Hi,

I am considering purchasing Kaydara Motionbuilder for use with Houdini Select.

Kaydara has a special offer on.

I would not be able to save up enough money (ever) to purchase Houdini Master so I am considering doing character animation in Motionbuilder and use Houdini Select for the rest of the stuff.

Any advice.

Cheers

I was thinking the same thing, but was wondering how you would use it specifically.

Would you model in Houdini, then rig and animate in Kaydara and then bake out geometry frame by frame to import into Select? I don't know Kaydara's capabilities, so that is why I ask.

I was also considering Poser since the new one supposedly has decent cloth and hair dynamics. Not sure though.

-Craig

craiglhoffman
Would you model in Houdini, then rig and animate in Kaydara and then bake out geometry frame by frame to import into Select? I don't know Kaydara's capabilities, so that is why I ask.

I was also considering Poser since the new one supposedly has decent cloth and hair dynamics. Not sure though.

-Craig

Something along the line you have describe. I am just unsure if Kaydara's export capabilities allows for that. I am sure Houdini is flexible enough to slice and dice what ever is thrown at it.

Kaydara has a US$200 special offer for Motionbuilder 5 that expires 31Dec2003 for those using the current MotionBuilder 4 Personal Edition.

I guess the only way is for me to download the eval and verify.

I'll see how far I can get and if I get stuck with the frame by frame import, I post in this forum again for help.

Cheers
–

hope you can post your results Nicholas, for those of us not on studio budgets

mta
hope you can post your results Nicholas, for those of us not on studio budgets

Interim report:

MotionBuilder likes to deal mainly with FBX format. Until Houdini import FBX, we are SOL.

Having said that, I understand that Wings3D has an FBX import/export but as Wings3D does not yet (not that I know of) have the concept of animation, we may not be able to get the geometry out just yet.

Maybe Poser is the way to go.

I'll look at Wings3D (also need to learn the Erlang programming language) to see if I can export the animated geometry from it.

Next report will not be so soon, probably this weekend.

Cheers

Another update

• I have not been able to reuse the license since my machine crash and Kaydara was unwilling to re-issue licenses
  From reading the documentation, MB 4 exports 3DS and DXF files
  I have now been looking at LIfeForm studio which also exports 3DS and DXF files
  3DS is binary and will require a parser to rewrite those out as hscript command to reconstruct the animation
  DXF are number so it is possible to write hscript or even SOP to suck them in for rendering frame by frame
  
  
  
  I will be exploring the feasibility of a 3DS to hscript translator.
  
  3DS format has some mesh polygon count limitation so I will need to concentrate on subdivision surface polygon cage for a start.
  
  I have no idea how long it will take.
  
  I also have access to 3DSMax 2.5 for which I can export some character animation in 3DS format as a start.
  
  I'll post the result when I finish the translator as I will need help with testing.
  
  Cheers

I've wondered for some time if the reason Houdini Select doesn't support RIB output might be because of a licensing issue with Pixar. Is this correct? (And if all Houdini products came with the HDK, one could start writing there own RIB ROP)

For $1,200 USD, Select is an incredible deal! But not having RIB output is a real drag for us prman fans; I was hoping for a Select/BMRT pipeline. Nice way to go for a small studio.


–Mark

Hey,

Can BMRT be used for commerical purposes legally? I thought the end user agreement said it was for non-commerical only. I have not looked the end-user agreement in a very long time. So … I could be far off the mark.

Cheers,
Nate Nesler

I've wondered for some time if the reason Houdini Select doesn't support RIB output might be because of a licensing issue with Pixar. Is this correct?

I doubt it - Pixar doesn't own the renderman spec AKAIF. It's probably more about just being one less thing you get with Select - thus keeping the price down.

And if all Houdini products came with the HDK, one could start writing there own RIB ROP

Non-trivial.

Cheers,

J.C.

MatrixNAN
I thought the end user agreement said it was for non-commerical only. I have not looked the end-user agreement in a very long time.

Unless it's changed since the Pixar vs. Exluna “event”, I believe the license asks for $100 if you use it for production. I'll check on that and let you know if I'm wrong.


–Mark

Hi John!

JColdrick
I doubt it - Pixar doesn't own the renderman spec AKAIF.

I thought for sure that Pixar did have copyright protection on the spec itself, at least in the sense that one is required to give credit to Pixar, licensing may be another issue. Guess I should look into this further. I'd be happy to pay another $100 or so for RIB output.

JColdrick

And if all Houdini products came with the HDK, one could start writing there own RIB ROP

Non-trivial.

Perhaps, but I'm up for the challenge!


–Mark