Houdini 101 is a book to help you get started with using version 10 of Houdini digital modelling and animation package developed by SideEffects Software. It is assumed that the reader has very little prior experience in using Houdini or similar software. As a result, we have tried to introduce the fundamentals of Houdini in a way that is as simple and easy to understand as possible. Note that this is a very broad introduction that necessarily glosses over many of the details.

Houdini 3D icon.
Houdini 3D icon.

In particular, this book focuses on the concepts and assumes that you have a basic knowledge of Houdini user interface. This basic knowledge can best be learnt by watching the various videos online. (Note that Houdini changed its interface significantly when they released version 9, but version 10 remains very similar to version 9. So any videos for version 9 are still relevant.) A good place to start is the videos available here:

Start here video tutorials

Contents

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  1. Background
  2. How Houdini works
  3. Modelling
  4. Scripting
  5. Conclusions