Software > Houdini > Houdini News
Houdini 14 sneak peek
Dec 04, 2014 by CGP Staff
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(Updated) According to Side Effects’ Robert Magee, the workflow improvements in v14 are being headed by two former Softimage XSI developers. More information will be disclosed around January 15.
Side Effects have posted an impressive video with a sneak peek of the new features that will be brought by the upcoming release of Houdini, which include crowd tools, position based dynamics capable of simulating realistic sand, workflow improvements, grooming tools and more. Watch the video on Vimeo.
Side Effects have posted an impressive video with a sneak peek of the new features that will be brought by the upcoming release of Houdini, which include crowd tools, position based dynamics capable of simulating realistic sand, workflow improvements, grooming tools and more. Watch the video on Vimeo.
Take cue Autodesk, those are true upgrade worthy features.
They charge 3 times more $800 vs $2500.
Do you think this is 3 times worthy?
3DSMax and Maya upgrades are both $2575 each.
But regardless, I was hinting at the new Houdini feature quality.
yes
Judging from this video.Just the Crowd Simulation can do more in it ´s first iteration than the max Team was able to accomplish in something like 3-4 years.
I remember Ken boasting about how awesome and sophisticated populate would be.
Next level path finding.. blabla. And what do we have now ? Some robots running on a line.
So to answer your question. Yes it is worth it.
sure, its not as groundbreaking as quad chamfer or undo redo buttons.
i like how you gloss over the fact that majority of freelancers pay 200$ per year.
you clearly have some problem with sidefx, so ramble on.
wow!
@NOSSGRR: Autodesk, please don’t cue… I hope SideFX stays independent and innovative as they are and won’t end up as a source for features to be ported into Maya and 3dsmax and then be abandoned as a product like XSI (and maybe MB in the future).
Eesh agreed 🙂
Take care thinking particles!!!
AGREED!!!
well,I hate to say this.But ture story.
TP,I love you,but Your time is almost OVER!
PauLee,
I love Thinking Particles but the new rent subscription. Does not work for me. It’s just a new way for Cebas to make more money. That why I’m looking at other alternatives. Everybody has point and I respect it.
I’ve been playing with Houdini for the past month or two. OMG how do I use this. One of my employees told me it’s like working in a new kitchen.
Once you start playing with it you’ll find all your tool. I really like Houdini.
From all I saw on the video, I will say that there is nothing that is not replicable actually on TP. Only the sand based on position based dynamic with high poly count will be dificult to acomplish in TP. But all the other PBD (nets/pork/cloth) are totally possible to do. I will like to see how its implemented this system maybe is more scalable. But crowd system? you can do that in TP since long time ago (if you tell me that displaying huge number of mesh in max throught tp will be a problem, here I will agree). Interaction crowd/fluid (in tp an SPH) its totally possible.
Dont read me wrong, I like a lot whats coming in Houdini, but I saw also a lot of Hype with a video that is not showing workflow/sim times.
well,YES and NO!!!
I know that TP is a particle System.Everything in TP is treated as particles.But for me the most wanted new feature is GEOMETRY manipulating.Maybe like GENOME or houdini VOPSOP does.but with TP’s workflow.
Spline System.really awsome.But whatif I wanna take control UVS textures and shanders etc…after SIMULATION DONE or EDIT ON THE FLY. LIMITIONS!!!
After two years waitting.Cebas gave us SPH SOLVER??? Thats it? How about Flip.And yes we wanna SC System back.Bullet RBD in TP…Sucks!!!
New business Model.Em…well it maybe good for people like me who’s living in a poor country.
eloi.No offense.I love your work,even purchased a few of your products.Awsome.
Could you please give just one example of a decent soft-body/cloth simulation done in TP? They’ve been developing TP6 for something like 2 years. I’ve read about Cebas doing fluid development way before TP5 was out. Dozens of beta-testers and lots of time and there is nothing. Not even something close to high quality production simulation. Yes, there’s everything you need solver-wise, but when it comes to high resolution, heavy simulations, all you can get is very good RBD. Anything else is a never ending struggle to get a stable result. I don’t event want to mention the sh**ty caching system which prevents you from using high substep values…unless you have unlimited time and storage….
I’m writing all this because every here and there I read these stereotypic kind of comments claiming that Houdini is so slow. What do you get from this fast’n’easy TP approach..?
According to crowd. You’re missing the point here. Of course you can try this in TP, but is there any film quality shot to prove its worth it? It’s same thing as with instances: they don’t exist in max and TP unless you use finalrender which is absurd. These Houdini agents get deformed and shaded at rendertime. And this is my point: doesnt’ matter if it’s possible – it only matters how far you can take it.
cloth in tp6 I think that its quite good, what are your points to say is not production prove? Did you try it?, I did some tests and results are surprisngly good. About crowd system and instances here Im totally agree with you, and I try a lot to change that. Tp needs an instance system compatible with other renderers.
