Houdini roadmap presentation and upcoming features

i used 3ds max more then 8years then switched to houdinifx , much better for fx stuff

Houdini is primarily for Simulation and FX , and the fact that it catching up is a great thing for people looking to get away from the Autodesk monopoly. and likes a company that actually invest time and effort into there product ” Redesigning there node system from the ground up ? When the last time Autodesk redesigned ANYTHING from the ground up ? . There tendency to not update there product ,Terrain tools ? Yeah I can’t think of any 3D package with a decent set of dedicated terrain tools and most muscle package simulation are awful , if what there showing is true this might be the first muscle simulation package that you can commercial buy that is great ,

As Ocean said.
Or we can put it this way.
It is like for a 3ds Max user asking Autodesk to catch up on the FX side (fluid simulation, smoke simulation, you name it), and realizing they are not doing any of that.
Considered how much effort SideFx is putting into Houdini, at this pace, it won’t take long to get there.
Also considered how good they are at responding their users’ request, I wonder what’s next once they will be done with the current implementation of the other areas.

True. However the most difficult area for a package to win is that of FX and simulation. Other areas are much more easy in development. For it’s value for money, especially for indie artists there is nothing so complete and prestigious. And the most interesting is that this package grows in light speed in terms of development and industry adoption and covers more and more in production. Nowadays it is not just for fx. It is also used for set dressing and rendering, namely things on the second half of the production pipeline.

Well said.

I kind of get what you’re saying but I don’t know if it’s fair to call it artificial hype. They’re taking (arguably) the best and most advanced package for VFX, simulation and procedural workflow and aiming to make it more general purpose and user friendly with all of it’s strengths bleeding over in to the other categories. It’s catch up in some areas but in others it’s already years ahead. To me, that’s very exciting.

I mean Max still doesn’t even have basic softbodies while Houdini’s getting true FEM muscle and skin simulation. So while the rigging aspect is kind of a catch up game it’s getting bolstered by the cutting edge solvers that are already built in.

Plus, perpetual licenses… heheh. 🙂

Have you really tried Houdini?
I used to think like you but once you catch it’s workflow is not that hard at all, the fact is that it is completely different, but it’s like talking english or italian, you cannot talk italian with english grammar…

IU? Do you mean UI, user interface? At least you speak flat-style so I guess you mean UI. And I don’t care about is it flat or multi-color shaded icons, I just want logic UI, easy to use = as simple as possible = as fast as it can be for best workflow experience.

But I must agreed that I like these new win “flat” icons because it makes things simple and look clean and that way I can more easily find out that what is icon and where is my own created “art” – think it this way: if videoplayer buttons would look like candy and you are watching some Dissssney animation you will think “where the heck is my player icons” 🙂 yup, it was joke, bad joke, sorry :). I want my work table look clean so I can find things more easily but it is not necessary so I try to be open for these new icons, just hope it won’t be some candy rainbow buttons there and here with some mickeyyy mouse characters 🙂

Houdini has best vfx tools and other softwares are a way behind it, so these “small” updates for “basic” stuff are great and because it is houdini – it is one tool for procedural workflow more and one tool makes million new ways to use it when other 3DCC softwares can do one or few things. So Houdini dev. is amazingly fast, I just love it.

3D Max userfriendly UI? Well.. it depends from user, but I think Houdini is already userfriendly, also Modo is one of the best and C4D is good also. Maya is also much better than 3D Max. LW has worst UI but most people might guess that I don’t like from their separated modelling and animation workflow, but it depends from users needs. But maybe somebody could do plugin / addition for 3D Max users which would change UI for Houdini so Max users could use it more “logically”… Don’t know, but everybody can wish, I guess it will be still faster to learn Houdini as it is and try to modify your logic than wait Max UI addition, but who knows? Maybe tomorrow we have Max add for Houdini 🙂

And I don’t mean to be rude, there are so many people with different kind of mind for thinking their own way and this why there i so much 3DCC apps, it is also good competition which makes developer stand on their foot and keep their hands developing things.

Not everything is green in SideFX’s garden. Their perpetual licenses cannot be upgraded unless you stay forever in their Annual Upgrade Plan. If you don’t renew the AUP, you can’t upgrade. You have to buy it all over again. Not exactly customer-friendly. They still want to force people to keep paying on a yearly basis.
http://archive.sidefx.com/index.php?Itemid=321&id=1429&option=com_content&task=view

It’s not as bad as rental, but they could treat customers much better than that.

And the most amazing is that they haven’t bought anything. They have developed all these in-house. The most important new modules in Maya, NEX, Naiad, Mash and now Arnold are just purchases. Sidefx has become one of the most forward thinking and rapid in development 3d companies. They were one of the first that supported proceduralism from the beginning, something that has become an industy standard in look dev (3ds Max slate material editor and Maya hypershade, Katana, Substance designer, even Mari’s new graph layers) and compositing (Nuke-Fusion and now Natron).