First of all, thank you Jordi for all your work on the guides & thanks to SideFX for creating this section on your forum.
Personally, I have still not decided where to go. Houdini 14 looks like a big step in the right direction, but I still have one major concern.
I need to be fast in whatever software I'm using. And, although I realize no matter what app I end up switching to it'll take a while to get up to speed, I'm hesitant to switch to Houdini because I have this gut feeling that Houdini isn't designed to be “fast” but instead it's designed to be flexible.
What I mean is, my feeling is that working in Houdini is like trying to do absolutely everything with ICE in Softimage. I feel like, you can't just quickly slap something together for a rush job because everything in Houdini requires a LOT of initial setup.
I hope I'm being clear enough. I suppose an analogy would be this.
If I was a woodworker and a client asked me to build a birdhouse, the Softimage version would be that I already have all the pieces of wood, pre-cut to the proper measurements to build the birdhouse. But, I also have a toolbox full of tools that will allow me to totally customize the birdhouse if necessary.
The Houdini version would be, I have an enormous toolbox, but in order to build the birdhouse, I have to first go out and cut down a tree, drag it to a sawmill, design, measure, and create all the pieces I need for the birdhouse, then I can start to build the birdhouse. And, some of the tools I need might not exist in the toolbox, but instead I have been given the components necessary to build the tools from scratch. The great news for the client is, this birdhouse is a procedural birdhouse, so even after it's “done” the client can still request changes.
I sort-of feel like a lot of Houdini users are brilliant object-oriented coders who spend an enormous amount of time building things so they can show how customizable and flexible their setup is. But while it's really neat when a staircase can grow or shrink based on a slider, or a bunch of trees can be manipulated based on a random seed number, or a building can have new floors added & windows changed procedurally, 90-95% of the time I go into a project with all that stuff designed and agreed upon before the production started, so adding all those gee-wiz controls is just a waste of my time.
That's what's frustrating about losing Softimage. Softimage isn't perfect, but it combines a lot of the best features from all the packages on the market. It allows me to jam through rush jobs, but still has the power tools ready to go if I need them.
Wow, what a long and rambling post this has become! I sincerely hope you guys don't take what I'm writing as an insult. Houdini is freaking amazing. But, while I realize the trend is towards specialized packages, I still need a core application that handles the majority of my workload.
I personally don't think it makes business sense to spend the amount of money SideFX is charging to use Houdini only in the cases where I need ICE-like power. It needs to be able to do all the generalist stuff Softimage can do (quickly) AND have the muscle to tackle complex procedural stuff as well.
Does that make sense?
-Paul