Not very many people here use Houdini, I would recommend looking at http://www.odforce.net for answers.
Shaders do take a little bit of work, but you can build them procedurally... so... the best way I can describe it is it's like compositing. You may need expressions, but nothing too fancy. Though VEX I guess is the language they use for their shaders.
I would definately download the apprentice version of Houdini and check it out if I were you. I can tell you it's easy, but it may not be easy to you.
Houdini is very very powerful, in my opinion.