well, my teacher recommended I try this program, but I'm being patient and waiting ‘cause there’s a server problem or something so I am unable to open it yet… anyhow I am very curious about houdini in general i've searched around the site and was inspired by alot of the things I've seen around here, not to mention it has a very personable atmosphere… Honestly I have never even heard of this program before my teacher mentioned it, and I was trained in class using “Lightwave”… so I guess I have two questions than:

1. Can a full version of houdini be used in the “gaming” field at all ?

2. Would I find Houdini user friendly, to be able to dive right in and try things out? What I guess I mean is, I'm fluent in lightwave, and have a good knowledge of 3Dmax, the transition to Houdini won't prove to be too difficult would it?

ops: anyhow sorry if I sound goofy or whatever, but if you have an opinion or would like to share what you think about it, I would certainly appreciate it.

Thanks

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Yup, houdini is used in gaming.

And yup, you should be able to “dive right in”. I would caveat that with the expectation that you'll find some things a little different. You might be working in modelling and wonder why a particular approach is used in the tutorial…more often than not it's because Houdini is the only program out there that is really, truly and completely procedural. Other packages are partially, at best. This used to be a big stumbling block for some, but it's come a long way to having a workflow that can hide a lot of that from you, if you choose. That's where the power of Houdini lies, though.

Have fun!(once the server is working )…

Cheers,

J.C.

Thank you very much JColdrick,
I appreciate your help and info!

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Hi there,

With regards to your licensing issues, try this link [sidefx.com]. In the meantime, you can visit the Sydney VisLab mirror [sidefx.com] for tutorial videos etc. 3dbuzz [3dbuzz.com] also has an online course which will help you to get started.

questionmark
1. Can a full version of houdini be used in the “gaming” field at all ?

Houdini has been used by Square, Genki & Konami for many years so the answer to your question is yes. And Roman Race [romanrace.com] is created entirely with Houdini.

2. Would I find Houdini user friendly, to be able to dive right in and try things out? What I guess I mean is, I'm fluent in lightwave, and have a good knowledge of 3Dmax, the transition to Houdini won't prove to be too difficult would it?

I'll just say Houdini is different from most, if not all, 3D packages out there. If you go through some of the intro videos or the Overview in the User Guide, you should be able to find your way around. Also, what John said.

Good luck & have fun!

Cheers!
steven

COOL !!!
Thanks Stevenong appreciate the info !
and thanks for the link(s) too I'll try it as soon as I get home !

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it does take a bit to think the houdini way but it sounds like you know general 3d concepts which are universal. have fun

stevenong, thanks for the link it worked, it took a few tries to finally figure out how to get the installation going but I'm determined some times and I got it going.

mark2 thanks for your support and confidence, however, when I first opened houdini last night I sat there and stared at it for about 15 mins thinking to myself “ what the #$% ? ” those were exact same words I said when I opened my first lightwave except I was a little more vulgar opening LW … I do have some reading to do before I dive into it, from what I was able to figure out, it is much “smoother” than lightwave although I can't quite explain what I mean by that… and access to setups and tools seems to be easier than I thought. So far I like it, but must read for now to figure how the heck I can really get cracking at it…

Thank you all for your help and input… I am very pleased !

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COOL, it's not too bad at all ! the tuts are really straight forward and give a really good understanding of the tools, quite honestly it's a good set up as far as I'm concerned… gonna go fool around some morewith it! I found some things that are set up differently than I'm used to, at the same time some of the tools are arranged better than I'm used to…
I like it !

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You might want to check out the training vtm's over at 3dBuzz.com. They are well made and easy to follow. There's even an online Houdini course if you want to follow; but, don't expect assignments to be reviewed fast (after all it is free and the guys are super busy; so you can't complain about it).

thanks very much cyclinggimpe I'll check that out for sure ! free online course ?!? that sounds interesting I'll start with the tuts' first though
I really appreciate your help!

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