Hello everyone. I am currently making a purchase decision for my first full package. I currently own Maya 4 Ultimate, but I have become quite adept at modelling in Silo and Zbrush, and compositing in Combustion 3. Blender has actually proven a bit more useful to me than maya 4 on the odd occaison.

My Decision is between Softimage Advanced (linux) or Houdini Escape.

I am in the UK so price wise they are about the same after currency exchange and tax, softimage is about £200 for the linux version though.

If i bought Houdini (I presume on maintenance), would I get a license for multiple platforms? i.e. for my linux workstation, and my windows laptop?

Mostly I am looking at modelling, and compositing. How does the modelling toolset compare to maya 4 & 7? Also a softimage sales rep said I may as well pick up shake since it is cheap for my mac if I wanted similiar comp'ing tools rather than just relying on softimage. So does houdini kick the shit out of shake and combustion? Or would shake be good purchase anyway?

Thanks
Rich

P.S. Any chance of a mac version?

The questions about licensing should really be directed at SESI's sales. There is a mail address in the Company>Contact section of the site.
I haven't used Maya for a long time, but I can tell Houdini's modelling toolset is very good. However, you should spend time with the Apprentice version to find out if you like the workflow (some don't). Houdini is different and some people don't like that, especially when modelling.

Regarding the comp toolset: yes, you should get also a stand alone compositor (Shake, Digital fusion, whatever).
Houdini's integrated compositor is wonderful and extremely powerful, but it lacks some general purpose tools (like keyers, trackers). It is actually kind of specialised for post-processing of render passes, having excellent integration with Houdini's renderer, Mantra. It also has tools for re-lighting, geo-keying (keying using the distance from a point in 3D) and is very extensible using the same language used for writing shaders for Mantra.

Also, it is much better than the integrated XSI compositor. For example, it has full float support in all operations and a very modern architecture allowing for arbitrary planes which can hold various type of information (point positions, normals, UV etc). XSI's compositor is an old Avid compositing software and does not work very well with float data, also it has limited functionality for 3d post processing. The good part with it is that it has painting and tracking.

My personal opinion is that I prefer to have integrated in a 3d package a software which gives me more power with the 3d part, as for compositing I'll always use a dedicated software.

Dragos

PS I keep hoping for a Mac version too.

thank you for the response

I have just exhausted the softimage 4.2 mod tool. I shall move onto houdini apprentice and see what i can accomplish there before I make a purchase decision.

thanks again
(may get shake for the hell of it!)

I completely agree with Dragos compositing philosophy. You mentioned combustion? I think combustion is great, I've used After Effects and Fusion and so far I like to work with combustion the best.

I've been wishing for years that Autodesk would integrate Combustion with Max, I think they really did a dis-service since they really don't have a solution for render passes. When I first discovered Houdini that was one of my main “finally” moments when things didn't have to be rendered one at a time. Render size can also be controlled in Houdini by camera parameters, which is a huge advantage over changing render settings for each pass etc.

I'd be really curious why Shake would be prefereable to combustion, combustion never seems to have a lot of hype but I think the painting tools are top-notch, and the fact that any raster effect can be applied at any stage is very powerful when dealing with vector-paint-layers … very good with 2D particles too.

You should check out Combustion 4's features before you jump into Shake-land. They also have a higher-end version called Toxik, but much more expensive

After lots of trialing I took combustion OVER photoshop. I love it to pieces!

I have read up on toxik quite a bit, the demo videos definitely seem interesting. Sad to say way out of my price range. This afternoon I will be playing with the combustion 4 trial. I have had a go at shake before, and previous to that Smoke on an Octane 2. And I do love the discreet/autodesk way of doing things.

But of course the decision here is mostly about a full 3D package. Not many companies give you the oppourtunity to play with their softawre like houdini do with the Apprentice Edition. I played for about an hour last night, completely lost already, not as quick to start as I was with softimage (after coming from maya), but I will give houdini time

I have also got in contact with SideFX about training in the UK, and I will get in contact with the London User Group ASAP.

andrewlowell
I'd be really curious why Shake would be prefereable to combustion, combustion never seems to have a lot of hype but I think the painting tools are top-notch, and the fact that any raster effect can be applied at any stage is very powerful when dealing with vector-paint-layers … very good with 2D particles too.
You should check out Combustion 4's features before you jump into Shake-land. They also have a higher-end version called Toxik, but much more expensive

It all depends on what you need. Combustion, as AFX and Fusion are much more general tools with tons of futures great for everyday work and useless in serous tasks.
Comparing Combustion to Shake is not even senseless but blasphemy! Try to compose 40 x 2K plates with different number of channels in log space, in variable bit depth, all integrated with huge custom pipeline, than you will know what “the hype” is about. You won't even be able to compare rendering times. Combustion won't finish its job at all.

On the other hand using Shake in TV work is like driving Hummer on Naples streets…


cheers,
sy.

Yeah I've never liked Photoshop either, while it's considered a standard I personally think it's a lowest common denominator. I used to use Paint Shop Pro and really liked the ability to easily combine raster and vector procedures/layers.

I was a little lost when PSP got consumery in later versions and I had to adopt Photoshop, but once I picked up Combustion I could use raster's and vectors in the same program again! (as if that should be a bonus in 2007).

anyway,

I think the Major advantage of Houdini is the lack of scripting that's required to do complex effects or logic. I've been learning Houdini for around 4 months now coming from a Max (max-scripting) background and most things can be done in Houdini much more elegantly as well as faster without any need for scripting.

I don't think I'd use Houdini to model or unwrap a character yet (staying with 3ds for now) but I'm sure some people love modeling in Houdini same as anything else.

modelling will be my frist step, of course I will post some basic WIPS, one step at a time.