Hi there,

I got Houdini Indie license but modeling seems to be less intuitive then in Maya.
Maybe it's just I'm real noob to Houdini. Anyway I was wondering, if you guys
would suggest Maya LT for Modeling/Animation work and than Houdini Indie for
VFX/Simulation. Any ideas? Opinions?

Modeling in a separate application and importing the geometry to Houdini for sims / lighting / rendering and such has become a pretty standard workflow. Many folks these days for example are modeling in modo and taking everything over to Houdini for FX and simulations.

It's true that your basic poly modeling in Houdini isn't as immediately intuitive as in other 3D applications, and there are some common modeling tasks (bridging edges is one that immediately comes to mind) that don't really have direct analogs in Houdini, in the sense that although you can certainly accomplish them, the method is often awkward and non-obvious. With that said, I think learning a bit of modeling in Houdini can be still be very worthwhile, even if only as an exercise to familiarize yourself with the software - a familiar task such as modeling can help you get your head around Houdini's node-based workflow without the added burden of dealing with complex dynamics systems and such. Also, remember that the number one rule in Houdini is to always keep things procedural whenever possible, so if you model in Houdini with that in mind you can very quickly make changes rather than having to go back to Maya and re-export your model every time you need to tweak something.

This course [rohandalvi.net] from Rohan Dalvi is a very good introduction to modeling in Houdini if you're interested in learning more.

Hi John,

thank you for your reply. I have to improve my modeling skills in
Houdini and without question I will do that (thanks for tutorial link).

But it's nice to hear I ain't the only one who does modeling and
animation in other 3D package. I have no idea how good the Mantra
actually is, but I dive right into it with Digital-Tutors course. If it does
good job, then I think there is no reason to not to finish shot there.
Besides, Maya LT has no rendering capabilities at all and Houdini Indie
does not support other render engines so I have to stuck with Mantra
anyway. Would you agree?

Mantra is really good, it won't disappoint you. I used almost every single production renderer out there and Mantra is one of my top favourites. Just make sure you get a strong grasp on some key concepts like energy conservation, and eventually how light works in real life. You're in good hands with Mantra

hi tinyparticle, great! good to know. I used to use mentalray and maxwell render.

Depending on what type of modelling you do, and your budget, you can use other not-so-expensive tools as well. For example 3D Coat.

yeah, I got 3D-Coat too, but I don't do sculpting a lot.

Dalibor Kalna
hi tinyparticle, great! good to know. I used to use mentalray and maxwell render.

In serious production, mantra is more robust than both. It is very flexible since it gives you the freedom to choose whichever approach you want to use in a specific situation. You can choose to use it like arnold and trace everything or you can use the micropolygon engine like prman, or you can bake photon maps and use them like you do in mental ray. Mantra is very flexible and powerful. It is also fast if you know how to use it and which approach to use it with in a given situation.

well, that sounds like I have to learn a lot…