Deborah R. Fowler
Houdini Overview - what is Houdini and
how does it work
This page is a topic-organized index into the deeper guides on this site — proceduralism, modeling, animation, look dev, and pipeline. If you are just getting started, visit the Quick Guide first. For curated external tutorials, see the Tutorials Directory.
An overview of commonly used techniques in Houdini from a personal perspective — opinions freely given. For greater depth see the official SideFX documentation. This site focuses on three areas:
- non-destructive node-based proceduralism
- dynamics
- VEX / VOPs
Getting Started
Concepts & Terminology
Troubleshooting
Proceduralism & Instancing
Copy & Looping
Instancing & Packed Primitives
- Example
file: InstanceIntro19.5.hiplc
General instancing, Mantra & Redshift - Instancing with USD
- Packed Primitives
Instancing is powerful, but packed primitives are cooler - Procedural Corn Maze — Scott Keating
Dated but a solid instancing walkthrough
Complex Scenes
Building & Modeling
Modeling Techniques
Fun with Logos & Markers
Animation
Animation Tools
Math for Procedural Animation
Look Dev
Lighting & Rendering
- Lighting Intro
- Lighting in Various
Renders
Redshift, Karma, Mantra - Karma and Houdini
Shading & UVs
Copernicus — Images in Houdini
- Copernicus Overview
- Extracting Information from Images
- COPs Examples
- Simple Color BG — Old COPs & Render Out
- Simple Color BG — Copernicus & Render Out
For serious compositing use Nuke; Houdini's in-app network is handy for testing layers/passes without leaving the package.
Pipeline & Output
Rendering
Caching & PDG
Tools & Resources
SideFX Labs