Houdini VEX and VOPS: A Comparison

Welcome to the VEX and VOPS comparison. In this video, we show you how VEX and VOPS are different and how they are the same. It gives some insight into how to do the same effect in two different ways in Houdini.
If you have found that coding isn't really your style, VOPS allow you to still access the power of coding, without having to learn how to code with VEX.
VOPS are incredibly intuitive if you are comfortable with nodes already. You can basically 'pseudo-code' an idea and it will translate directly into VOPS. In this case, VOPS are the easiest way to go from English to VEX. It means that you do not need to know code but can still code which makes it exceptionally powerful.
However, the benefit of VEX is that if you understand it, you can simplify your node setups into single blocks of code. This results in cleaner networks which are easier to read at a glance. I would suggest learning both VEX and VOPS but really, VOPS do not necessarily require focused effort and directed learning. You become comfortable with VOPS as a result of being comfortable with nodes. VEX however, requires conscious effort to understand.
This video is not intended to teach you VEX or VOPS but rather, if you have a basic understanding of both, it exists to show you how they are related.
If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a like, subscribing and clicking the notification bell. Your comments are also always welcomed.
For more information and a breakdown of the code:
/ houdini-vex-and-35842606
Thanks for watching!

[@Wardztv]

When you finished the VEX part I was looking forward to how simpler VOPS would be. Boy, was I wrong xD

[@NineBetween]

Lol, I know what you mean. You'd think nodes would make it easier but man, they really dont😂

[@leighaston1]

houdini isn't scary any more .... now its just mind boggling .... think my brain melted after this tutorial lol But this explains the difference between vex and vops well, and now i understand thank you??!!!

[@matttricomi]

These videos are fantastic and the amount of effort that goes into making them is not unrecognized. Thanks for providing informative content during quarantine!

[@NineBetween]

Thanks Matt, appreciate it man. We're always trying to improve our video quality so it's great to hear that from a viewer. Thanks for watching and stay safe!

[@justinjamison8678]

I've been using Houdini daily for over two years now, and have spent A LOT of time watching tutorials and courses, and I have to say that you are so so so good when it comes to explaining VEX and VOPS. As someone with virtually no coding experience when I started Houdini, it's been really difficult to grasp why I'm coding what I'm coding when following an instructor. You do a great job of shining light on that why side of it. Thank you very much!

[@ElRapa01]

It's fantastic to apply my 5 years of code learning done at school in something I really like like Houdini. Thank you very much.

[@otagmusic]

We search internet for content like this

[@stevekrist]

Honestly some of the best stuff on the internet. And I haven't even watched yet.

[@LevelPixelLevel]

Amazing walkthrough, thank you so much for making this!

[@jonosvlog9913]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the community. Can't thank enough!

[@sagarthapa3765]

Interesting. I plan on becoming as highly skilled in Houdini as I can, so, for a beginner, this distinction is very clear. Thank you

[@gastonsuarez-pastor1660]

This video was super helpful to me. I am learning Houdini for game dev and I use Unreal, I don't have a programming background but I am quite proficient with blueprints. When I started with houdini I was a bit overwhelmed with VEX and of course for a noob, chops, vop, rop, sop, vex and so on isn't very clear nor helpful :), but then I realized thanks to you VOPs are pretty much like blueprints and I got the hang of it real quick, I feel way more comfortable with nodes than with code of course. Eventualy I will learn VEX but for now I am doing stuff I though I wouldn't be able to do until I learn VEX and all thanks to you dude. Keep it up, your tuts are amazingly clear and helpful

[@NineBetween]

Hey Gastón, that's awesome to hear. I haven't really thought about VOPs as blueprints but you're completely right. It's the same concept as in Unreal. As for learning VEX, it never becomes a necessity, if you feel comfortable with VOPs then more power to you. Thanks for the great comment. I'm happy to have helped it click into place for you. All the best with your gamedev!

[@IsaacOster]

This was great, thank you for the detailed tutorial!

[@charlescheng6351]

That was really cool, learn a lot thanks!

[@jeanctoledo]

This video made me happy knowing that my programmer background will be useful with Houdini.

[@runelisether6256]

Thanks again. A great tutorial :)

[@andrespalomino1855]

This tutorial is so helpful! Thanks a lot!!!

[@sedetweiler]

Great videos! I would love to know how you creating all of your helpful graphics for the videos. Keep up the great work!

[@chin-yunliao8058]

it's really helpful! Thanks!

[@deastman2]

How about another video comparing when to use VEX vs. Python?

