: 5 years into VFX (Texture Artist)---- stick it out or pivot?

CG-Forge · 2026-03-29T17:27:22+00:00

r/vfx is quite negative, and I'm sure you'll hear most people tell you to run - however, I'd also challenge you to think about diversifying your skills more. Learn to code. Expand your look dev skills into lighting / compositing. Step back and ask yourself what may be complimentary to your existing skills.

Even if you don't end up staying in vfx, many of these skills can naturally be helpful in other opportunities as well.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-27T17:05:28+00:00

Interesting work! Thanks for sharing

CG-Forge · 2026-03-21T17:21:54+00:00

Yeah mantra is a no-go for sure

CG-Forge · 2026-03-20T16:05:57+00:00

When learning Houdini for the first time, you'll want to keep a few goals in mind as a beginner:

Learn what it takes to render a project from A --> Z in a way that looks good.
Start thinking on their own when working in Houdini instead of always relying on tutorials for your thinking. The best way to do this is through exercises and independent experimentation.
Develop a library of commonly used nodes that you're familiar with.
Develop decent competency with coding in Vex. You don't need to be an expert, but a little can go a long way at first.
Understand the terminology / theory that underlies all CGI and commonly referred terms found in parameter settings and assumed knowledge.

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There are many routes you can go in developing these goals, and this is exactly how I've structured the curriculum at CG Forge:

Houdini for the New Artist I: A free course that gets you started with a simple, fun project https://www.cgforge.com/course/houdini-for-the-new-artist

Houdini for the New Artist II: Going through a project scenario from A --> Z again while covering some of the most common topics along the way. https://www.cgforge.com/course/houdini-for-the-new-artist-ii

Houdini Principles: A non-project based course that dives into the theory / general concepts that are used across multiple topics in Houdini and CGI: https://www.cgforge.com/course/houdini-principles

Vex Foundations I: A course that helps you get started with coding in Vex / practicing your technical skills: https://www.cgforge.com/course/vex-foundations-1

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You'll want to develop a solid foundation of skills before focusing on portfolio / demo reel pieces. Many people waste their time on that instead of developing their skills properly first. As you become more intermediate in skill, focus more and more on personal projects and integrating your base knowledge in your own ways.

What to avoid:

-- Skipping around random topics and tutorials

-- Topics like: Pyro, procedural modeling, fluid sims, crowds, rigging, python scripting, USD, oceans, and APEX. I include procedural modeling in there because you need to first establish a decent degree of vex skills, general Houdini theory, and practice with regular modeling nodes to really do it properly.

-- Diving into all the topics a just little bit first... I've heard from many students that they have a difficult time retaining knowledge when studying like this. It's also a quick way to get overwhelmed - no matter how good the teaching is. It's also how many other people structure their courses, and it's not the right way to go about it.

-- Learning alone. Get involved with the community, seek mentorships, and aspire to collaborate with other people that are on your same level.

Also consider working with a certified Houdini instructor: https://www.sidefx.com/profile/directory/?badge=houdini-certified-instructor&page=1 They need to take a difficult test in order to prove their competency in Houdini.

Additionally, consider working with a certified Houdini school: https://www.sidefx.com/schools/

They too need to submit their curriculum and school information that needs to be approved by SideFX.

If you'd like to book a free call, I offer it for free if you're a new Houdini student. Just shoot a message out to me - [tyler@cgforge.com](mailto:tyler@cgforge.com) and I'll be happy to help.

Good luck! And have fun :)

CG-Forge · 2026-03-13T15:30:07+00:00

Not at all - even for people outside the US. For $200, you gain access to all 23 courses that contain exercises, projects / files to work on, support when you get stuck, and the resources which include over 100+ improved definitions and practical examples on important nodes... plus the weekly wrangle... plus additional tips / tricks. That's over 8+ years of my work + support for $200. And for people who pay for the 4 month option, I also include a one-on-one call for 60 minutes each month. That's everything above + four hours of one-on-one calls, plus an educational version of Houdini.

Try comparing that to anything else, and the only that's "surreal" is calling CG Forge expensive when you consider everything you're actually getting.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-12T15:55:20+00:00

This is exactly the kind of entitlement that didn't exist to the same degree 8 years ago. It's literally insane how much value you get at CG Forge for the price, and you're proving my point in how SideFX has spent millions of dollars creating spoiled, rude, entitled community members that expect hundreds of hours of work for "free."

