10K Hours in Houdini – Day 1
I’ve officially started my Houdini journey. The main reason? I needed something that could handle high-quality simulations and a non-destructive workflow—perfect for building out the sci-fi world of my film, Voidstalker.
As a solo indie artist, I knew I needed a tool that could scale with me. Something procedural, powerful, and cinematic. With Houdini, the idea is to slowly build a massive library of assets tailored specifically to my vision—things I can reuse, tweak, and grow over time without starting from scratch every time.
Even though I’ve made progress in Blender and started to get comfortable there, I realized that if I was still early in my 3D journey, I might as well invest in becoming an expert in Houdini from the ground up. It’s a steep learning curve, but the payoff is huge if you stick with it.
What really convinced me were some jaw-dropping visuals I came across—especially tutorials from Rebelway and https://voxyde.com/. Voxyde’s breakdowns were super clear, and they clicked with the kind of style I’m aiming for. His tutorials are probably the next ones I’ll revisit after finishing Houdini’s official learning paths.
I’ve tried a few of Voxyde’s tutorials before, and while I didn’t finish them at the time, they were really well done and approachable. For now, I’ve been focusing on the basics through SideFX’s learning paths. I’ve realized that staying motivated means having something to render—something finished, even if it’s small. That daily (or near-daily) sense of progress is key for me.
One of the highlights this month was the soccer ball tutorial—simple, clean, and easy to follow. Up next: applying that knowledge to make a basketball, and seeing how much I retained without hand-holding. Then refine it. That kind of iterative practice is how I’m planning to really internalize the software.
Houdini definitely feels different from Blender—but once you commit to staying inside the program and letting yourself slow down and understand, it starts to make sense. The biggest lesson this month? Don’t rush the process.
