Something new is kicking off this week and I want you to hear about it first.
It's called LEVEL 7. And it’s been in the works since March of 2025.
Here's what's happening.
Most Houdini education just teaches you the nodes to use and the buttons to click. This means, you're given the answer to a problem, but never shown how to solve it yourself.
And what that type of learning does, is it only gives you one third of what you actually need to master in order to become a proficient Houdini artist.
This type of education only develops your Engineer role (the part of your Houdini skill set that selects nodes, sets parameters, and builds the network implementation)
But it leaves the other two components of your Houdini skill set completely underdeveloped.
Those other two missing roles are the Pipeline Manager and the Director.
- The Pipeline Manager is the part of you that determines the architecture and organization of your project, how data flows, how tasks depend on each other, how the whole thing is organized before you even touch a single node.
- The Director is the part of you that’s responsible for the creative vision, the big goal, the aesthetic, and the creative decisions about what you're actually making and why.
Every great Houdini artist needs to learn how to operate fluently across all three roles.
But most artists only ever develop one (the Engineer role)
I knew this was the case and for the longest time, I knew something was missing in the way Houdini was traditionally taught.
But at first I couldn't describe what it was. I had learned these three skill roles (Engineer, Pipeline Manager, and Director) the hard way, through trial and error, 8 years of mistakes, and through difficult real-world projects for brands like PUMA, ESPN, and The PGA Tour.
For those 8 years I was learning, I had developed these three roles without ever being able to name them.
Then finally after a full year of building LEVEL UP: Houdini (yes this does mean this all started back in March of 2025!) I finally had enough understanding to put it all into a system.
That system of how to work with these three artist roles became the Node Navigator Blueprint™.
This blueprint is my way of explaining the two missing roles that most Houdini education never covers.
And it's the foundation for everything that comes next.
Which brings me to LEVEL 7.
LEVEL 7 has been designed as a hands-on, live (week by week) way of teaching you how to actually apply the Node Navigator Blueprint™ to your own projects. It's the missing piece to the full LEVEL UP: Houdini curriculum that develops your Director and Pipeline Manager skill sets - the two parts of your skill set that turn a good Houdini artist into a great one (soon to be you!).
Here's how the level works.
I'm taking on a massive real project, and I'm going to build it live (week by week) in front of you. But this isn't just a regular project walk-through.
This project itself is the testing ground for these frameworks I’m building.
Every workflow decision, every pipeline choice, every time I hit a problem or challenge, I'm going to document exactly how I think through it.
I’ll document the frameworks I use to break down complex problems.
I'll document the decisions I make and how I make them.
And I'll document the tools (that I'll be designing along the way) that help me in the moments where something breaks and I have to reason my way out.
And as I make progress, I'm going to formalize all of that into structured blueprints, worksheets, and downloadable tools you can take directly into using on your own projects.
The Node Navigator Blueprint™ was the first one of these frameworks. And by the end of LEVEL 7, there will be many more.
What this means for you:
The goal of LEVEL 7 isn't just to show you how to build a really cool project.
It's to show you how to develop all three of your roles as a Houdini artist - by showing you exactly how the Director, the Pipeline Manager, and the Engineer play out on a real, large-scale project in real time.
By the end of the level, you won't just have been a part of something being built.
You'll have a full understanding and complete library of frameworks for how to design, plan, and execute your own projects, from the first idea image to the finished pixels.
So here's what you can expect next from me and from Level Up: Houdini...
If you’re not inside the program yet - This is the best possible moment to join. LEVEL 7 is getting started this week, which means you can join today and get instant access into the program (nearly 80 hours of ready-to-go learning), get up to speed on the foundation, and start to follow along with this live project from the beginning. You’ll get the frameworks as they are built, you’ll have your questions answered in real time, and have the opportunity to work through the project alongside me.
If you’re already inside the program - The first 5 lessons for LEVEL 7 just released a few minutes ago! So go check them out to get started. We’ll be kicking off officially this week, and I’ll be answering some more questions inside the program.
If you’re not ready to join LEVEL UP: Houdini yet - No worries at all! I’m glad you’re here reading this, and I still have plans for more newsletter and free YouTube content. You are welcome to follow along on YouTube from the outside as I share some info about the frameworks being built. Just know that the frameworks, the tools, and the problem solving are all happening inside the program. So whenever you’re ready, we’ll be there!
This is going to be something genuinely new. I'm incredibly excited to get started, and I want you in it from the beginning.
You can join Level Up: Houdini HERE The program is open, comes with a 30-day no questions asked refund guarantee, is now self-paced, AND there's a new payment plan option. The price is also increasing once LEVEL 7 is completed.
Stay Curious,
Will
P.S. If you haven’t grabbed the Node Navigator Blueprint™ yet, it’s free and it’s the foundation for everything happening inside LEVEL 7. You can download it here.