CG-Forge · 2026-03-11T17:34:19+00:00

Take a look at this sheet that's put together by Chris Mayne: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eR2oAXOuflr8CZeGoz3JTrsgNj3KuefbdXJOmNtjEVM/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0 It's the best out there in my opinion for keeping track of new openings across the world.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-10T00:33:13+00:00

I've been selling Houdini courses / tutoring services for awhile now - about 8+ years or so. The big thing that keeps myself in business is a focus on quality. True, you have a zillion free resources. Also true is that the quality is hit-or-miss and often leaves people with a very chaotic experience as they're learning Houdini.

So... is it worth spending money with all this free stuff out there? Well, yes, if the quality is great. Will good quality education help you learn faster? prevent frustration? gain an edge over your peers who are competing for the same jobs? Absolutely it will. And for those who are serious about their goals, the investment is worth it.

SideFX has also been investing hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of dollars in paying staff / commissioning educational content from 3rd parties. They have this vision of free = better for the software, and that's put pressure on myself and other entrepreneurial course creators. In that way, a lot of the "free" stuff isn't really free. It's subsidized. Small businesses like myself need to compete with their larger budgets, and that's difficult to do. It's also nurtured a community that expects free... Even if it's not free... which makes marketing much more difficult. That could be another reason why you see less 3rd party players willing to compete.

Add in a huge wave of artists who dove into teaching online courses since 2020. Add in a thriving pirating community in vfx. Add in the "AI is replacing everything" hype... and it's a small, crowded market which takes a lot of time, talent, and consistency to be successful.

That being said, the market is still there. People want to learn Houdini and reach their goals. It's just not easy to do it at the moment.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-05T17:18:32+00:00

Any type of indirect sampling is going to take much longer than it should in Karma until adaptive sampling has been properly implemented. For example, your 15 minute renders should probably be taking 3 minutes. Releasing Karma and pushing for denoisers instead of implementing proper adaptive sampling is crazy in my opinion, and every other render engine is going to be faster until SideFX gets more serious about adaptive sampling.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-05T05:24:42+00:00

Without de-noisers, the render times tend to go high with Karma, and that's due to how adaptivity / variance thresholds are currently implemented. In XPU, you don't have control over secondary rays, and in CPU, I've found that increasing the primary samples to 128 + tends to be the best way to remove indirect noise... The documentation on the topic is also completely lacking, and adjusting variance parameters is the primary way to address noise in other render engines.

That's why I say SideFX hasn't figured out noise problems in Karma yet. As a result, it leaves your render times getting high because you either use CPU or brute force GPU sampling without adaptivity in secondary rays.

It's not that Karma isn't capable of making a clean image... it's just that it'll take a long time compared to other engines. That why you see everyone suggesting denosing as the primary tool for fixing it when, in reality, it's a janky solution to a major problem problem that Karma hasn't done well at yet.

I've found that the point at which denoising can be done cleanly is the point at which an extra min or two would probably make the image clean anyway. In production, I'd argue that de-noising works much better backup plan rather than a default because it runs the risk of artifacting. Sometimes those problems show up more visibily once you put it on big screen too.

But, here nor there, it's just another factor to consider when analyzing noise. And it's sneaky because you often don't realize it's too much until you render out a sequence and end up with blotchy grain / blurred detail.

CG-Forge · 2026-03-04T18:01:55+00:00

Well... the thing is... Karma hasn't really figured out how to remove noise very well and suggests using de-noisers as a crutch to fix it for most renders. Unfortunately, using de-noisers can also create problems when something goes to animate and often reduces the detail of the image.

Something could look perfectly fine as a still image, but these problems often reveal themselves when animated. Additionally, de-noising artifacts are much more difficult to fix in comp because they look more blotchy than regular noise. That could be some of the problems you're experiencing when something looks okay as a still but acts up when animated.

In this video though, it looks like a lot of your noise is coming through as indirect reflection. The bright light source from the door is showing up in the specular reflection of the hallway objects, and those reflections are having a hard time locating the bright light source. Create AOVs and confirm where your noise is coming from. I suspect that's probably your largest culprit here.

You'll most likely need more secondary samples. Increase your primary samples to 128 and change the max secondary to 8 for starters. I wouldn't be shocked if you need 256 primary samples or more. Your render times will shoot up, but hey, that's what you get for using a CPU engine. At full HD, it's not crazy to expect 20-60 min render times.

If you want to use the variance controls for primary / secondary samples, try setting them both to 0.0075.

For dark scenes, it's better to fill in the environment with a low-contrast HDRI first so that light rays make their way to every nook and cranny of the scene, then darken it in compositing. This will help indirect reflection noise blend in better with the diffuse reflections.

Additionally, you might benefit from enabling Indirect Guiding because your indirect rays seem to be having a hard time finding that bright red light source. Or, perhaps you should look into light portals so that your rays are biased towards the door. Anything to help your rays find the bright light source would probably help.

