Learning a new Skill... and creating one | Alexa

Hey everyone,

as the title suggests I was curious after reading a book from Gary Vee. A specific section was standing out for me - how voice is on the rise as a way for people to interact with their devices.

Now - until 3 weeks ago I was not really paying attention to it. All my friends have an Alexa and control their house lights with it. Or set a timer for the kitchen.

It felt like a gimmick to me. 

But I learned more about the infrastructure behind it and how you can create new Alexa skills without coding. Much like you can do great setups in Houdini without vex. 

But with coding you can basicly do anything - again much like Houdini.  For one I was curious about the way this worked  but I also want to have something for people to enjoy voice with houdini. So I started thinking if there is anything where an Alexa Skill would make sense for Houdini and its users. 

And I came up with something.

A Database of information. You ask Alexa for a function or a node and she tells you everything you need to know. Maybe it can suggest tutorials to you, share quicktips or even give you clues what could solve your current problem. There are alot if things you can do.

But before I go crazy with ideas that MIGHT be possible I had to take a step back and look at small initial goals for this. I wanted something that is helpful even for a tiny bit.

So I started learning about the Amazon Developer Portal, The Amazon Web Services, Cloud Databases, Javascript, Python, CSV manipulation and what else came up when i poked this nest.

And the basic prototype for the initial functionality is working

In the beginning this will be a fairly simple skill. It will contain a database with all the VEX functions. 

 You can ask Alexa in different ways what a specific function is and what it does

Due to the amount of data in the beginning we will have simple data like the category and the standard definition. 

In a second bulk of work that is not yet done each function can provide the needed Parameters to call it.

There are still a few bugs and some work that I need to put in before i can put this into a beta test but the foundation is there.

This is a small Use Case - maybe you watch a tutorial without houdini open and the tutor is using a function but doesn't say what it does. Or you don't remember the needed parameters for a function and don't want to go into the docs.

I am looking forward to do more research on the topic and I am sure there are more possibilities to make this a great tool for any houdini user.

This was quite fun to figure out and hopefully I can make a few people smile that were waiting for a way to use Alexa for Houdini.

Let me know what you think about the idea, the concept and feel free to suggest possible ways to add to it. If you have questions - shoot! 

With that I end this as if you stop the Alexa Skill ;-)