[@adproproductions2038]

Awesome content! But wow, do I agree with you! I hit L in my VOPS layout thinking this spaghetti mess will look better. Nope. haha. I'll keep working on my VEX coding. Thank you again so much for the high quality instruction and content. The extra graphics and simple explanations allows me to wrap my head around this (slowly of course :)

[@SagarSajith]

Great video as usual 🔥Hey ! is Houdini isn't scary series over !?

[@sulaimanagussalim9368]

awesome and thank you very much💚

[@YaliFilmaker15]

Thank you!!!!!

[@NineBetween]

For a deeper dive into the code and more information, check it out here for free: www.patreon.com/posts/houdini-vex-and-35842606

[@chrisreay8141]

VOPs have a lot of useful nodes that can come in handy as well. 99% of my workflow is vex as its easier to just type out what I want, but Vops are usually necessary when a desire cannot be met with vex usually for me that is just adding noise as VOPs have some great tools built in.

[@NineBetween]

Yeah, exactly that. VEX is great but VOPS are waaaaay better for noises. My approach is very similar to yours. Thanks for watching!

[@risnandarmultimedia5296]

very good, thx for the tutorial now i understand vex and vop. its amazing how these math create beautiful geometry, vex more like common programming language, i enjoy the tutorial before the formula, is there any list of reference for basics formula in geometry?

[@areyousrsly]

It's great!

[@Ra00Da]

We need "VOP Isn't Scary " Thank for make this Comparison

[@PraveenKumar-hg1lf]

This dude is knows some telepathy, i watched a vops video yesterday and didn't get shit ... So my man dropped a video on it. Thanks a lot . Edit - After watching this video i think vex is better.

[@user-ne1nd8sr8f]

You definitely have more freedom and control with VEX

[@peterxbuilt]

yep. This just makes me want to do it in VEX

[@__SKYNET__]

VEX is amazing, it is so much simpler to do attribute manipulation with it than nodes honestly

[@resilientpicture]

Super cool, thanks. Just one thing, you can actually see the vex code generated by vop by right click on the node, VEX/VOP options, see VEX code. :):)

[@NineBetween]

Thanks for bringing that up! The code is very convoluted because it's computer-generated but still interesting to check out. Thanks for watching :)

[@prajjwalpoudel8569]

Hello Sir, my question isn't related to this video but about the one that you did in 2018, it's the rain falling upon an angel tutorial. I followed that tutorial till the end, and did it successfully but when I assigned the materials to the rain particles (Redshift) and the collider(rubber toy), the material worked well for the rain with the motion blur but I couldn't get it to work with the collider as I couldn't the see the wet maps in the render. I used a default paper material for the rubbertoy and I din't see any water darkening or reflection when the rain hits the collider although I can see the wetmap generated in the viewport but no effect in the render view. Is there some thing I did wrong which I need to fix? It would be great if you could help me. Btw, love your contents and you are doing such an amazing job at initiating the Houdini enthusiasts. Ciao!

[@zombiebobo]

Thanks man, so I guess it's VEX then although I have no experience coding at all but eventually it will be more efficient than using VOPS

[@PatrickMimranartist]

Thank you for your tutorial' now if we would like to translate one of the two spirals ,how could we do that ?

[@septic07]

Great Tutorial! Could you please give any information on how fast these two methods "cook" / compute? Is there even any difference or are they similar regarding speed? Thanks in advance :)

[@NineBetween]

Thanks Marvin! As for your question, honestly, I'm not sure. I'm postulating here, but I'd assume VEX is marginally faster simply because VOPS generates VEX code behind the scenes anyways, so it would be like cutting out the middle man. However, if you're working at a level where the speed becomes noticeable, chances are you'd be using VEX anyways. VEX lends itself to the complex setups that would require that sort of computation. Hope that answers your question :)

[@kaumbakonga2144]

I went from zero to "wait, Houdini isn't sooo bad after all" because of this channel.

[@ColdKei]

Excuse my off-top, but do you use a voice correction? Your videos always have this strong machine vibe, which definitely suits the theme itself. Like its Houdini talking to viewers from the bottoms of its code :D

[@NineBetween]

Lol, I hate to say it, but I think that's just the way I speak😅 maybe the post processing makes it worse. The livestream was completely unprocessed if you're curious😂

[@ColdKei]

Wow it's like you were destined to this work :D :D

[@JacoxNovak]

As a beginner and a person with basic knowledge of Java and Python, coding seems easier for such a mathematic task. I wonder where the VOPS are better though.

