HOUDINI: Boot Camp Saga Pt.1

Today marked the first day of the weekend-long workshop to learn the basics of the Houdini program! Admittedly, it wasn't until very recently I learned that Houdini is a 3D animation program. That made me all the more thrilled to be taught it -- especially when I learned it was used on some Disney films I loved, like Frozen and Big Hero 6.

As a program, Houdini is a weird hybrid between Autodesk Maya, MaxMSP, and something else unholy. It's very easy to get lost during instruction because there's so much to this program it's not even funny. 20 different options can accomplish the same thing and something as small as the type of quote you use can screw everything up. Also math. Ugh, math.

forest or funky city: YOU DECIDE.

After learning some of the basic controls, we worked on making a forest. Then along those lines we took 2/3 of those trees and turned them into rectangles and toruses. Because practice. It came out decently!

the hidden plague: teapot locusts.

Our next experiment was with locusts particles and getting those particles to take the form of a teapot.

pow

Then we made some exploding square rock.

gotta go fast.

Our next exercise was getting a sphere of color to spiral on a black plane, then give that sphere a trail, then have it rise in height. This part was my favorite, even more so since I managed to pull it off.

we made the most uncomfortable-looking chair along the way too.

and a bunch of rocks.

I gave up on trying to make these rocks varied, so it's just the same one over and over. I messed up along the way with naming my files so the needed added equation wasn't quite working so it can do what I needed.

THOUGHTS SO FAR:  Houdini can be an very confusing program, even with someone there to guide you along the way. The key is to have patience to learn every bit that you can. And save a lot. Always save a lot.  Before using Houdini, you should be at least semi-skilled with equations, modeling, organizing, and have some visual sense. While it can be very frustrating at first, it's a lot of fun once you get into the swing of things!