I get a lot of individuals who ask me how long it takes to learn Houdini and how I went about learning to use it. Well as always it’s different for everyone. Some learn Houdini in 6 to 7 months and for some it can take years. I have been using Houdini for over 9 years now and I can honestly say I never became completely comfortable till about after a year and a half.

Now there’s a reason that it took me about a year and half to become fully comfortable in the software package. That is because I would use it on and off. I never fully dedicated myself, in the beginning, to use it fully on a project. I would switch back and forth between Maya and Houdini, using tools that I knew I could use well and that was mostly fueled by deadlines. If I didn’t have the time to fully learn something in Houdini, I would switch back to Maya and get the job done, because I was more comfortable there.

Many years later I now only use Houdini and have ended my Maya Subscription. So for me it took around 4 years to become sooo proficient with Houdini that I could do anything with it. So what was the catalyst, what drove me to finally make the leap? I want to give you the 5 steps to learning Houdini Quickly based off of how I went about learning the massive application.