Hi Houdini-Users,

I am comming from Lightwave and Maya side… I also downloaded and played
with Houdini Trial….. It's a very interesting and powerful application, but very unique and without a big scripting background, unaccessible for
people without programming experiences.
Do you think, Houdini 9 will get more simplifications for “normal” 3d Users? :wink:

To access the modelling features is ok, but
especially the shader/texturing and Particles section are very hard to understand.

Thanks
Tom

Hi Tom,

Hopefully I can say otherwise. : )

I personally don't think that Houdini is THAT technical at all for the most part. Quite the opposite actually – Houdini allows non-programmers to create complex image without the need of programming at all. It's precisely the fact that a lot of us are NOT programmer that we really like Houdini and prefer it. I came from art background myself, and there is currently not another tools I'd prefer more than Houdini. It's a MAJOR misconception that you have to be a programmer in order to use Houdini – and I simply can't say enough of this to correct people's perception about Houdini.

I think one of the key things that people need is to stop thinking that to use Houdini you have to be a programmer.

Keep at it and I am sure soon you'll realize what we mean.

I completely agree with this, I'm coming from a 3ds Max background and have been learning Houdini for around 5 months now. I currently do a lot of Max-scripting, particles, crowds.

While I mainly got into Houdini for it's AUDIO features (being a former audio engineer) I have to say that a lot of the scripts I've done in 3ds Max could have easily been done without scripting in Houdini with simple expressions, as well as CHOPs, and would have also run faster since things seem to be more optimized. So, I guess you could look at it like this.

If something is very easy and straitforeward technically, like a simple character model, simple texture, or light setup, etc .. 3ds, Maya, lightwave might be easier than Houdini.

If something is very technically challenging (Like crowds, FX, cities, motion control, advanced texturing, etc). Pretty much everything you'd ever need to do in a real gig, Houdini makes it much simpler.

Thats my opinion anyway, I still haven't really figured out the texture stuff too well, but the particle and motion stuff is amazing.

I understand where tomtm is coming from, though. It's that initial, dipping toe in water experience that can make doing the basic stuff rather intimidating. Frankly it's part and parcel with the notion that everything is procedural and you need to become familiar with a lot of somewhat different concepts, to say nothing of the first time you hit tab in a network and are confronted with dozens of operators(well, I guess in a way that's somewhat Max-like). Getting that initial basic information across to new users is critical - some people take to it instantly, others(usually when they've already had some background with another package) get baffled because it seems like doing a simple process involves more steps than normal.

In fact, for simple jobs, it does. Where Houdini shines is when you're in production and you want to do something, or make changes, to the moderate to insanely complicated stuff. And shine it does. Once you get experienced, even setting up the simple stuff becomes faster(custom assets you can make to shorten setup time, for example).

That doesn't help the new user much, though. I'd recommend digging through all the tutorial stuff you can find, and ask lots questions when you get stumped. There are changes afoot, with Houdini 9 that's in the works, that hopefully address a lot of these concerns.

Cheers,

J.C.

I can add from my experience that the difference Houdini makes for newbies is the strong need of complete understanding what you actually do when you model, shade, simulate, render - e.i. what is going on under the hood. On the over hand it is VERY noticeable that you can be absolute ignorant when working in some other softwares. When you apply shader to your model in LW or Cinema3d for example there is no need to deal with all these underlaying facts like: is this to be point or primitive variable, what shader string brings to renderer, does this variable already exist, should be created by my self, or it will be created for me, and what is, my Godness, this VARIABLE!?

Working with Houdini teaches you constantly the very deep nature of 3d animation, and you will quickly find your self in trouble if you ignore this knowledge. I'm telling you, first time you will struggle with something that “just doesn't work or can't be done” in Houdini - will be this very moment in which you realize that you don't fully understand what you're doing.

On the other hand, as was already said here, Houdini gives non-programmers possibility for doing things which can't be done without scripting in other software. Gives you freedom…


cheers,
sy.

Yeah thats funny and true, actually I've found myself learning a lot of new things about audio and becoming a more knowledgable audio engineer since working with Houdini.

Most Houdini users probably don't know this, but Houdini works with sound in the same low-level way that it works with graphics … it's possible to “build” your own audio synthisizer as opposed to just use a series of presets used in all commercial audio/music programs.

Hi,

tomtm
It's a very interesting and powerful application, but very unique and without a big scripting background, unaccessible for people without programming experiences.

What sort of scripting are you referring to? Typing expressions in parameters or creating your own shaders? Also, what type of programming are you referring to? Are you trying to create your own custom OPerator?

