There was a great question asked in a YouTube comment by @maknakopi-c7j the other day (If you're reading this email now, then I hope this answers your question!).

The answer to this comment also deserves a lot more explanation than I'd be able to fit into a single email, so I'll be making a video about this topic soon!

Exact question featured below:

There's a few ideas here that are important, so I'll rephrase the main question into some individual parts (and supplement it with some extra questions I'll add) and then try to answer them in a way that helps.

Main Question + Adjacent Questions:

Question 1: Should you memorize every node in Houdini?

Question 2: Given a node, should you know every setting and parameter on that node? (Be able to control it 100%)

Question 3: Given a node, should you understand everything about it?

Question 4: Should you remember the names of all nodes? (not quite mentioned in this comment, but this idea is related so I'll include the question here).

My Quick Answer + Some Adjacent Thoughts:

No, you definitely do not need to know every (or even most) of the nodes in Houdini.

And no, if you're using a node, you do not need to understand every setting or parameter on that node.

You don't even have to read every parameter on the node, or the node's parameter panel.

The quick reason for this answer, is that the specific nodes you use do not matter. It's what the node does to the data - that does matter. So focus instead on understanding what is happening to and changing within your data (the geometry spreadsheet is great at helping you observe this).

Main Takeaway

Instead of trying to understand the nodes, and the parameters - try to understand what the nodes are actually doing to your data.

This means you should try to understand what attributes they are changing, what attributes they are adding, or what attributes they are deleting.

Understanding what the nodes are doing to your data will have a few benefits.

1. It will be easier to debug your network if you focus on what is happening to your data (rather than focusing on what nodes you are using)
2. It will future-proof your Houdini knowledge. SideFX continually adds nodes, changes node names, and changes icons for nodes with every new Houdini release. If you understand what's happening to the data, you'll have an easier time learning new nodes that are added or updated, and an easier time transitioning away from older nodes that might not do what you need.
3. It will help you not be dependent on certain nodes. (This one deserves it's own email or video, but the general idea is that a lot of the nodes in Houdini are actually just the same node with different names. For example a "Mountain" node, is an attribute noise set to add noise to the v@P (position) attribute by default, and a "Attribute Noise Vector" is an attribute noise set to add noise to the v@v (velocity) attribute by default).

So instead of trying to understand and memorize the nodes and the node parameters, the only thing you should focus on understanding is what the node is doing to your data.

Nodes in Houdini can only do one of three things, so answering the following questions will let you understand what the node is doing.

Is it adding new data?

Is it modifying existing data?

Or is it deleting data?

These questions, and knowing the answers to these will make using specific nodes much easier.

There's also one more idea I want to leave you with, and it's something we cover a lot in LEVEL UP: Houdini.

Nodes are just instructions, and more specifically they are instructions for how Houdini can work with your data. Nodes are also made of nodes, so there are built from small building blocks of logic, where certain parts of and inputs to that logic are exposed for us to manipulate (through the form of parameters). SideFX has spent time creating and collecting nodes and instructions that they think would be helpful for us.

This means... that SideFX has essentially "invented" the concept of "nodes" for the sole purpose of making it easier for us to organize our instructions and thus to manipulate our data in Houdini. So to also save us time, they made these small "building blocks of instructions" (nodes) easy to connect, to reuse and to move.

But if you can start thinking in terms of instructions and data, and not in terms of nodes - you can bypass the need of looking for specific nodes entirely and get to the point where you'll start to communicate with Houdini and create in a way that feels fluent.

Like you just unlocked a secret language or a super power.

Houdini will never feel intuitive unless you gain this level of understanding.

So if you're interested in learning Houdini to this full extend, and want to gain a new super power of thinking in Houdini's native language LEVEL UP: Houdini is open, comes with a 30-day no questions asked refund guarantee, is now self-paced, AND there's a new payment plan option, you can learn more by clicking here. The price is also increasing soon once Level 7 is added.