I dont want to move from the principal conversation, what sidefx present hre is good, but Im waiting to see sim times and workflow to decide if Im Really impressed or not.
Impressive!
looking good and only $199 per year to rent houdini indie…
Little nervous handing the workflow to Softimage devs- personally, I always found it WAY too different from what everyone knew and loved.
Loved, it was sometime Fun!
but your Boss not.
Good night Max…
Good morning Houdini.
cc (ex max-er)
It looks nice and impressive true, and it is a very capable tool true, I’ve worked with it for a couple of months, but here’s the thing, it wasn’t the tool that I as a freelancer could get comfortable with, nor was it the fastest in a lot of cases, both literally and workflow wise.
Yes the sand solver looks nice, but If I really needed one I could always use a more focused and specialized tool like Realflow and not have to dive into something as complicated as Houdini, those softbody demoes and that wire demo, ThinkingParticles can do them and much more, the Crowd tool honestly wasn’t THAT impressive to me, at least most of it wasn’t, actually the most impressive part of the whole demo for me was the crowds interaction with the fluids, which even that isn’t that unique, if autodesk implements Bifrost in Max, Max can do all that and then some, also bear in mind that Populate is still under development, but yes it could pick up the paced here and there.
That animation toolset, again nothing special, although I’d really like to see a modern interface like that of Houdini with Max.
And those exact selection tools have been in Max for a while now, funny thing is most people aren’t even aware of their existence or use them for that mater.
So all you people who are dyeing to jump over, I personally say go for it, try it for yourself and see for yourself and if you stuck with it as a freelancer, or even an artist for that matter then my hats off to you.
odd comment. you seem to be conflating alot of stuff here and not making any arguments.
getting realfow and tp, and a 3d package like max would be very costly, with sub costs to boot.
crowd interaction with fluids is not that unique? *edited*
i am struggling with houdini myself but you cant argue the feature set and cost efficiency.
good luck waiting on bifrost for max.
Hi,
the problem I see in the way you put it, is that you mix raw facts with ambiguous hopes 🙂 First of all, Realflow is definitely not capable of simulating realistic sand (without a plugin). Even if it was possible, it’s still a separate app so your workflow becomes linear and is affected by constant data exchange between different environments. I’ve lived with that for years just like many other fx artists working with max and I really don’t miss it, because it’s limiting as hell.
ThinkingParticles is still a very solid tool, but please.. bullet ropes and pseudo-softbodies will never be able to compete with fem or PBD. This kind of effects could have been acomplished in Houdini with simple wire-solver (which is in there since always) and yet they continue implementing other solutions, because it’s all about quality.
Implementing Bifrost to Max? Do you people still believe it? Bifrost was announced to become something more than fluid solver in 2-3 years. Then they will ‘think’ about a max port if there really is enough interest – for now I think there isn’t – there’s small fraction of users who are asking for this (comparing to the whole userbase) and even smaller group of those who’d really make use of it. Just an opinion based on personal observations.
Your last sentence nailed it. I couldn’t agree more, but everyone starting with Houdini today needs to remenber it’s a matter of weeks when they’ll be releasing HoudiniEngine for max, so the full transition might not be even necessary or it’ll be a much easier bit by bit process.
Finally, as a sidenote, I just have to admit I was seriously disappointed with last TP releases. After TP 4 which introduced VB and shapeCollision (still one of the best volume-based RBD solver) the progress seems to be far below current standards. SPH fluids which they try to sell as a breakthrough, when it’s a matter of 5 minutes with google to find at least 2 papers describing SPH solutions using large timesteps for small to large scale sims… It’s just nothing special today. While TP was my core fx plugin I just had to say goodbye. I don’t know… was it a cooperation with Pixomondo during “2012” which turned TP into a powerful production-proven tool? Now, I just can’t see this potential anymore….
Sorry for the long post and OT.
I think neither of you really got my point, otherwise why would you start listing features of the tool and what it can do, I think my first sentence was the whole point you were trying to make, but that is not the point, not my point at least, how much a tool is capable of isn’t the same as how handy a tool is in the hands of an artist.
So I do stick with my last sentence and I do think that I nailed it with that, please, you think I’m the only one that has tried this, I know at least a dozen people that were diving head first into the Houdini pool and a few months later they were back to whatever tool they were using before acting as if nothing has happened, depending on your field of work the level of commitment that you’d need to make to Houdini can simply be not worth it, it would simple be far more expensive time wise than buying a couple of tools like TP or RF, if you or anybody else can make that commitment then sure, Houdini is a very capable tool, as I said in the very beginning, good luck.