As for texturing, all the tools are there: UV Brush, UV Edit, UV Fuse, UV Pelt, UV Project, UV QuickShade, UV Transform & UVUnwrap. There's also the UV Viewport (Space + 5).

With regards to Particles, have you gone through the tutorials or the examples available in the Online Help?

I understand it's hard to adjust or do something when you're used to other applications but please give it a bit more time & also ask questions or search the forums and/or mailing list.

I just worried after you're used to the Houdini way, you won't want to use anything else. As JColdrick said, hopefully Houdini 9 will address a lot of these concerns.

Cheers!
steven

TheUsualAlex
Hi Tom,

Hopefully I can say otherwise. : )

I personally don't think that Houdini is THAT technical at all for the most part. Quite the opposite actually – Houdini allows non-programmers to create complex image without the need of programming at all. It's precisely the fact that a lot of us are NOT programmer that we really like Houdini and prefer it. I came from art background myself, and there is currently not another tools I'd prefer more than Houdini. It's a MAJOR misconception that you have to be a programmer in order to use Houdini – and I simply can't say enough of this to correct people's perception about Houdini.

I think one of the key things that people need is to stop thinking that to use Houdini you have to be a programmer.

Keep at it and I am sure soon you'll realize what we mean.

Complitely agree with Garman (are you not?)
From my experience as a Houdini teacher the problem with Houdini is to get amazing results fast.
Usually to setup something in Houdini needs more time than in other tools, and people wants to see something faster.
But when people takes the needed time to understand how houdini is working, and how easy you can begin to crete as the same time to are thinking, without the bottleneck of scripting then they are definitely convinced.
Pople tends to think that Houdini artist are so “cool” (elit) because they make effect that are impossible to others.
That's not truth, the truth is that Houdini artist are making affects at a speed that is impossible with other tools.

Which tool allows you to create amazing results quickly?

lisux
From my experience as a Houdini teacher the problem with Houdini is to get amazing results fast.

I have been playing with Houdini since august , while working ( maya ). It certainly is different from other applications , and yes I do struggle sometimes with understanding the workflow. But saying all of the above, thats what sets it apart from all other applications. I liken it to being given the atomic building blocks of 3d so this means your only limited by your imagination and your knowledge.

R

whalerider
Which tool allows you to create amazing results quickly?

lisux
From my experience as a Houdini teacher the problem with Houdini is to get amazing results fast.

I stand for getting results, students needs to see anything, some result.
Try for example in Maya, you can get some simple ocean, but with a couple of clicks. nowdays this is impossible with Houdini.

lisux
I stand for getting results, students needs to see anything, some result.
Try for example in Maya, you can get some simple ocean, but with a couple of clicks. nowdays this is impossible with Houdini.

Hey, you can get that too in Houdini with the Ocean Toolkit [odforce.net].
The most frustrating part to get results quickly seems to be the lighting/shading. It's much harder to get a decent result in a short time compared to packages like XSI or Maya.

Dragos

It's certainly a very strange paradox about proceduralism. For some tasks taking a procedural approach will get results that are faster or simply possible comapired to non-procedural systems.

For other things proceduralism will slow things down in a big way.

For instance, I still find it's much easier to model a character or organic form in 3ds Max. While it might not be very procedural the time it takes me to fix or redu an issue would be shorter than the time it would take to “find” or “re-evaluate” the issue with a procedural approach. For something like a defacto model, light setup, unwrap etc that will only need to be done once this could be the case compaired to Houdini.

On the other hand, you get a bunch of people together working on similar models or assembling a scene using a non-procedural system marked only by file-naming-convention on a network, add in a little sleep deprivation, and it's a sure recipe for things slowing down. People never like to get slow results and always want to see something right away, but I think this has more to do with production and planning than the software application anyway.

I've seen this happen with expert modelers and texture artists using 3ds Max at a broadcast studio where I was scripting. I had to redu my crowd like 8 times because they kept reduing the stadium and changing the scenes, sometimes they didn't even know which was the most current, with Houdini and DA's this could have been a much faster and more enjoyable process, even if people don't see results instantly, they could at least go home on time.

digitallysane
Hey, you can get that too in Houdini with the Ocean Toolkit [odforce.net].
The most frustrating part to get results quickly seems to be the lighting/shading. It's much harder to get a decent result in a short time compared to packages like XSI or Maya.
Dragos

That's it

Hi to all,

Thanks for all answers and impressions.
So from what I read, Houdini is more a solution for bigger studios
sharing their projects. I know some Procedural Workflow from
Eyeon's Fusion and I find it very interesting approach, because Procedural
gives you more access to abstract solutions.

