I just discovered the existence of Houdini yesterday. I'm trying to evaluate whether it could help me satisfy my intensions or not, and I'm at a point where I think I could be greatly aided by a reality check from the experienced and talented veterans on this forum. So I'm hoping some might read my little narrative and offer up some feedback on how close or far from reality I am so far.

My aim is to produce complete CG animations with realistic human CG models acting in photorealistic settings. For this I need to be able to create a library of animated background assets that can be loaded into each scene without starting again from scratch, and integrated with the scene through global settings and procedural interdependencies of one sort or another.

I like the idea that in Houdini I might be able to take the design of a few kinds of tree that wave in the wind, and clone them into a dynamic forest canopy that moves with the changing weather and casts detailed shadows on the ground.

I also like the way, from the gallery examples I've seen, the tools are able to blend special effects and live action.

My main concern is that in all the Houdini galleries I've found so far (since yesterday), I have not found a single example of a realistic human CG character acting in a scene.

So there could be a couple explanations. One is that it's just too hard to do, and so nobody tries it. The other is that it's not really that much harder in Houdini than in other platforms, but the results of human CG character animation in general aren't in the same league as what professional film projects require, so nobody bothers with it.

Or it could be somewhere in between. Any thoughts?

My ideal scenario would be to be able to take commercial props and figures from the vast hobbyist libraries out there (essentially doing a casting call at Renderosity.com) and convert the ones I like, modify and re-rig them into Houdini assets, and then animate them in Houdini. Does anybody do that in real life? I know if it were possible, there would be some brilliant examples out there somewhere. Maybe someone could point me toward them.

If not, any thoughts on how I might best use Houdini in combination with some other tools like Maya or Poser to create the kind of projects I described?

Cheers.

I have not found a single example of a realistic human CG character acting in a scene.

When you find one, anywhere, let us know. It's probably the single most difficult thing to accomplish with VFX.

Houdini would be well suited to the technical challenges you mention, except casually mentioning ‘realistic human characters’ throws the whole topic out of whack. It's a topic of huge debate and complexity( the Uncanny Valley [en.wikipedia.org] discusses issues which are just as much, if not moreso, related to digital people than to robots, which it was originally designed to challenge).

Crowd scenes, from a distance? Sure.

Cheers,

J.C.

When you find one, anywhere, let us know. It's probably the single most difficult thing to accomplish with VFX.

I know what you mean. Let's say I want to create my very own Final Fantasy movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Movie [en.wikipedia.org]

I don't exactly. I mean I would if I could, but that would be nuts.

But Let's say it anyway. Would Houdini be of any help at all? :wink: Does anyone do anything along those lines with this product?

What would be of even more significance then the software used, is your ability to drag 400 of your closest friends (and world renowned talent) to help you in your massive undertaking.

If your question implies “Can houdini help me achieve this without a world-class pipeline, an amazing talented crew, and lots and lots of perseverance (and money) ?”, then my answer would be a resounding no. No piece of software can.

All personal fan-boy issues aside – i'm a houdini fan, no doubt about that – there is no huge shortcoming in ANY commercial platform these days to prevent such a thing from happening. I think, anyway.

G

If your question implies "Can houdini help me achieve this without a world-class pipeline,

Not at all. I just gave the movie as an example of the style of effect I am interested in. Specifically it's attempt to create more realistic looking human characters using figures with carefully crafted and highly detailed skin textures. I would like to see some examples of how people have attempted this using Houdini. Of if it isn't the tool for that, what are some specific high-level suggestions for combining Houdini VFX with the output of a program like Zbrush, Maya, Poser, etc.

One is that it's just too hard to do, and so nobody tries it. The other is that it's not really that much harder in Houdini than in other platforms, but the results of human CG character animation in general aren't in the same league as what professional film projects require, so nobody bothers with it.

It certainly is possible to create and animate human characters (as assets) in Houdini. Perhaps even a better way, given that models, rigs, muscles, materials and character fx can be improved quite independent of the animation and any asset improvements can easily be applied to any or all the animated shots. The fact that few people do it is due to Houdini's small share in the character market, not because Houdini lacks these capabilities. That, and of course, doing photo-real characters in any package still requires a fair amount of TD work to get convincing humans (skin shaders, muscle jiggle, etc.)

