I'm a huge supporter of SideFX and Houdini but I'm getting fed up of all the posts blaming Apple for their faulty drivers and other DCC applications that default to OpenGL 2 in the same manner as Houdini 13 - it's more complicated than that and in the case of other DCC applications defaulting to OpenGL 2 it's simply untrue.

I advise a number of studios that specialise in advertising and design visualisation (so not traditional SideFX customers but Houdini Engine has changed that situation over the last few years). Part of what I do involves benchmarking performance of a range of DCC applications and hardware configurations across Windows, OS X and Linux. Thankfully Houdini's Apprentice version makes this a simple process.

Whilst it's true that OS X has lost the edge as a pro 3d platform, of the major DCC's that are available for OS X (C4D, Maya, Modo & Houdini) only Houdini has such major OpenGL issues. The newest release of Modo, which came out today (full transparency - I'm a Modo beta tester) has a fantastic advanced viewport with IBL lighting that requires OpenGL 3.3 as a minimum and it works on both Nvidia and AMD cards including iMac's with AMD Radeons in the 6000 and 7000 ranges that end with an M (meaning they share resources with the CPU). It doesn't support non discrete Intel options but gracefully degrades and disables the ability for the artist to use the new advanced viewport features (everything else functions as before).

Here's the strange deal with Houdini. On Windows Houdini functions perfectly with Intel HD GPU's commonly found in laptops, the very same GPU's that aren't supported on OS X.

So my question is, why is it that every other DCC vendor can get their viewports functioning well on OS X (and in their latest versions too) but Houdini only supports:

AMD FirePro D300, D500, D700
AMD Radeon 5770, 5870, 7970

Nvidia Quadro K5000
Nvidia Quadro 4000
Nvidia 650M and 750M

SideFX have been doing so much over the last 5 years to make Houdini more artist friendly, more accessible, better documented, more apt for non FX/simulation heavy pipelines; and it's the only DCC application with a fair un-crippled Indie initiative for new young talent entering the creative industries. Not to mention that Mantra has gone from being a REYES centric convoluted TD tool to one of the fastest, most flexible, and yes, easy to use render technologies available.

So forgive me my minor rant, this situation of limited GPU support on OS X really needs to be resolved. No more excuses regarding pals at Apple that promise they'll remedy the situation in the SP. If SideFX's competitors have solved the problem surely SideFX can solve it too.

Vladimir (V-Ray for Modo developer) has said that the bug has been resolved in the latest nightly builds. Also Modo is using a newer build of QT than Houdini and the bug may only be related to those new builds.

I'm one of the Modo beta testers and have mainly been gearing up for the 10.0 release next week. But once that's out in the wild, I plan to check the new V-Ray nightly build for Modo to see if the problem is indeed fixed.

I've found the best thing is to swap of to your external browser of choice for Houdini help by adding this to your Environment Variables file.

HOUDINI_EXTERNAL_HELP_BROWSER = 1

This makes things pretty much plain sailing on that front.

For what it's worth I've been running a bunch of experiments on an old 27" i7 iMac (mid 2011) with a 2Gb AMD Radeon hd 6970m so that I could advise a studio I work with that still have a bunch of these installed. These beasts still have a fair bit of performance in them (especially single core) and those Radeons peform well from an OpenCL perspective (for smaller less memory intensive sims).

Firstly follow all the viewport performance advice here:

http://odforce.net/wiki/doku.php?id=graphicscardissues [odforce.net]

Then disable selection highlighting under main GL viewport options.

When things are set up in this manner Houdini is usable by mainly using ‘laser as a selection method on edges and having the ’select front facing only' enabled then convert to prims or points (whatever's required). If you're after a primitive group selection converting from edge to primitive will always select extra boundary prims but these can easily be de-selected our via CTRL box select.

All a bit of a faff I know but if your stuck on OS X hardware with an unsupported GPU it at least provides a usable workaround.

Swapping to an external browser for the help system as advised earlier helps no end when it comes to stability on OS X too.

The problem with Fink is that it will use Apples own OpenGL drivers so I'm not sure it will offer any advantages over a native OSX install.

http://www.finkproject.org/doc/x11/inst-xfree86.php [finkproject.org]

The only route to go is Bootcamp as this is the only option where you'll be able to download card manufacturer drivers. And Windows is a far easier Bootcamp install.

VMWare Fusion is another alternative is they introduced OpenGL 3.3 in their latest version. It's hit and miss though. Any AMD card with an M at the end is unlikely to work as they're not discrete cards. Definitely worth downloading the demo though.

damian
That is correct. The FAQ on Orbolt is still valid.

Thanks for the confirmation. Very smart move I think, as it will encourage those on a learning path with Apprentice to share their creations for others to learn from too.

