The Magic of Houdini

The only reason to buy this book is because amazingly it is the only one for houdini.It is outdated by years and due to that inaccurate with current versions, you cant help but feel that the author is on some kind of ego trip waffling and writing in a way a child would who just found a dictionary and trying to look intelligent by using words they found at random.The examples and steps to learn are burried in large paragraphs that detract from the actual learing which could easily be written with 20% of the text used.The book does have a few gem moments but you will be constantly trying to figure out how to convert the knowledge from the book to work with newer versions of houdini.

発行年度が古いため現在のHoudiniとはインターフェースのアイコンが異なっており、書籍の図が参考にならない場合があります。チュートリアルでは細かい説明が省かれていることがあり、図の数も少なく、現在のバージョンでは名称や操作方法が変わっているものもあり、戸惑うことが時々ありました。Houdiniは他に参考書籍がほとんど無いため比較ができませんが、決して本書は良書ではありません。図の数が非常に少なく、文章では妙な比喩がたびたび登場する他、少し凝った英単語を使用しているためやや読みにくいです。

I gave it 5 stars just for being written, regardless it was many years ago. Have you tried looking for books on houdini?! There are only 2 relevant. This one and "Houdini on the spot" which is a tips and tricks book. Anyway, if you are reading this and looking for a Houdini book - Buy It!

