I would like to know more about the general use of Houdini.
It is sold as a “complete” package like Maya and XSI.

But are there people using it like that? For Modeling, Rigging, Animating, FX and Rendering? I'm a Maya user since many years, and always used Maya for virtually everything, apart of NURBS modeling, where I use Rhino.

I enjoy myself in using Houdini a lot, just using the Apprentice Edition, but i wonder if it could ever do, what Maya does: being the heart of my workflow.
I do a lot of product Viz, some FX and Animations. Hardly any Movie & CG integration. But background and Architectural Integration.

How does your pipeline look like?
Are all of you using some other applications as well? If so what kind?
Solely expert applications like ZBrush, specialized in one area or another big package like Maya, XSI?

Thanks to everybody to share your experience to a curious Houdini starter,

I am trying to do my architectural portfolio completely in houdini. Although the workflow for modelling is slower than with CAD, and from what i heard but can't confirm, Maya, it has some great tools. First off, the DA's are way more flexible than anything i have seen in modern CAD packages, it's very easy to make some custom stairs, elevators, windows etc etc in houdini. And you can all texture them, make your own materials and have a pretty decent renderer (okay, okay, a great renderer). You have a compositor to do some post (no need for photoshop and other 2d-progs).

And then the expressions, great way to make weird geometry.

Then the price, 2000$ is nothing compared to the price you pay for Microstation or Autocad (okay, they can do some nice 2d things you can't hardly do in houdini…)

When we use Houdini in a project, we use it for everything: modeling, animation, shading, FX, character rigging and animation, rendering etc. We also do motion-graphics type of works with it and we also use COPs quite a lot.
So yes, for many projects it is the heart of the pipeline.

Dragos

I can just compare it Maya. I use it since many years, I prefer Maya's modeling tools as I tend to keep my operators in order, so after some tweaking I get many, many edit-ops and transform ops and I hate it..so I go back and try to all in one op…effectively loosing time as one eye is always glancing on the node view…I try hard to model in houdini, but it doesn't seem so straight forward to me as the rest of Houdini is (I have to use much less scripting than Maya…)
How do you guys avoid that problem while modeling?. Maya is for sure not the fasted modeler out there but it's ok and I see a lot of effort done by Autodesk in this specific area. Unfortunately I can't judge how important this is for sideFX. The 9.X cycles seems to concentrate on the awesome new GUI and many, many great ready made ops for FX. Fantastic online help etc in general to make houdini more accessible to newcomers and users of competitor's apps, don't they?

Personally I feel that the modeling context needs to have a bunch of things addressed ASAP. The fact that you might want to originate a project in Maya due to the modeling tools makes it harder to justify transitioning into Houdini at a later date. SESI should spend a little more time on the modeling tools and bring them up to standard so that enthusiasts and smaller generalist shops (ie, not a large pipelined situation where you break up the workflow into bits anyway) can start and finish a project in Houdini without feeling like they need to use another modeler. Round out the polygon creation tools, allow modeling on multiple objects at once, align snapping, speed up interaction with PolySplit (look at Mayas) and introduce sub-d modeling in a more integrated way - and I think you'll have decent tool right there.

As for other uses of Houdini; it has been used on several FX features and feature animations as a lighting front-end package. Houdini 9.x has far more power now than Houdini 8.x had - which was a decent option for lighting. I'm very excited to push more feature work through the Houdini 9.x GUI and SOHO pipeline as I think its quite an exciting time for Houdini now.

Regardless of whether you use Mantra or another renderer, Houdini can be used (and customized a lot further) as a lighter. I'm speaking largely from a pipelined feature perspective but I know that along with FBX support and such, it could serve well for any size facility. Using Mantra is a huge bonus - a great renderer at an even better price - but even going out to a renderman-compliant renderer saves you the cost of MTOR and such, with a UI far nicer than MTOR.

Soon IPR will make a reappearance (we hope) and this should be even sweeter.

IMHO, it's worth looking into, if you haven't already.

Cheers,
Jason

I'm pretty new, but with what I've dabbled, there are some killer interface options that make Houdini a sleeping giant for character animation. You can setup the interface with the parameters pane, table view, spline editor, and you're ready to go; I really like how intuitive it is.

I have no doubt that houdini is great character animation program. Rigging should work very fine also compared to Maya. The problem for me as Maya user is that due to the cost of these programs you use one only. Now it is Maya, thanks to the great Houdini Apprentice and HD edition I can sneak into Houdini as much as I want. Thanks for that, SESI!!!!
But the modeling tools leave me a bit in doubt. Maya is no the best modeler, Modo or even XSI are far better. Especially as it looks like Polygon modeling is the weakness of Houdini, NURBS i do in Rhino anyway. Rendering looks ok, for what I use it, even tough MR has great FG features. IPR would be nice, but I ardly use it in Maya.
Therfore I will heave to wait what SESI is doing to solve the modeling issues.
Someone knows if this is on their priority list?
How does Houdini's cycle works? Know we are on 9.5 will there be further major 9.X releases or will they launch a 10 right away?
How was it for the last cycles?