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Houdini Lounge » Lift 3rd party renderer limitation for indies
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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It would be great to have external renderer support for indie however if it would damage Houdini to allow external renderers in indie then I would prefer not having it. In any case I think SideFX should communicate with users regarding this.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Houdini Indie Interoperability.
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I wouldn't rely on vray on Houdini if you are planning to use an Indie license because right now Indie license don't allow third party render engines.
Strob
Well anyone can overcome anything these days if one really wants to. I think this deal relies on trust anyway so why not allowing 3rd party renderers? Anyway vray is not out yet for houdini but I wish they change their mind once it is!
I guess they also want to promote the use of mantra which looks really cool but it took me so many years to really master vray…
Technical Discussion » htoa in render view
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I haven't tested them in volume rendering but in the hard surface indirect light setup tests I did Arnold was faster than mantra. That is of course without caching GI and pure PBR.
Houdini Lounge » Xeons vs I7, the eternal struggle
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Keep in mind that max turbo frequency does not mean much since it is the max frequency a single CPU core can climb to, when it comes to multi core performance base frequency is your benchmark. CPU's quickly climb up to their thermal design power once pushed in all cores and usually float around base frequency if maxed out for prolonged amount of time.
Houdini Lounge » Redshift for Houdini, call for developers
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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OneBigTreeBRog
If only the Indie license would allow use of this. For now I'll have to keep sending scenes to Softimage to render with Redshift.
I don't give up hope. I would pay twice as much for houdini indie if it was allowed.
I would as well, and I think if there is enough demand they would definitely come up with a solution.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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MartybNzRedshift is even faster in most cases.
Just throwing this in here… initial GPU testing shows ~5x faster for super quick low detailed stuff - Octane vs Mantra. Great for slamming something together. Those 5mins flipbooks take ~ 1 min
Guess we wait for v3 for fog and Deep rendering… that would allow you to use it in combination with Mantra when need.
Also looks a bit buggy or not as integrated as Mantra - i.e. geometry lights don't always stick when changing frames, and you have to reload when turning on and off geometry.
More testing needed though overall. YMMV.
Gtx980 and 2 x 5680 @ 3.33. Win 7 Houdini Fx 14.0..361
Houdini Lounge » Houdini for Modeling/rigging/animation
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I just wanted to add since lighting and look development is my area of expertise, Houdini and Mantra are my favorite look development and rendering tools. In day work I use Katana and Renderman and I think Houdini is just amazing for individual artist in this department.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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goldleafEven though indie license fees are very affordable not all indie artists can afford 6 computers. Even if I could afford it, I would be reluctant to accommodate them in my home office. Most indie artists usually work on relatively smaller scale scene files with very quick turnarounds in which case the GPU rendering has several advantages over the farm computing. As an example, a single GTX980 on my computer can render photorealistic interior scenes as fast as 6 to 10 i7 CPU's combined, not to mention true real-time feedback in look-development. It is very efficient and very affordable, and the turnarounds involving look development and lighting with GPU are way too fast to ignore.
You can also purchase up to 3 Indie Engine licenses at $99/each,so an Indie artist could have up to 6 different computers to run Houdini Indie. And there is also GridMarkets and HQueue on EC2.
Hope that helps!
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Sam Howell
I've got to say, I agree completely with tinyparticle.
As great as Mantra is, you need a big outlay of hardware to get the full benefit. This simply isn't feasible for individual freelancers or small studios on limited indie budgets.
GPU renderers like Octane, Redshift and Thea are a godsend for the little guy. A single workstation with a decent spec graphic card can produce fully rendered sequences almost as fast as you can do a screen capture. I know GPU's have a hard time with very large data and volumes but often this is not required for simple scenes.
Houdini Indie is a great idea but when it comes time to get your work rendered what do you do? Cloud rendering is great also but it can't compare to the instant feedback you get with GPU renderers.
There is not much gain for SESI by limiting GPU rendering in Houdini Indie and I believe it would be a win-win situation if they allowed it for a premium.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Yuri3DExactly my point. Indie artists could truly benefit from the GPU rendering. It would be ideal if Mantra had a GPU rendering option like Cycles. Alternatively a license that allows indie to run Octane/Redshift would be welcome.
I must agree that it's one of the biggest problems with indie (perhaps intentional). Mantra is amazing but is is realistic to expect indies paying 199/year to have appropriate hardware to render even a small sequence with it? Allowing Octane like solutions or having GPU acceleration would be very welcome!
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I would be willing to pay more for the addition of Mantra GPU option in Houdini Indie.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Houdini Lounge » New Website Ideas
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Here's my list of recommendations in the order of my priorities :
1. It should be fast, definitely no flash, no weird javascripts that slow things down.
2. It should be functional and accessible. Hard to navigate, hard to access content is useless. Users should be able to access any part of the web site easily.
3. It should have minimalistic, clean and beautiful typography. It makes all the difference in the world. If we are reading it, the rules of typography applies. Please hire a strong designer for typography.
4. It should have HDPI support. More and more devices use high-dpi recently and it will be all HDPI in the near future.
5. It should have responsive design so that it is resolution independent and can work on any device and look good on any device. New web technologies allow this, again, please hire a strong designer.
1. It should be fast, definitely no flash, no weird javascripts that slow things down.
2. It should be functional and accessible. Hard to navigate, hard to access content is useless. Users should be able to access any part of the web site easily.
3. It should have minimalistic, clean and beautiful typography. It makes all the difference in the world. If we are reading it, the rules of typography applies. Please hire a strong designer for typography.
4. It should have HDPI support. More and more devices use high-dpi recently and it will be all HDPI in the near future.
5. It should have responsive design so that it is resolution independent and can work on any device and look good on any device. New web technologies allow this, again, please hire a strong designer.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Thank you Ben. This is interesting, I will definitely check it out. However, GPU rendering has other benefits such as ultra fast look development.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I think it is equally difficult to afford a xeon phi for an indie artist. Currently Houdini Indie license does not allow external render engines so Redshift and Octane are also out of the table. If Houdini opened a door to GPU rendering with the indie license, either by implementing it into Mantra or allowing an external GPU renderer connection, that would help indie artists immensely.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Mantra GPU Rendering option
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I think it would be great if Mantra had a GPU rendering option. It would be invaluable for indie artists who work with relatively smaller scale scenes. GPU renderers are usually 5x to 10x faster in such scenarios. I think it would improve Indie license sales too. Just my 2cp.
Houdini Learning Materials » Learning Paths
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Environment lights with moving objects
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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Unfortunately you can not pinpoint the exact position of the area light unless you shoot the hdr using a stereo rig or independently from two different axis. You will have to place it using the visual ques from the original hdr and doing some approximation.
Houdini Indie and Apprentice » Environment lights with moving objects
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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You can simply crop that section of the hdr image as a square image and give some feather around the edges so that it does not have abrupt cut at the edges. Once exported this square image, paint out the extracted parts of the original image, and you will end up with two textures, a square texture with the hotspot in it and the hdri image without any hotspots. You will need to use the square texture on your area light and the hdri on your environment light.
You will have to set the distance and the cone radius manually.
You will have to set the distance and the cone radius manually.
Houdini Lounge » Best practice for exporting Houdini fur ?
- tinyparticle
- 175 posts
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I was wondering what is the best practice for exporting Houdini fur (ie. as nurbs curves). And how can I do it ?
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