A new beginner level video covers lighting and rendering in Houdini.
From the Vimeo page of Rohan Dalvi: “This is a beginner level video which covers lighting and rendering in Houdini. Anyone who is making a transition over form any other 3d animation software to houdini and wants to get an idea of to setup a decent looking render , this video should be helpful.”.
The video covers the topics including:
How to make a houdini area light behave like a vray light
Using environment lights
Using HDRs for lighting and reflections
Understanding the render parameters of Mantra PBR to get a clean render
And finally modifying HDRs using COPS and then using them in the environment lights.
Discussion and more information: Basic Lighting and rendering tutorial