TD-College Releases New Houdini Course!

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA – (March 23rd 2009): TD-College (TDC), the premier online school for technical directors, is proud to announce the release of a new course titled Introduction to Houdini Effects, aimed to fill the gaps of training in the animation and visual effects industry.

Since its inception, Side Effects’ Houdini has been regarded as a tool that can handle nearly any effect thrown at it due to it’s procedural work flow. Nonetheless, that power seems to be out of reach for most CG artists due to Houdini’s steep learning curve.

“Introduction to Houdini Effects will provide our students the opportunity to learn one of the most powerful cg software applications, and learn how it is used in real production scenarios.” describes Kevin Mannens, effects course director and TD-College founder. “This course was developed by a very strong TD named Pablo Gimenez and it is based on a beautiful, well executed commercial done by The Mill in London. This course, all 22 plus hours of it, is much more then a simple introduction. Students will walk away with a firm knowledge of Houdini.”

This course assumes the user has plenty of experience working in CG, but little to no exposure to Houdini. Users will learn how to develop Houdini OTL’s (Operator Type Library) also known as “Houdini Assets”. OTLs are a remarkable technology fundamental to working in a modular way, where the TD will start building small, simple systems and use those as base to develop very complex, procedural systems.

“This course is, without a doubt the most extensive and comprehensive course we’ve developed yet for TD-College. The course has over 22 hours of video lectures along with extremely detailed PDF notes and all necessary Houdini scene files. As an added benefit, the whole course can be taught using “Houdini Apprentice”, a free, educational version of Houdini which is available to everyone”, comments Rudy Cortes, founder and C.E.O. of TD-College.

Courses for Introduction to Houdini Effects will be offered immediately as mentors become available. For up to date course offerings, please visit www.td-college.com

About TD-College

TD College was founded by 4 experienced professional Technical Directors. Rudy Cortes, Sr. Technical Director at Uncharted Territory in Culver City, CA and co-author of “The RenderMan Shader Language Guide”. Kevin Mannens, an effects TD currently at Sony Imageworks and who has also worked all over the UK and Asia. Arthur Shek, Sr. Software Engineer at Walt Disney Animation Studios and Erick Miller, renowned Maya character TD and Technology Manager at Walt Disney Animation Studios. TD-College’s goal is to provide the best training for technical directors to a world wide market by providing an exclusive one on one mentor system as well as a collaborative community where TD’ism can flourish.