Course Overview

Working from the ground up, we’ll first cover the Houdini interface, navigation, Networks and Operators. Following on from this, we’ll look at procedural and non-destructive workflows to build a full CG environment.

The core objective of this course is for students who are new to Houdini to become comfortable working within an environment that thrives on proceduralism and non-destructive workflows. Houdini can be overwhelming, so by the end of the course, we hope you feel more confident to work in the application and have control over your intentions.

Students who complete the course will be expected to create, shade and light a full CG procedural environment. From the learning, students will then be able to make more complex setups.

Course Breakdown and Schedule

Course Type: Online
Course Format: Live Zoom meetings.
Course Duration: 06 weeks
Course Schedule: 5th November 2025 – 15th December 2025
Workshop Session: 2hrs. Wednesdays, 7pm – 9pm GMT
Feedback Session: 2hrs. Mondays, 7pm – 9pm GMT

Houdini for Learning

SideFX kindly offer a free educational version of Houdini that has all the features (but with a watermark). To download the latest version, follow the link below:

Try Houdini

Join the conversation

If you have any questions related to the course, you can join the CAVE Academy Discord and join the LFFVFX2025 course Discord channel:

Lessons in this course

Week 01: The Houdini Interface, Navigation, Networks and Operators

We’ll kick off the course with a breakdown of the Houdini interface and how to navigate in 3D space., We’ll then look at building Networks and the different Operators in Houdini.
Week 02: Nodes, Components, Attributes and Groups

For week 2, we’ll dive into a number of nodes and look at how we can manipulate objects, points, vertices and primitives.
Week 03: Attributes, Cameras, Lights and Materials

Now that we have a foundation of how to create and manipulate nodes, we’ll look at what makes Houdini so powerful; its proceduralism.
Week 04: Creating an Environment - Part 1

For lesson 4, we’ll take all our learnings from previous sessions to build a procedural environment whilst still allowing for artistic control.
Week 05: Creating an Environment - Part 2

With our environment blocked out, we’ll look at adding some materials into our scene to bring our environment to life.
Week 06: Final Review

And for our final lesson, we’ll look at some of the lighting tools in Houdini, allowing us to create a cinematic series of shots.