd like to know as much as i can. So i selected most entries.

I have been using Blender for a long time now (The only 3d software I've known till I started learning Houdini). I have recently read two tutorials on using the Blender's compositor (written for beginner users). The two part tutorial was very well written and also well received by the community. Something like that would be very useful.

http://blenderunderground.com/2008/03/31/i...e-nodes-part-1/

http://blenderunderground.com/2008/04/10/i...e-nodes-part-2/

Cheers,

Satish.

Edited June 19, 2008 by iluvblender