All sounds very flexible and useful. As for timing there are plenty of other baking options available in the short term for game/real time engines. From a personal perspective I'm happy if a wait till H16 will mean a more robust/flexible toolset that covers most bases.

Really good to know it's on your radar.

Thanks for your rapid reply.

Great to know that alternate tangent bases will soon be included. I know it's unlikely that you can give an ETA for this but is it likely to happen during the H15 cycle or more likely be something for H16?

Mikk Tangent Space seems to have evolved into the standard for Unity, Unreal Engine and the vast majority of PBR texture creation pipeline tools such as those from Algorithmic, Quixel and The Foundry's Mari & Modo (improved texture baking new to v10).

Does SideFX plan to build MikkT into Mantra texture baking? In researching the issue I found a plugin on Github but it looks like it has problems with H15.

https://github.com/teared/mikktspace-for-houdini [github.com]

Many thanks in advance.

damian
The error is valid. You are trying to load an asset created in Apprentice (.hdanc) in Unity. This is not supported, even with the (now) free Houdini Engine Indie license. Only assets created in Houdini Indie or full Houdini can be loaded by any Houdini Engine plugin.

The FAQ on Orbolt says:

“Can Houdini Apprentice (free non-commercial) version be used to make assets, be sold on Orbolt and used by the customer in commercial games?”

“Yes, that is correct. Orbolt will take assets created in Houdini Apprentice and convert them into commercial format on upload. This allows authors to create full, commercial assets that can be shared with others or sold!”

https://www.orbolt.com/faq/question/102/can-houdini-apprentice-free-non-commercial-version-be-used-make-assets-be-sold-orbolt-and-used-custo [orbolt.com]

Can you confirm that this is still the case with the new Houdini Engine Indie licensing terms? As I understood it, as long as the person creating an asset in Apprentice is willing to share the asset through Orbolt the license allows for those Apprentice made assets to be loaded in Houdini Engine (but obviously only the version downloaded from Orbolt that's been converted into a commercial asset).

Your other option is to make your asset available through the Orbolt share site.

To quote from the Orbolt FAQ:

“Orbolt will take assets created in Houdini Apprentice and convert them into commercial format on upload. This allows authors to create full, commercial assets that can be shared with others or sold!”

https://www.orbolt.com/faq/question/102/can-houdini-apprentice-free-non-commercial-version-be-used-make-assets-be-sold-orbolt-and-used-custo [orbolt.com]

Thanks so much for you detailed reply, it's most appreciated.

Looking at the list of supported AMD GPU's - the AMD FirePro D300, D500, D700
& AMD Radeon 5770, 5870, 7970 - I think it's safe to say no AMD powered iMac's are suitable (even the high end custom builds), Only FirePro powered cylinder Mac Pro's and the last generation Mac Pro's with the 7970. The nVidia powered iMac's with 650/750m's were otherwise weakly specced hardware so I don't think I'll have any clients with ‘workstations’ to that spec.

It's no secret that Houdini doesn't perform well with AMD GPU technologies on Mac's. It seems that many were holding out for the latest revisions in El Capitan to resolve those issues but sadly it hasn't been the case so far.

I provide consultancy services regarding creative technologies to studios that operate in the advertising, design visualisation and architectural visualisation sectors rather than VFX. Houdini has always been viewed as the leading solution for simulation based workflows by these sectors but increasingly it's being seen as a great solution for providing ‘smart assets’ for real time engines via the Engine plugins for Unity and UE. However there's a far greater propensity of Mac hardware in the studio sectors where I work.

So my questions are:

- Should I advise clients looking to utilise Houdini in their workflows to only use bespoke Linux/Windows workstations?

- Does bootcamping into Linux/Windows provide a smoother workflow based on the mix of AMD hardware found in high end Macs over the last 3 years (Mac Pro's and 27" i7 iMacs)? I'm still reading about various problems on the various Houdini related social media platforms.

- Is there a way to run Houdini using OpenGL 2 or to restrict problematic aspects of OpenGL 3 as was the case with Houdini 13 on Mac hardware?

- Considering no other DCC application suffers the same OpenGL issues on OS X (with AMD GPU's) as Houdini, is it possible that the SideFX engineers will find an internal solution to the current viewport problems?

- Are there any strategies that current Mac Houdini artists use to overcome the OpenGL glitches? For instance, it seems that most of the problems are with primitive and point selection and visual feedback provided for these in the openGL viewport.

I'm a beta tester for many DCC vendors including Autodesk, The Foundry and Chaos Group so I'm aware each of these vendors have experienced issues in the past but these have now been resolved. The soon to be released Modo 10.0v1 has in fact really upped its game with it's advanced viewport and this works well across AMD, nVidia and even the latest generation of integrated Intel GPU solutions (although only discrete GPU's are officially supported).

I must admit I find it surprising the number of AMD GPU hardware configurations that are listed as being officially supported that provide a substandard UX only when used on OS X.