Like so many others, I've begun the trek up the mountain that is Houdini. It's an absolutely massive program, and as I learn more and more about it's potential, I've come to firmly believe that so long as you can think about it in the proper way, you're able to create it with Houdini. Anything. Swarms of bees buzzing around Nicholas Cage's face. A mixture of potions in a glass that combusts as soon as the glass shatters when your clumsy assistent drops the beaker. A snake that bobs its head to the rhythm of Nicholas Cage's screams. I mean, anything. The problem, of course, is how to get from point A, having an idea or an effect you're trying to create, and point B, having tools set out for you that permit you to create the exact effect you're looking for, with the ability to tweak with ease at anyone's discretion.The Magic of Houdini does a truly excellent job of introducing the vocabulary and basic building blocks of Houdini, while managing to touch upon just about every major concept Houdini users must know. It assumes no prior knowledge of Houdini or its relevant concepts, yet manages to build a solid foundation in a very structured way through the use of many examples and step-by-step projects. Not only does the author show you what to do, he shows you what not to do, and more importantly, WHY. Houdini is a very idiosyncratic program, and until you understand the way it thinks and operates, it can be difficult to know how to correct a behavior or diagnose an error when you screw something up. Fortunately, the author guides you into making mistakes, explains why things aren't working the way they should, and shows you the proper way of proceeding.I was initially apprehensive about purchasing this book, because I saw that it was written for Houdini 8, and I hadn't even started looking at Houdini until version 10. From what I've gathered, there have been massive interface changes between Houdini 8 and 9, and I was concerned that the book would reference all sorts of commands and windows and dialog boxes and whathaveyou that I wouldn't be able to find, or, worse, that the concepts and operators used in Houdini 8 were simply obsolete by now. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the introductory pages in the book do go over an interface that has changed quite a bit, the real meat of the book is still 100% relevant, permitting the reader to follow step-by-step without confusion. I've occasionally run into an issue where the author directs you to set up your panes a certain way, or to access a feature within a pane that has been relocated elsewhere, but, in a worst-case scenario, a quick google search has solved my issues lickity-split. Beyond that, the book feels as up-to-date as can be.Now, it has to be said that SideFX have gone through great pains to provide free training, absolutely incredible documentation, and an unbelievable amount of documented examples that you can load from the local help server directly into your project (or into a new instance of Houdini). You could spend years, it seems, just going through all their freely available content - and, in fact, I would definitely suggest starting with their short introductory videos, particularly on the user interface, when first opening the application. It's amazing how much of a 180º paradigm-shifting turn Houdini makes once you understand how an initially confusing and complex interface is actually catered to extremely intuitive and sensible workflows, and can further be customized very easily. This said, those first few videos will immediately catch you up to any real discrepancy between what The Magic of Houdini mentions and what you have up on your monitor.There are tons of video tutorials and courses online that show you different parts of Houdini. SideFX has some very in-depth ones on their site for all skill levels, and Peter Quint (google him) has a number of truly excellent, freely available tutorials on Vimeo. Beyond that, 3D Buzz has some incredibly user-friendly products (and some free courses, I believe) that take a very Technical Director-oriented philosophical approach to understanding Houdini, as well as some great courses on rigging and writing a very complex shader; Digital Tutors has a breadth of courses covering many applications of DOPs (Dynamic Operators) and POPs (Particle Operators), which is really where Houdini excels (all those lovely fluid sims and firework sparkles and explosions and whathaveyou); and cmiVFX has a variety of procedural-workflow courses that are better suited, I believe, for more intermediate users interested in what happens under-the-hood, concerning scripting, lighting, shading, and rendering practices, fluid effects workflows, and L-systems. There are other courses too (I think fxphd has had courses in the past; Gnomon may have some stuff out there; etc).All this said about video resources available, something must be said for the printed word - being able to linearly watch a video and mimic the results in Houdini is one thing; but taking written instructions and going through the motions of manifesting them without explicit guidance, at your choice of pacing, is a different kind of learning, one that encodes the experience into memory differently and, I feel, more effectively, when it comes to feeling your way through a new program and a new thought process for the first time. It is also super helpful to be able to flip through the book, skimming through examples and concepts, dipping deeper into areas you may have forgotten or are not familiar with - it's certainly much easier to quickly find an example or answer a quick question with a book than it is trying to skip through a video. Which is why having an introductory book is such an invaluable resource, regardless of whether or not you choose to buy video courses.Now, at the time of my writing this review, I'm only aware of three books on Houdini: The Magic of Houdini,  Houdini On the Spot , and a self-published eBook by Andrew Lowell called Simultaneous Music, Animation and Sound Techniques with Houdini (Google it). Now, the last book is entirely concerned with a very specific subset of Houdni's capabilities - its ability to integrate audio information into CHOPs (Channel Operators), permitting a Houdini artist to drive animations with sounds (eg, rigging a character to respond to the location of a sound in 3d space, or dynamically birthing particles of different colors or shapes or sizes given the pitch of a sample, or matching facial animations to spoken words, or any other number of things). Other software packages are beginning to offer similar functionality, but at nowhere near the complexity, depth, functionality, or level of integration as Houdini - and this book focuses solely on these topics. It's a very interesting book, but I wouldn't at all recommend it for the Houdini beginner. Houdini On the Spot, on the other hand, takes a much more generalist approach, covering specific features, tips, and tricks across Houdini's operator contexts; not to mention, it was also written for post Houdini 9 versions, meaning there are several interface tweaks and hacks that are very helpful and relevant. However, Houdini On the Spot serves more as a reference book for slightly more seasoned users; it is not an introduction to Houdini, but, rather, a means to delve deeper into Houdini with helpful ideas and techniques.So, that leaves only The Magic of Houdini. While it's a shame that there isn't more competition in the field here, I have to say, The Magic of Houdini is pretty much the perfect introduction to Houdini. William Michael Cunningham provides so many detailed examples and goes so in-depth into so many areas of Houdni, to me, it's value is far greater than a series of training courses and videos, when it comes to introductory material. The author does a fantastic job of demonstrating Houdni-oriented thinking, taking into account both micro approaches to procedurally generating elements and altering attributes, as well as a more global understanding of how all of Houdini's contexts integrate at a macro level. The book really leaves you with a solid foundation of Houdini, placing you in a position you want to be by the end of an introductory book - one where you have just enough understanding to know just how much else there is to learn, but enough of a vocabulary to permit you to ask the right questions and find the answers with ease.One last note - William Michael Cunningham is truly charming. It's always a gamble when authors try to incorporate humor into their computer books, and there are certainly times in this book when a corny pun is made, and you just have to roll your eyes... but, by and large, the humor is witty and unobtrusive enough to put a smile on your face, adding just enough flavor to an otherwise dry topic. But even more notable than the humor is the author's ENTHUSIASM - it's pervasive. He refers to the concept of a Houdnik, which I'll quote and hopefully not get sued for quoting here:"Houdnik - a Houdini beatnik; that is, a Houdini user who lovingly embraces the unconventional and creative methodologies employed by the software and enjoys waxing poetically on those same attributes." Cunningham is the prototypical Houdnik, and, above all else, he does a remarkable job of conveying the sense of wonder and sheer giddiness you feel when you come to understand what can be done with this awesome program. The Magic of Houdini couldn't have a more appropriate title. Houdini On the Spot

Author already mentioned that houdini is continuously updating package to meet their customer needsMy opinion: Yes author is right and dont discouraged from negative user comments and since they dont atall read the book and gives the feedback and it(message) is the replication of their laziness/personalitythere are so many changes after the release of the book, that should be a problem in learning because you use your mind and uses the current Houdini apprentice user help to see the changes made(Ex radial menu replacement to favourite operator)(Ex2 y shortcut is for peak handle which is replaced with h and y is mow currently assigned to toggle trans handles) likewise there are so many.but, by putting this extra effort in finding the updated useful info I believe you are the best learner and will become best houdini Content creator later as pro userNo doubt this book is The Best Building block for starter of 3D learner and Houdini Start up users.And new Colour pages print is awesome.The book is Delivered with a transparent outer cover mould to the book Cover page which is Excellent for me.Recommend this 100% if you are Starting with Houdini