Here's to you, Mr Robbinson

It's been a hectic past week. Side Effects Software Asia Pacific invited verteran Houdini trainer Peter Robbinson to town to conduct a one week intensive bootcamp. Naturally, it's a rare and honored opportunity not to be missed, and in my particular case, not possible to miss :P

The class consist of a handful of poly lecturers (myself included) and a couple of industry people keen on learning this hitherto non-mainstream 3D application. Peter hails from Canada and has 12 years of experience teaching the much touted Houdini 3D software, the elite program of choice by VFX experts in the industry. He turns out to be a very kind and patient teacher, tirelessly answering our newbie questions and even repeating his demonstrations without a single complaint. Thank you so much Peter, and hope you come back to Singapore to train us to a higher level in future.

Houdini seems to be gaining popularity in the industry, and in the asia-pacific region, especially since the last big player in 3D, Softimage, has also been bought over by Autodesk. Now that Max, Maya and XSI belongs to the same camp, only Houdini and Lightwave are left independent, with smaller players such as Modo, Blender and Cinema 4D brining up the rear. This was certainly an interesting and unexpected turn of events, but no longer newsworthy :P

Houdini has a lot of power under the hood, but it's no easy beast to tame. The old adage: "easy to learn, difficult to master" is never more true here.