Designed for the experienced 3D artist new to Houdini, this disc contains over five hours of lecture and extensive example files. With Houdini's strong history as a high-level effects animation package, seasoned feature film effects artist Garman Herigstad helps demystify its unique procedural approach to creating animation. He introduces Houdini's interface to establish familiarity with the software, and then presents its powerful step-by-step procedural approach, which allows for great variations in results leading ultimately to a faster production workflow. Examples include driving animation with audio data, modifying geometry using moving image sequences, particle animation setup, and basic shader creation. Houdini's "Takes" versioning is also introduced. These examples can be used with the apprentice version of the software available at www.sidefx.com.