I can agree with some things not with others. Since TP6 we have a true softbody bulletphysics solver. Together with rope solver, spline solver, rbd based in bullet physics, and taking in consideration we still have physx and SC (One of the best voxel based solutions in any software) I think there is quite a robust dynamic solution right now. PBD? Looks really cool for sure, and I will love to see this in max or TP.
Lots of things looks very cool on a video but not so cool when you know that for 3 seconds of sand simulation you need 50 hours (I dont know, they dont post sim times).
I really like the love that sidefx put on every iteration of Houdini, but when its time to go in production with it I feel 3dsmax/TP the most direct and fast results even you have big procedural control. But at the end all this things hope helps to create more competence and 3dsmax dev team starts moving on.
@Nuances & eloi:
The truth is you just CANT get decent results after jumping into new software with different logic and workflow, after years with a package you’re so familiar with. For me it was just the time to realise that my productivity comes mostly from this familiarity with the software (max) and NOT its actual possibilities – and I want it both, so I started learning.
There’s just one more thing I forgot to mention. Putting all the plugins aside: do you recall this great hype around nVidia joining forces together with ADSK to provide unified, fast multi-physX solution for max?? Excalibur. 5 years ago. They (nvidia) have announced a working realtime Flex (PBD) demo more than a year ago. For max? Nothing so far. Why? because it’s profitable for them to make you wait. Did we hear any marketing bull**it from sideFX? No. They just did it. Here you have it. One year from now, it’s gonna be flawless implementation that works seamlessly with all the other solvers in the box…
In the end it’s a matter of your situation: I have time to get familiar with Houdini and get most out of it. Even if it means one worse year economicaly 😉 I don’t have time to wait for autodesk to f**k my wallet until they’re ready to realese something worth any money.
Best regards.
PS. BTW, I love nVidia 😉
I kind of agree, but I’m no tP or FX expert. I read a lot about how you can get very fast results with tP and Max. But that somewhat is true because the artists if very familiar with this workflow and Houdini is a different beast.
It was always said it takes more time to get it than others. But it’s nice to see the development SideFX has been making. And while Max is the first software I leaned, it’s hard to keep with it with this whole (it’s used for a lot of stuff) but because of that, development on things that are important take forever.
Position based Dynamics!!! Drooool!!! Wonder if it was based of Miles Macklin and Matthias Muller’s paper…
coincidentally carl bass had an ama on reddit today. amongst the sea of crap he “answered” one question about the future of max:
[–]CarlBass[S] 183 points 10 hours ago
“I think think 3ds max is a great product — it’s being used for all kinds of great work. We’re continuing investing. I see less use of it in film than before but lots of use for games, design viz and lots of general 3D modelling”
its not hard to read between the lines. they are consistent in pushing max away from vfx to differentiate it from maya. and that is exactly the problem: deliberately holding back the development of max in certain areas. that is clear as day.
sidefx on the other hand are no holds barred. nature of their updates cannot be compared to max anemic releases.
one year ago I started learning houdini. for now i would never go back to max. yes its true max have some amazing plugins like krakatoa, tp, vray, fume. but every plugin you have to pay for. with realflow(to get nearly the same features)…you have to pay more then 10k dollars. then have to learn all the different node system(magma flow, tp, node joe, and so on), and there philsophy. the most disgusting thing is that all this great plugin don’t want to speak together. and all this plugz are mostly black boxes. don’t want to talking about this old lame duck max script. at the end you have incredible autodesk philosophy…with features like egg spline. 😉 …and yes houdini on the other side is total different beast. i have heard its most opposite to max workflow. when people say i have use it for couple month, and then say “I don’tget it” ..I could cry…i think you need years to get comfortable….including sops, dops, chops, vex language and so on….for me its open up a hole new universe.
Okay, here’s a question I’m having trouble getting an answer to from sidefx…
Imagine this scenario: I buy/rent Houdini Indie, with its 1080 resolution limit because I make less than the dollar value they allow.
A company comes to me and wants to release my project, but wants it done at 2k or 4k.
My understanding is that Houdini will NOT read Indie files….do you think that somewhere back in the labs sidefx has the capability, and a giant studio that wants to take projects done in Indie into Houdini can perhaps pay for this service?
I’m not assuming this would ever happen for me, but if the best happens I’d hate to think my answer to VeryBigCo would be “Yes, I’d love to, but we’ll have to completely redo every scene”
That’s what wasn’t clear to me….but I THINK you MIGHT also be able to export the files to another renderer anyway, and maybe the 1080 limit is only for Mantra???
Thanks,
JT
each time i read about this topic the answer seemed to be a clear “no”.
even if that unlikely scenario happened, i cant imagine why would it be that hard to export the scene assets with alembic or similar and reconstruct it. kinda silly thing to worry about if you ask me.
I’ll have to search, but from what I did read, the limitation is only for Mantra. So say … with HoudiniEngine, you could bring your stuff to Cinema 4D and render with Arnold there (as an example).
