VFX Artist Dylan Brinsbury-Magee covers the finer points for creating dynamic and controllable procedural lightning Solver in Side FX Houdini. The three part tutorial covers making the lightning, animating the bolts, and having them connect to a surface.
The tutorial also covers animating clusters of bolts, turning them on and off, and building controllers for the whole setup. Dylan shows how to make the procedural lightning into a custom lighting solver that will make realistic animation easier. Get the scene file here.