CORE did “The Wild” primarily in Houdini. They ran some of development work (fur, feathers, muscles, etc) in parallel with animation. Even facial and body rigs could get updates during the course of the production. (There were about 70 unique animal characters or about 130 counting variations). The Wild also had nice environments (IMHO) done in Houdini. While this movie is not humans, you might want to take a look at The Wild and see what was possible in Houdini for full animation (H5 I think it was).

I would check out some of the commercials from framestore cfc … very cool use of Houdini crowds / animation / muscles / skin deformations and dynamics etc. I saw their presentation at siggraph and was floored.

Of course, one person can't accomplish this task without the resources mentioned in earlier posts. You'd basically have to be the director. And I think their is also a question of specialization you're bringing up with Houdini. It's very possible to use Houdini as a character modeling/unwrapping/texturing tool, but most don't including myself. Houdini is great for doing very large or specialized tasks. That's IMO what it's feature set, user base, and workflow are geared towards. The creation of characters etc would be something many applications can do, which is why you see so much of that type of work from artisans using things like max/maya/modo/zbrush/lightwave etc. Since they don't need to use Houdini to do it, they choose technically easier packages.

Another thing I'd mention is the fact that it might be feasible to get realistic form after quite a bit of work, but once the animation starts it's just as difficult if not more difficult to maintain that realism and get realistic motion.

What we see in the movies is often a combination of very complex rigging tricks like muscles/morphs/rig dynamics etc, very skilled animation, and motion capture from studio actors. And, to actually make it look “real” in animation goes far beyond the model and gets very heavily into the lighting and rendering within the scne, also the compositing with live action.

This would apply to a feature film just like an individual 10 second scene.

But, all things being equal I'd say that if an individual did want to get a world-class pipeline into a single computer and scene, Houdini would be the best choice. Houdini has the ability to automate tasks using “Digital Assets” which is lacking in other programs. This allows a user to automate a pipeline without being a programmer, and can greatly reduce work in the long term, although you have a question of more setup time.

In the category of “easier said than done”, I hope someone will at some point put together some asset templates that will simplify the task of reading a Poser figure file into Houdini, with all shaders and materials, etc., attached, along with bones and morph targets and IK chains, and provide appropriate hooks to allow it to be animated straight away.

With the growing interest in Houdini Apprentice, this would be a very popular feature and get more budding character artists and future virtual cinematographers into Houdini, I am certain.

Until then I can't help feel a sense of something unrealized in that these two worlds, so meant for each other, are still so divided.

it would be more appropriate for the Poser developers to enable Poser users to export animated geometry…and I think Poser supports Python, so there you go…
then simply bring that into Houdini…

I don't want SESI to waste their time on this…

I don't want SESI to waste their time on this…

I suppose that sentiment explains the divide as well as anything. I certainly won't offer any arguement. For the record though, within the community that develops those kinds of characters, Poser files are as close to a standard exchange format as there is.

I can understand the distaste felt toward that community, but I also know I personally could benefit from the crossover.

I would think Houdini would be a better animation package with auto-rig / muscles / etc. Just import into Houini as an .obj, spend some time and make a great rig (there's a human skeleton on exchange), and great shaders, and there you go.

After that a lot of it can be automated with da's or scripted. I don't think there's a disconnect there, it's more the fact that studios already have these pipelines set up. Individuals normally don't.

I would think Houdini would be a better animation package with auto-rig / muscles / etc. Just import into Houini as an .obj, spend some time and make a great rig (there's a human skeleton on exchange), and great shaders, and there you go.

Actually, that's what I figured too, which was why I asked for the reality check. The more I think it through, admittedly knowing next to nothing about Houdini, the more problems I think there are going to be.

I would love to see some good examples of it if it has been done. If the examples don't exist by now I doubt it can be done well.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your comment …. did you see the stuff from framestore? or core? Clearly this has been done well.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your comment …. did you see the stuff from framestore? or core? Clearly this has been done well.

Sorry Andrew, I checked the framestore web site but couldn't identify anything human that was done with Houdini. Do you have a link? If someone has a good link to a concrete example, it would really help me move on.

Of course, I'm talking about ordinary human characters with skin, hair, eyes and clothing that are fairly realistic, not too cartoonish, and not tweaked from live footage.

granted a human has more complexities but I think the animal-work is incredible and very realistic. The same methods are involved with muscles etc.

I agree the animal work is amazing. It blows me away too. The step up to sympathetic digital human characters is still very big, and to be possible for individuals working primarily from commercial library art, it's a huge step. If I didn't feel it was getting tantalizingly close, I'm sure I wouldn't bother to push it.