As far as Houdini Indie files, SideFX said that they could ‘transform’ your Indie files to a commercial Houdini FX file if you upgrade from Indie to full Houdini.
I agree that this is the only possibility that makes sense, or all studios will start using Indie to develop the FX and later upgrade only the finish effect for rendering.
Pretty insane, that’s all I have to say 🙂
Immense gratitude towards SideFX for giving us this insane capability with the Indie license. Working and learning Houdini has and continues to be an absolute bliss. It feels like a breath of fresh air in this stagnated, dictated, monopolistic industry. After 15 years of Adsk and final years of feeling trapped, i truly feel like i have found a new home with SideFX. I am not looking back, especially after the new 3dsmax Extension announced – it’s a slap in the face and clear indicator of direction Adsk has chosen. Further more I am also very happy SideFX put some effort into animation pipeline, I hope it will limit the need to send objects back and forth between different dcc apps. Houdini is just becoming an all around powerhouse.
What many people who don’t have enough experience in Houdini misunderstand is that the power of Houdini is neither only it’s FX, or geo tools or renderer or whatever; but in it’s workflow. No other software on the market does that and I have used quite a few. You create a geometry attribute at SOP level, use in a Dynamic simulation to affect/do/change a sim, push it back to geos, modify it with CHOPS, pick it up in a material, send it out as a render pass in a EXR. I challenge anyone to name a software that does this naturally, with no plugin or some voodoo magic. And even if you took chunk by chunk, Hou modeling tools has points to stand against any other. The procedural and live nature of the whole editing process alone. At dynamics level, No software or plugin can match the tool set, particles and cloth and rigid bodies and wires and fluids talking to each other in almost the same language. HouChops, no comparison no where. VOPS. I had once dreamed Flash will become such an artist-friendly programming tool. Comping, it can match some dedicated software I know, yet, you don’t want to use it if you have viable alternatives. Particles …wooo. I still use Maya for many things, Blender for some others, max for others but if I had to take one software to a lonely island where my life would depend on, HOUDINI.
very nice POV! after starting one year diving in H i have so much jaw dropping moments. its way more then fx. leonard mentioned chops, it such powerful context. i.e. you could build your own synthesizer, connecting with your modeling, particle workflow etc. here is a nice video from andrew lowel, which shows some capabilities of chops 😉 …its not the most beauty stuff, but the technique are amazing
http://www.andrew-lowell-productions.com/andrew-lowell-productions/site_files/demos_design/simmas_book/simmas_book_demo.mov
@Tom Freitag you are right about chops, because initially when you come from another package where you have no equivalent, you are literally lost. You don’t know what it is, how you can use it, how to manipulate values and stuff and then you try your best to stay away from it UNTIL you get the hang of it and realize it’s actually easier to deal with than even SOPS. I mean; one day I took my courage in both hands and dived into VOP CHOPS thinking I’ll break my head before getting what I was attempting, but…first attempt and bang! it worked. Since then I use those guys any time I can.
@Leonard How about if you were in archviz or product design. Still Houdini?
@Rotem. I don’t remember saying Hou is THE Arch Viz thing. It’s just the best in the middle IMO. Check this out. You can build a digital asset to do almost anything you need in your Arch work (Stair cases, repeated floors in a building,…name them). Something I don’t think many software will let you do without know a bunch of some form of scripting. OR let’s take the clip SOP node alone. How many non arch software give you that ability to clip geometry in viewport? Rendering(Materials with such tight integration with geometry, or MANTRA with almost free displacement, DOF You can argue archicad, Autocad, sketchup will do that and even better. I agree but which of them will even fathom how to do a rigid body sim, or fluid or particles for $199 a year? I just said if I had to take one of all of them; as a generalist that I am, I’ll take Hou.
ArchViz aside, I’ve seen some cool work for product viz with Houdini. I guess it’s only needed to find a good modeling software to help out.
Modo I don’t like, so that leaves Max, Maya or maybe something cheaper as Silo.
I guess if we look at modeling the way most other software like Maya or Max do it, it may seem Houdini doesn’t do well but let’s take Nurbs modeling…Max has close to zero natively. They say Rhino is the star. I know Maya has a bunch. But besides Maya, Houdini has its way with Geometry; Nurbs included as far as I can think off head, Houdini has nodes for all Maya nurbs operations. Houdini has its tools and for what it does, it does it well. Why do people go on a rant selling Max for modeling when it can’t do nurbs without the help of plugins? Or they should always specify Polygon modeling ALL THE TIME. So let’s not talk modeling but modeling workflow because I included prefer in most cases to model with Maya for most day to day tasks not because of tools but because of workflow. But when I use Houdini for modeling, it for what I know it does better than everyone else..my 2 cents