[@izvarzone]

turbulent noise node because it have 500000 arguments and you want parametrize them all, middle click, promote is faster than writing chf's and chv's and other stuff. And ofc pressing tab-tn-enter is faster than remembering function name then having to google which arguments are where (I wish btw vex code had same autocomplete as tab menu for nodes)

[@izvarzone]

i get used to vex now even though before houdini i only used nodes in substance designer and unreal engine. Cool thing about vex also is you don't need subnetwork.

[@farhadfalizi9905]

tnx,is vex very diffrend with python?can use python language instead of vex? if im right vex is houdini scripting language like maya's mel.

[@cryptocoinkiwi8272]

Dang! I think I'll just use VEX

[@joesayle2213]

Wow the vex was way easier to follow damn.

[@raasukk4419]

I switched from C4D and been using Houdini for 2 months or so. What would be the best way to get started with VEX? Im would avoid coding if possible in my work tbh. Thanks!

[@NineBetween]

Hey Rasmus, honestly, you don't have to learn VEX. VOPS can get the job done. However, if you prefer to know VEX anyways, I'd suggest checking out Tokeru. Matt Estela has a bunch of useful information there under the 'VEX' section. Additionally, try to start small. Do pseudo-code to start, basically, talk about what you want the code to do in English eg. Make every second point move up on the y-axis. Then, break that down and research each part eg. Every second point would be - if(@ptnum % 2 == 0) Then lift on y would be - @P.y += 1; It is much more manageable to learn that way as it tends to not be overwhelming and you begin to understand it in a more logical manner. Finally, Houdini has really good documentation on VEX which you can find on the SideFX website. Try searching 'Houdini VEX documentation'. Doing things in that order would be a good start. We will be covering VEX in the future but not soon enough for it to be worth your while, unfortunately. Hope that helps you a bit, all the best!

[@raasukk4419]

@@NineBetween Cheers for that in depth answer!

[@imaobongudofa2565]

Hey man , how can i PM you?

[@fake22444]

int points = chi('points'); float angle = chf('angle'); float r; float theta; float x,y = 0; vector pos = (0,0,0); for(int i = 1; i

We want netflix dark tv series God particle

[@TroubleShotVFX]

I know amazing things can be done in Houdini. But honestly the disconnect between making a simple bent wiggly spiral and destroying a city in an incredible VFX sequence with lightening and fire ect. are miles apart. And the time sink involved for such a simple result isn't exactly encouraging.

[@AscensionX-uq1mk]

Soooo...... Let me see here, ok so I can create my basic "coil' in Houdini which requires a moderate knowledge of a whole new coding language, as well as mastering the software itself to know WHAT code to add and WHERE to add it. The tutorial for that was 11min long to show a single coil of useless dots... 23min long to show the same coil done with no coding, but "only" using 18 connected nodes instead!! LOL... 😂😂😂 OR... I can just open up Blender and click (Add > Curves > Spirals)... then just move some sliders around to adjust the size parameters of my coil in 30-60 seconds and it's ready for texture & animation! 😐 I freely admit that Houdini has the GREATEST functionality & versatility of any program due to it's coding requirements... (because code can do anything & everything), but when you have a 2 minute animation to create of a flaming phoenix bird flying into a bank of clouds, yeah it's gotta look amazing but you also just wanna get it DONE!! Who has time to start writing out algebra for all the clouds & fire?? (Not to mention just learning to do it!) I'm upgrading from Lightwave this year and was looking for new 3D software to jump into, but the more Houdini tutorials I watch - the bigger a headache I get lol. Even the ones doing the demos sometimes get stuck & frustrated. In fact, I watched a tutorial just to make a "GLOWING BOX" and even that was a 20 minute tutorial with like 10 nodes! 🙄 I can't be bothered with all of that for something so simple, so Blender it is!! 🤗 When I can create a "Glowing box or sword" in Houdini WITHOUT code - using only 2 or 3 nodes, I'll take another look at it.

[@NineBetween]

Hey, thanks for watching. The spiral stuff was an example. You could, alternatively, use a draw curve node or a line node with a bend node or a curve node and so on... The point here was to show how you can code something from scratch - not what the best way to make a curve is. Learn Blender, by all means, but try not to misunderstand Houdini. There's a reason why the software is used in professional settings.

[@Colourisedspoon]

I think you are completely missing the point of houdini if you are comparing this specific example between Houdini and Blender and also if you are always doing simple things, Houdini isnt for your use case.

[@fastlearner292]

You Lightwave boys are quite funny.