I'm currently still working in Houdini Apprentice while our group awaits approval on purchasing full licenses.

In deciding between Houdini Core and Houdini FX, we think Houdini Core meets our needs, as most of our work involves animating data from other sources rather than using Houdini's internal effects such as fluids, particles, etc.

So my question is where is the boundary drawn for items such as DOP nodes between Core & FX? I see the ‘File Data’ dynamics node which we might find useful for processing our data. Is that something in Core or is it only in FX?

Which nodes in FX are unavailable in Core? I assume we may need to write our own work-arounds for some of these nodes and I'd like to start those experiments in Apprentice. Is this documented anywhere?

Thanks,
Tom

From what I recall, you can't make any nodes that would be in a dopnet. So no rbd, no wires, no cloth/fem, no pyro/smoke etc.

Note that you can create sim setups in FX, convert them to HDAs with the important parameters exposed, and run those in core. This is a common workflow to create reusable sim tools; the lead artist in a studio will have an FX license, make HDAs, and distribute them to the rest of the team running Core.

A notable exception is the solver sop. It's available in Core, and lets you create sop based setups that can access the result of the previous frame, so you can get sim-style behavior.

Devil is in the details, but that's the high level summary.

In the sneak peek there is one line with some new license type.

mandrake0
In the sneak peek there is one line with some new license type.

yeah I'd hold off until we see what this entails.

It'd be awesome if they offer a permanent license for Indie at a reasonable price.

Midphase
It'd be awesome if they offer a permanent license for Indie at a reasonable price.

I hope not because in this current situation they get a yearly income and can always tell the customer to update to a daily build.

When i'm correct they had that for houdini 11 for 99$ but it was non commerial with full hd.

But a license between indie and core would be intresting for agency's…. lets see what comes

mestela
From what I recall, you can't make any nodes that would be in a dopnet. So no rbd, no wires, no cloth/fem, no pyro/smoke etc.

Okay, this is what I expected.

mestela
Note that you can create sim setups in FX, convert them to HDAs with the important parameters exposed, and run those in core. This is a common workflow to create reusable sim tools; the lead artist in a studio will have an FX license, make HDAs, and distribute them to the rest of the team running Core.

And we plan to get some FX licenses also so this might be an option.

The challenge is we are a very non-standard Studio, where each individual works on relatively independent projects that often require a great deal of custom programming to import datasets ranging from satellite measurements to large particle simulations needed to build the scenes.

I'm the first person in our group doing extensive experiments with Houdini for our type of data. I need to determine at what level someone can do useful work with Core, or will everyone need FX. I'm doing data importing experiments using the Python interface.

If it's possible for everyone to write their own data interfaces and loaders in Core, then we're good. FX would then only be needed in cases where we might want a generic water or particle sim as background for a dataset.

mestela
A notable exception is the solver sop. It's available in Core, and lets you create sop based setups that can access the result of the previous frame, so you can get sim-style behavior.

Devil is in the details, but that's the high level summary.

That is useful to know.

Thanks,
Tom

astronomertom
If it's possible for everyone to write their own data interfaces and loaders in Core, then we're good.

I think that's the case…
CORE has exactly the functionality of FX - with the above mentioned limitation that you can't create/change DOPs nodes.

Michael,

goldfarb

astronomertom
If it's possible for everyone to write their own data interfaces and loaders in Core, then we're good.

I think that's the case…
CORE has exactly the functionality of FX - with the above mentioned limitation that you can't create/change DOPs nodes.

So if I understand you correctly, while I'm still testing in Apprentice, anything I can do without using a built-in DOP node should be doable in Core.

That is something I can test.

Thanks,
Tom

astronomertom
So if I understand you correctly, while I'm still testing in Apprentice, anything I can do without using a built-in DOP node should be doable in Core.

That is something I can test.

I'd say yes.
note that you do also have access to the Solver SOP - which can get you some simulations…

I just purchased the HoudiniCore, trying to make something with it but how can I get particles and fluids, is there any way to get that to create particles, the FX is quite expensive for me, the freelance artist.

Yibai
I just purchased the HoudiniCore, trying to make something with it but how can I get particles and fluids, is there any way to get that to create particles, the FX is quite expensive for me, the freelance artist.

Well for these functionality you need the FX license.

When you are a freelance artist do you have a income over 100k$ per year? Or do you make shots for bigger studios?
For freelancer there is the indie version for 399$ (2 years)
https://www.sidefx.com/products/houdini/houdini-indie/ [www.sidefx.com]

mandrake0
In the sneak peek there is one line with some new license type.

where is that? Thanks!

jarenas

mandrake0
In the sneak peek there is one line with some new license type.

where is that? Thanks!

I don't know anymore what was the update in the license… that was 1 year ago.