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I tried to pick up SideFX Houdini after this article was published the first time on here. After a month I admitted total and utter failure. Whoever came up w

I tried to pick up SideFX Houdini after this article was published the first time on here. After a month I admitted total and utter failure. Whoever came up with that program is a mad genius. It's absolutely mind blowing what you can achieve with procedural operators and networks. It's somewhat similar in spirit to Cycling 74's MAX and other visual programming environments.

agumonkey 14y ago
I wish this paradigm(*) was more mainstream, it open your minds and flip your view of computers. The CmiVFX tutorials about building towns, nature.. anything procedurally were a long and dense brain rewiring. It's almost not about using Houdini, it's about solving a problem with generic functions. Houdini earns a paradigm name as many things in Houdini are built in Houdini, which is .. well math with interfaces. At least back in 2005, the skeletal animation system component was a encapsulation of geometry primitives bound by some arithmetics, you could open and edit it as any other surface or object. Turtles all the way down. Beautiful. Reminds me of Emacs/Lisp actually, once inside, you won't leave.
- kitsune_ 14y ago
  I've watched those tutorial videos as well. They blew my mind. Just speaking about Houdini makes me want to pick it up again. I found that the complexity lied in knowing all the different nodes, the jargon, and of course when to use what (which comes with experience). After a month or so I bailed out because of time constraints, my daily job, and other side projects.
  - agumonkey 14y ago
    May I asked what is your job ? If you're a programmer does it affect the way you think about things ? I was highly infected by such programs (Maya hypergraph, SekD Samplitude non destructive virtual tracks; all share this lazy composition of generic nodes) before entering a computer cursus and it shapes everything I do ever since. And since few people experienced that level of generative-ness, I often look like a fool.
    - kitsune_ 14y ago
      I'm a programmer. Dataflow programming is of interest to me and I'm currently trying to put reactive programming into practical use. I think in a way all those roads lead to functional programming. Of course, in an enterprise world most people's eyes glaze over when you mention any of this. To answer your question, I do think it influenced my thinking and made me a better programmer. Even at work, where I mainly program in C#. I'm in general not that big a fan of visual programming and prefer text myself.

agumonkey 14y ago

I wish this paradigm(*) was more mainstream, it open your minds and flip your view of computers. The CmiVFX tutorials about building towns, nature.. anything procedurally were a long and dense brain rewiring. It's almost not about using Houdini, it's about solving a problem with generic functions. Houdini earns a paradigm name as many things in Houdini are built in Houdini, which is .. well math with interfaces. At least back in 2005, the skeletal animation system component was a encapsulation of geometry primitives bound by some arithmetics, you could open and edit it as any other surface or object. Turtles all the way down. Beautiful. Reminds me of Emacs/Lisp actually, once inside, you won't leave.

kitsune_ 14y ago
I've watched those tutorial videos as well. They blew my mind. Just speaking about Houdini makes me want to pick it up again. I found that the complexity lied in knowing all the different nodes, the jargon, and of course when to use what (which comes with experience). After a month or so I bailed out because of time constraints, my daily job, and other side projects.
- agumonkey 14y ago
  May I asked what is your job ? If you're a programmer does it affect the way you think about things ? I was highly infected by such programs (Maya hypergraph, SekD Samplitude non destructive virtual tracks; all share this lazy composition of generic nodes) before entering a computer cursus and it shapes everything I do ever since. And since few people experienced that level of generative-ness, I often look like a fool.
  - kitsune_ 14y ago
    I'm a programmer. Dataflow programming is of interest to me and I'm currently trying to put reactive programming into practical use. I think in a way all those roads lead to functional programming. Of course, in an enterprise world most people's eyes glaze over when you mention any of this. To answer your question, I do think it influenced my thinking and made me a better programmer. Even at work, where I mainly program in C#. I'm in general not that big a fan of visual programming and prefer text myself.