Episode 1- Revenge of the Attack of the Broken Login Key

Welcome, glad you’ve made it here. This will be the documented adventures of my learning process of the 3D animation package, Houdini. Come along with me as I beat my head against a wall trying to learn a really complicated program because I hate having freetime and a social life. Also because it’ll be a good skill to have. I guess. All joking aside, I’m truthfully very excited to dive back into the world of 3D animation. I’ve been an animator fluent in After Effects for several years now and have wanted to dabble in learning 3D for about as long. I started a couple of years back with a license of Cinema 4D and really loved it, but just couldn’t swing the $3,495 pricetag to upgrade every couple of years.

Enter: Side FX-Houdini

A fully industry-standard powerhouse animation/physics simulation package for a reasonable price? Yes, PLEASE.

The only catch? It has a bit of a reputation of having one of the steepest learning curves of any 3D package out there. So get excited because the following posts will probably be filled with drama and intrigue (and maybe some late-night drunken rants and breakdowns).

Me: “At least getting the program downloaded and setup is easy, right?”

Houdini: “Not so fast, Butthole.”

Even downloading and setting up the program is more complicated than a normal program. It’s like they intentionally did this as a deterrent for any of the uninitiated in the ways of the render.

I’d like to think I’m somewhat of a computer wiz from my years of troubleshooting After Effects bugs in the forums and creatively solving tech problems. Alas, I was mistaken.

WHAT DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?