Hi,

I am completely new to Houdini, I have seen what is possible with it and I am really interested in learning the application.

I plan to use it solely with Unreal Engine 4.

I checked the pricing on Houdini Indie and it is a little confusing, I don't know what I need to be paying for. There was an option for Houdini Indie $99 and then another option $199 for Houdini Engine. Would I need both of these if I only plan to use Houdini with Unreal Engine 4?

I want to be able to make make content with Houdini and use in Unreal Engine 4, not as a modelling application but for the procedural tools.

I am completely new to the program and I still don't know what else it is capable of.

Thanks,

Dave.

1. the price houdini is 199$ that includes the houdini engine functionality on that workstation. you don't have to buy the houdini engine 99$ for that workstation!
the license is only for one workstation.

2. for learning i think it makes sense to just download houdini apprentices and get a bit comfort how it works and when you have the basic you could buy the houdini indie. or just buy the license then you know you have to learn with no excuse. :-)

3. Tutorials:
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=247&Itemid=403 [sidefx.com]
older tutorials but mostly still good:
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=134&Itemid=344 [sidefx.com]

if you are interested too, my tutorials cover a bit about Houdini in unreal as well, and are focused on procedural content creation. No tutorials on Houdini engine yet (hope to have some soon!), but the tutorials in there will give you a good idea on how to setup a vanilla pipeline from Houdini to Unreal

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjOCJrhSBGUG9uqJ2rMe6ByLJcTD9Jau7 [youtube.com]

You have the pricing backwards. Houdini Indie is $199 and the Houdini Engine Indie is $99.

Houdini Indie ($199) includes the Houdini application AND the Houdini Engine. The Houdini Indie Engine @ $99 is the engine only.

Houdini Indie Engine would only be appropriate for using Houdini assets already created by someone else. If you want to create your own assets you need the full Indie license.

As another mentioned, there's also the Free apprentice version for learning the application and creating assets. However, the UE4 plugin requires at least the Indie version.