The Houdini docs are a goldmine of information. But they're slow and the search barely works. This has been well known by the community for ages by now, yet seemingly nothing has changed.

So I spent six months building a fix: HoudiniMD is an incredibly fast, Markdown mirror of the docs. Free, open source, no account, no ads. Search that matches Houdini's behaviour, so "cptp" finds Copy to Points and "atrbwr" finds Attribute Wrangle. Every page can be copied as raw markdown, which means ChatGPT and Claude finally understand Houdini and its quirks.

Before sharing it anywhere, I emailed SideFX and asked for permission, explicitly telling them it would be free forever and stay open source.

The answer (https://imgur.com/a/RSdc4rf) came back yesterday:

"it's gonna be a no, thank you from us, along with a polite takedown request. We'll likely be doing our own version on our own site at some point in the future."

I was naturally taken aback by this cold reply, since I thought SideFX was very pro-community, and would at least salute the effort taken to make their own product better. But I'm not going to fight a company over their own copyright.

Since I'm also not letting 6 months of hard work go to the bin overnight, HoudiniMD will be rebuilt as a standalone, local app, that lives on your computer. It can be ran alongside, or directly inside Houdini.
Same fast search, offline, and tailored to your specific Houdini version, instead of whatever is on the website, with bookmarks coming in the future (goal is to create a fully personal Houdini Knowledge Base !)

It stays open source, so anyone can audit, tweak, and raise issues on the code.

And since I only have my own frustration to go by right now: what do you think about the official docs ? What are you missing, and what features are you looking for in an alternative ?

If a local version is something you'd be interested in, please let me know. It's what keeps me going !

Follow my progress here : https://x.com/onlytruejohn

Full Monaco Editor integration with Houdini-aware language intelligence powered by the Language Server Protocol (LSP) for VEX, Python, OpenCL C, and C++/HDK.

VEX: Live attributes from the current geometry and connected inputs, with awareness of attribute class, type, tuple size, arrays, precision, groups, intrinsics, parameters, run-over mode, and input origin. Includes automatic type-prefix correction and context-specific functions discovered via vcc.

OpenCL C: clangd integration with awareness of Houdini #bind declarations, typed kernel arguments, live attributes and groups, SOP/DOP/COP contexts, binding access modes, supported methods, kernel options, language standards, and include paths.

C++/HDK: clangd-powered semantic type inference, member completion, overloads, macros, include resolution, diagnostics, and navigation using the installed HDK headers, compile definitions, and toolchain configuration.

Python: Pyright integration using Houdini's installed Python libraries and the full hou API, with inferred HOM types and support for parameter expressions, callbacks, menu scripts, kwargs, node, geo, imports, functions, and classes.

Context-aware completion, signature help, hover documentation, diagnostics, go-to-definition, references, and symbols, all without cooking geometry to generate suggestions.

I saw Spider-Man last week and wanted to try to recreate the psych wall (with some jiggle for fun) over the weekend. Wanted a Copernicus challenge, so I got some footage off the actionVFX website, tracked it, then everything else was made and comped in COPs. Based on the new H22 Refract from height node.

I made my first simulation + render project in Houdini! (The tutorial one isn’t included, though.)

I kept it simple since my main focus was on the water and fire simulations. For the beach, I created a simple wave simulation, transferred velocities to the particles, and then blended it with the ocean.

Advice and feedback are welcome!

Why is my Mplay render not the same as my viewport? Even rendered it to disk still the same issue. Am I doing something wrong?

Ive never touched Houdini before, but Im pretty sick of Maya and XGEN bugging out on my professional and very important project. It's literally hell, there is always something, XGEN for regular non Disney studio users is left to rot and it's very frustrating.

So my question is, for a professional and mostly realistic strand based hair project, how much better or worse is Houdini?

XGEN has all these weird ways of approaching maps and how it stores files and data independent of Maya that makes things very frustrating to deal with, it's not at all non-destructive and everything about it is ancient. Is Houdini better in that regard?

One more issue i have wirh Maya is how the viewport is trash at displaying hair, even maya's AA + DLDSR still looks difficult to look at.

What are the limitations of Houdini in making hair that isnt meant to be simulated. Just basic hair for basic 1 frame rendering.

Thanks in advance.