I have a suggestion/request that could attract a lot of other 3d artists to try out Houdini as well as making the transition easier from other programs.
I would like to see a step by step, explained, and supported set of plugins or functions that allow easy import and export of geometry sequences, basic particle export, and camera data to and from other major software like maya, max, xsi, etc.
Other software, for some reason, just hasn't gotten it together in the ability to import and export obj sequences reliably and without custom scripting. Yeah, there are some public scripts here and there that try to do this in maya, but haven't found one that really works successfully, efficiently, and preserves uv info as a single object.
Perhaps studios are just writing their own custom transfer solutions?
FBX isn't supported in Houdini, there is collada, but so far I haven't seen this publicized very much, or explained well in a step by step document to allow the transfer of info between these programs. If Side Effects took the lead in explaining how to integrate Houdini with existing pipelines, I think it would help everyone involved.
Thanks!