I don't want to start a flame war, just curious about the subject. I have never really gotten into 3ds Max's Max Creation Graph (MCG), looks like our VOPs. I have seen a few deformation tools from the demos and I use a couple of clone based tools from other users, but i haven't seen much else. Is MCG comparable to Houdini. Probably not, but to what extent? Again, thought the subject is very susceptible to flaming and hate, please don't.

houdini is a top procedural based product that beats MCG for sure but that is not the main question.

do you want to learn houdini ?
or/and do you want to learn MCS ?

both will expand your knowledge even if MCS is not that mature it will gives you knowledge that helps you for your projects and that's the main goal.

The question was mostly for curiosity, how well does MCG stack up to houdini. Generally I am a fan of Houdini and it's community, so if I go all out in to proceduralism, it will be Houdini no doubt. I am already dabbling with it here and there but I want to get real world problems (on the gaming side of things) to truly exercise my brain wrinkles .

I posted a friendly ‘challenge’ on odforce to see if someone could do this in Houdini…the effects you see is done with MCG…….yes by me…and no I'm not one for any flame war…I'm into H16 big time now…

(still waiting for someone to show me it can be done, I certainly think it can be done, I just don't know enough VEX yet)

What principles I learnt doing MCG, apply exactly the same in Houdini !!

On the last version of MCG do they removed the needs to compile and load ? On the first version at least that was the fail ;-)

not sure what you meant but pre 2018, you ‘install’ the script (MCG) with a few clicks…then it ‘works’…if you tinker with the graph…then you ‘evaluate’ to run the modded graph…For 2018, you simply drag/drop the script say from file explorer into your viewport and it just works…

dunno what you meant by fail tho… bear in mind Houdini is a node based procedural beast right from the start…while MCG is 2 yrs old

I have definitely used your plugins, vusta! They have come in handy. It's cool to know that MCG works very similar to Houdini.
I am sure the curly effect can be done in houdini, I started thinking about it but i don't have enough knowledge to execute my idea.
But here it goes if someone is interested:
Start from a spiral (there is an expression for it) and rotate from the second point (starting from the base) onward, when ever the 3ed point matches the position of 3ed point in the straight line. Repeat the effect with the 3ed point as a pivot and so on. Not entirely sure for the path follow part.
On the side note the effect is very satisfying to watch.

very nice effect, and would love to learn it in Houdini :p