I guess, for animation and shading procedurals are very powerful…
But Modelling organic stuff, there is more flexebility with a
conventional workflow, I think. (where to store all 1000 tweeks)

But something I don't understand is the missing source of houdini
galleries. Sorry to say that (maybe I am just wrong), but I never found
a Houdini Gallery wich could compete with LW/Modo/Max/Maya.

Maybe Houdini is really used more in Preproduction or Simulation.
Or is Houdini often used with Inhouse solutions?

Please don't get me wrong, I find Houdini very interesting, just myself is the limit.

Thanks Tom

well, as whalerider wrote if you look at the amazing stuff,

I would think Houdini's use in film makes the most elaborate effects compaired to the other programs.

I'm also gathering the Houdini community is much smaller and most of these people are employed and working on larger projects where lots of other applications are probably used to do the modeling etc / more standard stuff.

Sidefx should have an art gallery thread, or for Houdini maybe even a technical gallery thread, it's hard for the masses to appreciate an amazing DA or procedural system.

So from what I read, Houdini is more a solution for bigger studios
sharing their projects.

My observation is that Houdini tends to be used by very small teams within large facilities to do very difficult tasks. Many times it is one person working on a shot from beginning to end comp.

There are a few studios using Houdini that only have 1 to 5 people delivering cutting edge shots.

Sharing is a given with the procedural nature of Houdini and then Digital Assets in .otl files. Nothing to do with large shops as anyone can exploit this. I remember way back data mining old hip files for their networks with scripts or opening the old file along with the current scene and copy/pasting nodes from the old scene to the new.
Digital Assets have changed all of this.

Is it because Houdini shares similar methods to unix (internal folders, reliance on environment variables, etc.) that gives it the impression that it is used by larger shops because they are the only ones running linux or something like that?

tomtm
I guess, for animation and shading procedurals are very powerful…
But Modelling organic stuff, there is more flexebility with a
conventional workflow, I think. (where to store all 1000 tweeks)

Specific tools aside, there is more flexibilty in Houdini's modeling workflow. Just because creating an organic model may require a 1000 nodes doesn't mean you have to manage and constantly refer to those nodes. You can simply lock the last one in a chain and delete all the previous ones if you like. (Which is more or less the same thing as Delete History in Maya.)

The reason why there is more flexibilty is because in Maya or XSI you don't have any access to a useful history, whereas in Houdini you do. Its up to you if you choose to use it or not. The node based modeling isn't a different modeling paradigm, its simply an extra tool to aid you.

Wolfwood
Specific tools aside, there is more flexibilty in Houdini's modeling workflow. Just because creating an organic model may require a 1000 nodes doesn't mean you have to manage and constantly refer to those nodes. You can simply lock the last one in a chain and delete all the previous ones if you like. (Which is more or less the same thing as Delete History in Maya.)

The reason why there is more flexibilty is because in Maya or XSI you don't have any access to a useful history, whereas in Houdini you do. Its up to you if you choose to use it or not. The node based modeling isn't a different modeling paradigm, its simply an extra tool to aid you.

Complitely agree wolwood.
Thw problem is not in the nodes, for me the problem is that Houdini interface for modelling is not so intuitive and fast like other tools designed specifically for modelling.
Usually I use Houdini for modelling but I have to admit that it needs some improvement in therms of user interaction for this pourpose.
Related discussion here:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=6142&highlight=modelling [sidefx.com]

I think Houdini needs a more complete set of things that work right out of the box to be more appealing to the mainstream user.

Things like a decent set of modern standard (Metal, Glass, Cloth, Skin, etc.) powerful and flexible shaders (with options like automatically using Vertex Colors, SubSurface Scattering, etc.), simpler GI rendering, as well as pre-constructed OTL's like “Water Surface” (Ocean, Pond, etc.), “Volumetric Cloud” (with settings for “Cumulus”, “Fluffy”, etc.), or other procedural things like “Grass” or “Fire” or even “Hair”, so that people (even experienced folks) can visualize things quicker. This is what Houdini is good at that people have been doing since PRISMs days, yet when you open up Houdini you really start with a blank slate (other than the Help files). I rarely use the standard shaders and end up making my own in VEX, but I would prefer that to be an option rather than a necessity, and new users shouldn't have to do that.

The character rig is a good start, but there is such a wealth of things that could be done quite simply to open up Houdini to a more mainstream user. And they shouldn't have to go to the Exchange and download standard tools.

Granted for final high quality stuff, we will all likely “roll our own”, but sometimes I want to communicate something quickly and find that Maya just does that easier. (I still don't use Maya, but I hate that it has these advantages…)

-Craig