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Words I Like: Most Houdini artists aren't slow.
They are rushing.
And it's killing their progress.
Level Up Lesson: Working slower, ends up being faster in the end.
Trying to work quickly in Houdini can be the biggest thing slowing you down.
Many artists (myself included), get hooked on the idea of creating projects fast. They think that in a "perfect world" the quicker you get parts of a project done, the more time you have for improving it, or for future projects.
But when you rush to "get something working", you end up creating a messy version 1.
And in Houdini, version 1 of your network never matters.
Iteration ON that version, is what does matter (meaning, version 2...3...4...5... and on)
The Problem:
Houdini can brutally punish rushed thinking.
When you make decisions you haven't thought all the way through,
When you hard set values and parameters,
and when you ignore edge-cases,
you leave your network in a fragile condition that can break with any changes you make in version 2.
Simple Math:
Let's see an example.
Option A: You rush and take 1 hour to build version 1 of your network. But future changes to the network take another hour, because you have to redesign parts that break.
= 1 hour for version 1 + 1 hour for version 2 + 1 hour for version 3 = 3 hours total.
Option B: You take more time, and spend 3 hours building a well planned version 1. And since you planned correctly, it now takes 5 minutes to create version 2, and 5 minutes to modify again for version 3.
= 3 hour for version 1 + 5 min for version 2 + 5 min for version 3 = 3 Hours 10 mins total.
The rookie artist, would say that Option A is faster. But the experienced artist, would rather be working with Option B ;)
Bottom Line:
Speed in Houdini isn't about how fast you can reach the first result, it's about how fast you can make changes to the 10th, 20th and 50th+ version.
If you optimize for a fast version 1, you'll be constantly fixing bugs.
If you optimize for an easy change to version 2, your work will compound.
Remember this next time you open Houdini.
This "Level Up Lesson" email format is a new format I'm trying to start.
If you have ideas for future topics, feel free to respond.
And if you want the clear path to Houdini that I wish I had, then click here.