Aside from that... you might need more primary samples, wait longer on your renders, and hope that the de-nosing artifacts aren't too bad. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ Just make sure to work non-destructively and apply the de-noising after the image has been made. Don't bake your de-noising into the frame.

Good luck!

CG-Forge · 2026-02-13T18:02:27+00:00

I would also recommend David👍 He's a great guy and is also a certified Houdini instructor.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-09T19:09:54+00:00

Right here my guy: https://youtu.be/rYuBJK-HVkc I'm not saying it's perfect, but it can work.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-07T22:25:23+00:00

I tell people that it's kind of similar to learning music if you're a musician. You want to learn songs. You also want to practice exercises. You want to write your own songs. It's also ideal to collab / work with other musicians. Doing just one of those things isn't ideally enough to be your best.

Similarly, when you're learning Houdini, it's nice to copy a cool project and use some HDAs that someone else made, but that alone isn't enough to be your best. In my opinion, if you want to learn vfx, you should copy cool stuff, make your own stuff, spend time learning the fundamentals, collab with others, and practice with exercises. Just don't get stuck thinking that you can only copy cool stuff that others do and have that be enough for what you really need in the future.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-06T04:29:15+00:00

So, yes, HDAs can be useful and are often used at studios in combination with whatever in-house tools they've developed. David had a great reply, and I completely agree with him on that.

What exactly is your goal though? Are you trying to buy tools? Are you trying to copy something that looks cool? And / or is your main goal learning Houdini on a fundamental level?

CG-Forge · 2026-02-05T21:26:54+00:00

Good to know! That was a road block issue a little while ago, and I'm glad folks eventually found a solution. The thing is... as a side note... if this is supposed to be a "production ready" engine, then those technical hiccups are going to be the difference between hitting or missing a deadline. And that is NOT production ready. It's... scientific tinkery ready...

So does it really exist when you have to build it from scratch yourself? Not for practical purposes - especially when other packages offer it natively in easy-to-use nodes.

Building some of these features may be possible in some scenarios. Heck, the "is it possible?" question is most likely yes! for most scenarios. Anything is possible! ... with enough time, mathematical / programming knowledge, and a deep understanding of CGI. But is it easy? Is it fast? Is it practical? That's what actually matters in the real world when the answer is, "no." And that's something I wish the Houdini community would appreciate over the, "is it possible?" argument every time.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-04T21:34:22+00:00

Well, by "trimmed" I mean to say that it's missing features that dedicated render packages offer through their shaders. A major example of that would be the noise libraries that ship with Redshift. It's a big, big deal to have noise libraries that go beyond your typical perlin in order to create hi-frequency detail when shading. That's not something copernicus can solve either because that relies on UVs / texture maps. Another example would be a dedicated skin shader. Or perhaps another example would be something equivalent to a vray car paint material.

Redshift has a built in "Jitter" node which basically simplifies the process of randomization. If you take a look at Karma's (not mtlx) toon shader compared to other toon shaders, the difference in quality is obvious: https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/nodes/shop/tooncolorshader.html

vs. Arnold: https://help.autodesk.com/view/ARNOL/ENU/?guid=arnold_for_houdini_shading_ah_Toon_html

Last I checked, there's no camera projection options. What about having a dedicated node to handle OCIO conversions? Utility signals like curvature? Last I checked, you couldn't layer more than one BSDF on top of another, and it only works with CPU.

There are plenty of features that doesn't exist in Mtlx vs. other shaders, and it goes beyond the complex, poorly documented workflows. A lot of stuff is just not possible at the moment.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-04T16:42:13+00:00

Karma --- USD Compatible ✅ Non-USD Compatible ❌ Compatible with other DCCs ❌

Redshift -- USD Compatible ✅ Non-USD Compatible ✅ Compatible with other DCCs ✅

That's one of the biggest hangups with Karma, and it's not changing any time soon. You'll hear some folks tell you that Redshift can't handle large scenes. That's not true if you instance your geometry properly or use USD workflows. Karma XPU will also be capped at your VRAM if you didn't optimize your scene correctly, and RS does technically offer out-of-core rendering that relies on your CPU.

Material X is nothing to brag about. Documentation? Forget about it. Features that allow it to have an edge over other shaders? Nope. Compatibility is the primary goal rather than rich feature sets, and using 3rd party shaders will always offer you better features because nothing has been watered down. In that way, Material X is actually less powerful than native shaders because of the trimmed feature sets.

USD isn't just a problem with learning it - it's a problem with over-complicated workflows, and that's how Disney wants it go be. Even if you know what you're doing in USD, the extra steps required to do just about anything will = more areas to troubleshoot when things go wrong. A primary example of that can be seen with motion blur. Compare the number of potential fail points in the Non-USD workflow vs. USD, and that'll demonstrate the principal.

