I know its strengths for VFX, Proced-Modeling and Mantra. But I want to start doing other things in it that I would normally do in Maya or max. Such as animation and maybe even character design (w/ Zbrush).

I have to ask you guys. Do you use Houdini for anything other than VFX,P.Model and Mantra? I would like to eliminate the use of multiple 3d softwares if Houdini can get the job done….Can it? (keeping Zbrush of course)

If you have any examples, Id love to see them.

this one i am gona follow :O)

rigging and anim are very strong particularly for more esoteric types of rigging and animation tasks (like when there are lots of character driven fx)

also, fur and feathers.

brianBurke
rigging and anim are very strong particularly for more esoteric types of rigging and animation tasks (like when there are lots of character driven fx)

If you dont mind can you expand on what type of projects would this work for? So that when the time comes Ill understand the strengths for it.

The Wild : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405469/ [imdb.com]
everything on this film was done in Houdini (except comp and some modeling)

CHOPs: I use it for music, data analysis, scientific viz, real time control, etc.

Depending on the kind of work you need to do, you can also use it for compositing. One nice thing to doing this in Houdini is that you can make the rendering to compositing process pretty seamless (IE use COPs in your DAs)