Hi everyone, I'm a long time max/vray and zillion of max plugins user, I'm now learning houdini with apprentice and I'm about to buy Houdini indie like in 5 minutes!

I would like to know what this sentence means exactly in the interoperability description about FBX and Alembic:
“The use of these formats falls under the same limited commercial license as the use of Indie Houdini itself.”

I want to be sure I can import stuff like rbd sims and fluids and particles from houdini indie to 3ds max and PhoenixFD or Krakatoa and then do what I want in 3ds max. Like rendering with vray with the resolution that I want.

By reading this sentence I started being afraid that the licensing would prevent me to render with vray inside of max….

Please reassure me before I buy

thanks!

in short it's a restriction that you can't corporate with other companys.

it's to prevent bigger companys to split the project for one men companys(indie) to cut the cost. If it's for only you then you won't get troubles with the license :-)

Ok great thanks. So that way I can render with vray. But I hope when vray for houdini comes out that I can render with it directly in houdini indie. My long term goal would be to transition completely to houdini if I can cause now I loose too much money buying updates at unpredictible prices (ma ny thousands$) and timing for zillions of plugins that are never so well integrated in max. When I see how everything is already there in houdini and so well integrated I can't stop smiling. But it's still a long way for me to learn everything since I'm a generalist and I do everyting from modeling to rigging, fx, shading lighting and rendering.

I wonder why there is such a restriction on third party renderer?

these are the important things in your case…

The annual gross revenue of commercial entities and contracting entities does not exceed $100K USD
Commercial entities and contracting entities can purchase a maximum of 3 Houdini Indie and 3 Houdini Engine licenses
Houdini Indie cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini

so basically you can use Indie to export to max and do whatever you want - as long as your use of Indie doesn't break theses three points…

I hope that helps and feel free to contact sales@sidefx.com to ask whatever questions you have - that's what they're there for!

Ok great Arctor I'm buying it right now!

Strob
I wonder why there is such a restriction on third party renderer?

you can overcome the animation limit of 1920x1080 with another render. so no vray support in houdini indie.

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…

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…

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…

I actually export anything as alembic and render with redshift. Works pretty well because you will do a lot of stuff outside houdini anyway…