Hello, may chime in with a slightly different question. I started an evening school for animation and multimedia, they teach Maya in the 3D-Classes, and honestly, I do not get along with it. However, for the final exam’s animation movie, we can choose the every software and my weapon of choice is be Houdini. While working fulltime and the school in the evening it is nearly impossible to learn Houdini (what I try since H9.0, but you know, live happens while…). Therefore, I asked the teacher, if I can use Houdini instead of Maya in the regular 3d-Classes

Well, there are three of them, one is against it, and the others are more open to this idea. They do not know Houdini at all, so they cannot help me at all. They asked about the way Houdini works with After Effects and Illustrator.

Since, I don't have any experience with this topic … Can someone briefly describe the main differences between the workflow between Houdini and Maya and the Adobe programs?

Thank you.

Dear primzahl,

when you are in the school and you have nobody else it will be a big challenge for you. i don't know whats the schoolplan and what targets the teacher wants to achieve? seriously i don't recommend it because you are a beginner and with no support from the teacher and material thats for maya is specially for the start not easy. but what you can do is when you are comfort with maya you can start learn houdini then you have always a alternative route when you stuck and the time is running out in a project.

the illustrator import is limited to eps and there are only some functions supported.

after effects rendered image plane shouldn't be a big problem, there is also a camera exporter but i'm not 100% sure how the requirements is in the school?

btw: you can ping me on discord for a chat if you want

well, you have houdini engine, so if you use maya you have all houdini staff there too.
the principles of animations… if you are acquainted with it that mean if you use them creatively, and if you believe it. therefore any 3d program would be ok. But why the people in adk application feel like if they miss something? becouse they want to make all.
knowing the procedure of the tool that you use make feel you very good.
In maya what is hidden in houdini shiny.

Hi, I was forced to use Maya in the first 3 months of my study too and beside the fact that I hate it's UI and working in it and that I failed our first test, it costs me a lot of nerves to get my teachers to allow me to switch to 3ds Max ,which is similar to Maya, and to do every test (except the animation test, which i barely succeded) etc. from then on with 3ds Max. However as far as I can say from all the help here and from my first days of learning Houdini it is a lot different, the only things that are similar is the radial menu (when you press C in Houdini) and that you can set the controlls in Houdini to be like the standard controlls in Maya.
When I would be in your position with a full time job, nearly no free time at all and evening classes I would switchto Houdini when I finished the evening school, just trying to get along with Maya, get personal help from the teachers, try to find some free time and do some stuff in Maya etc. When I've done that, I would start using the Houdini Engine inside of Maya.

However you might wanna read this here: https://www.quora.com/Which-is-better-SideFX-Houdini-or-Maya [quora.com]

It's a comparrision between Maya and Houdini.

I hope I could help you, at least a bit.

Logan

Hello, thank you all for the answers and the link is an interesting read. Maybe I should have pointed out, that I’m not a totally noob to Houdini even if I consider myself not even close to intermediate. I would say a beginner +. So I made the application animation for the school with Houdini.
Right now we do absolutely beginner stuff that I easily could rebuild in Houdini. I’m more concerned about the texturing and shading, this seems very different between the two. I still have no information about its possible or not.

ad mandrake0: what is discord?

the link for getting discord: http://forums.odforce.net/topic/28248-unofficial-houdini-discord-server/#comment-160740 [forums.odforce.net]

Usually I end up saying, use whatever software you are comfortable with to deliver the shot, but I honestly think, apart from animation (because I have no Houdini animation experience) , there really isnt a reason to use any other software then Houdini imho.(convert from maya since 2010)

In 3d max you have a rig and you can add a animation layer to that rig, and if you want you could, for example 2 layer, one layer is a walk cycle ( mocap data) and in the other hand a hand smiling ( keyframe data). You can add the second layer to the first masking the animation data of the second, and the nice property is that you select the part of rig that you want to mix. I do not know how make that now with houdini. if you know tell us
In the past the people believe that the people can go to the moon in dreams, well know the people have houdini. and if they do not have houdini, they have houdini apprentice.

http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/character/animlayer [sidefx.com] ?

yeees. But how work with mocap file like in the animlayer tut?
please check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9d6PuwiEoM [youtube.com]
min 7 30. posible in Houdini?

there is a solution, makes clips … and composite chop.

We also started shifting to Houdini some time now, and the experience is been great. I have used 3ds Max professionally in ArchViz and Comercials for the past 15 years as the main tool, but there is a time that we just need more and with Houdini we can achieve that without spending thousands of euros in extra plugins, and everything works with everything. We created a group in Facebook for Max users that are interested in learning Houdini, so we can share our experiences and help transition to Houdini.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/houdiniformaxers/ [facebook.com]

Cheers,

chevita.
yeees. But how work with mocap file like in the animlayer tut?
please check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9d6PuwiEoM [youtube.com]
min 7 30. posible in Houdini?

Here's a mocap example, where I replaced the animation on the spine bones and the shoulders separately.

The Animation Layer Mixer CHOP node doesn't handle per object masking or local layer weights.
You need to do the masking manually using CHOP comp/channel nodes.

Houdini is basically 3dsmax with a modifier stack on steroids, think of your nodenetwork as a modifier stack that can branch off endlessly and never has to be collapsed.

Atleast thats how I approached it in the beginning.

And… you will get the best developers in the industry covering your back.

Guillaume

chevita.
yeees. But how work with mocap file like in the animlayer tut?
please check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9d6PuwiEoM [youtube.com]
min 7 30. posible in Houdini?

Here's a mocap example, where I replaced the animation on the spine bones and the shoulders separately.

The Animation Layer Mixer CHOP node doesn't handle per object masking or local layer weights.
You need to do the masking manually using CHOP comp/channel nodes.

here i say, ey thank you!. i was thinking how masking, and it seem very simple.

I thought this [vimeo.com] video was a good comparison of the workflows between houdini and 3ds max.

tricecold
Usually I end up saying, use whatever software you are comfortable with to deliver the shot, but I honestly think, apart from animation (because I have no Houdini animation experience) , there really isnt a reason to use any other software then Houdini imho.(convert from maya since 2010)

+1000

Few words. Completely switches to other software like Houdini for what purpose? You need to understand that Houdini does not use all the studios in your city. And many do not use it for all purposes and tasks. It can happen that your CV will only have Houdini and you will hard to find a job. You need to know both 3dsMax and Maya very well, both packages. Usually Houdini study after them.

Houdini is a different approach to work. You must completely rebuild your mind for this. It will not be enough for you to know one thing: “press the button”. You need to know a little bit from programming. The most important thing for which Houdini is needed is VFX. The truth is that in Houdini you can do everything without plugins! But for this you must have the knowledge and experience, knowledge and concepts of computer graphics, mathematics. And it's also true that Houdini works stably in big scenes. This is the most beautiful thing! In Houdini it is convenient to make video, adjust for compose, work with stereo. In Houdini many and many things are convenient. But when you are faced with the development of something complicated, you do not have enough knowledge how to do it in Houdini!