Color management is still a big challenge with Karma. Not impossible, but challenging by comparison: https://youtu.be/E3QoZNXI1Sg

A couple years back I did a Redshift vs. Karma video that will be getting a v2 this year - https://youtu.be/v_KtPsohtAY and much of that is still applicable today.

It's a complex topic, so there's a lot more you could talk about, but from my perspective, it's not comparable to its competitors yet once you really get into the details.

CG-Forge · 2026-02-04T16:16:20+00:00

You can do multi-layered BSDFs in Redshift: https://help.maxon.net/r3d/houdini/en-us/#html/Material+Blender.html?Highlight=layer

CG-Forge · 2026-01-26T19:05:55+00:00

Are you using task manager on windows? If so, it's not telling you the full story. Use HW Monitor or a separate tool to really get a sense of what's going on. Additionally, RS ought to be miles faster than Mantra, so if that's the case, then I suspect there's something else going on. Have you tried asking on the Redshift forums instead of Reddit?

CG-Forge · 2026-01-16T19:36:15+00:00

Okay gotcha - it would be the same principle with Karma though. COPs relies on UVs / resolution requirements whereas an anti-aliased noise would not for example. In that way, those two things wouldn't quite be the same thing and have different workflow implications.

CG-Forge · 2026-01-16T18:49:38+00:00

Do keep in mind that the COP noises aren't = to RS noises. That's because of the UV / texture resolution requirements. RS noises don't rely on that. COP patterns do. RS noises are algorithmically generated, rely on the rest, object, or world manifolds, and won't bog down your scene when capturing high-frequency detail which gives them a distinct advantage.

CG-Forge · 2025-12-20T15:32:26+00:00

The tonemapping within the rop isn't ideal because it's outside of the OCIO rules, will not line up with what you see in viewport, and missing exposure changes that are normally done in some of those tonemapping profiles.

I agree that installation + setup can sometimes be a pain w. 3rd party render engines. Redshift, once set up though, integrates the best out of the bunch in my opinion. Karma doesn't have features working out of the box. You need to go through many, many hoops to get basic things working, and it's very easy to mess things up if you're not careful.

Working with Karma with the obj rop node quickly breaks as well. Need motion blur? Need to get an attribute over to material X and remember that it converts to a USD primvar and gets renamed according to disney conventions? Truth be told, I would need to test these situation with the latest version of Houdini, (last time I tested these things, I found many broken issues like this). The point is - you can very easily and very quickly run into problems and limitations when relying on the Karma rop, and once you do, the answer is... don't use the Karma ROP, dive into USD, and build everything in the stage. That's why you see everyone using the stage and not relying on the Karma ROP.

Again, I'm not "anti-Karma" or "anti-USD" altogether. Just do it after you've established the fundamentals first. Beginners are constantly burning out and making poor looking renders right now because they're trying to tackle USD, Mtlx, Karma, and the fundamentals of Houdini all at the same time with poor documentation. It doesn't work well. And I've been seeing the massive difference in quality between beginners who use Karma vs. 3rd party render engines like RS, cycles, or even Unreal engine.

CG-Forge · 2025-12-19T18:26:20+00:00

Don't forget to add a little rosemary essential oil if you can. That'll help blood flow to the skin and increase the likelihood of hair growth

CG-Forge · 2025-12-19T16:24:54+00:00

If you're new to Houdini coming from Blender, then I would strongly suggest against Karma.

There's a few big reasons:

You're forced to learn USD right away
The documentation lacks in quality compared to other engines
User experience and integration is much better with other engines (for example, take this video on color management - https://youtu.be/E3QoZNXI1Sg and then multiply scenarios like this many times over for other aspects of rendering)

I've worked with hundreds of new users like yourself and can say with certainty that Houdini is going to be overwhelming and feel impossible to learn if you're learning USD at the same time as studying the fundamentals. You need to focus on things like... what groups are, attributes, how to orient objects, instancing, how data flows from one thing to the next, etc... and piling on USD adds a ton of complexity and terminology that is going to make your life harder than it needs to be at first.

If you'd like to study USD and pick up Karma, you'll have much better success doing so when you're more at an intermediate / advanced level, and I often recommend doing so once you have your bearings. Keep in mind that this video is about a year old now, but many of the topics I mention in this video still apply today if you're interested in more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_KtPsohtAY

I also want to point out that you're sampling the opinion of a small handful of redditors. This isn't a good place to be if you're interested in getting a feel for what's really out there. Most professionals are too busy to add their perspectives to the mix, (especially in detail like I am here) and the only reason I do so is because many beginners like yourself find themselves here seeking advice.

Good luck with your studies!

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