Hi. In my studio we are currently using XSI and final cut as our main software tools. XSI is pretty good in animation and a lot of things, you know, and final cut… perfect for postproducction. Well, what can Improve Houdini in our pipeline?. Could be Houdini our main software application?.

Thanks in advance

Well, with a question so broad and challenging the only thing I can say is that there is so much you can do with either Maya or XSI without relying on software development and maintenance while you won't need to code in Houdini.

For us, we are in the same situation than you and we are buildging a team of Houdini artists (small) to tacle very complex projects that simply can't be done in XSI or Maya (or at least can't be done the way they need to be done), that simple.

In any case, I will add, go to some of the clases SideFX.

Hope it helps.

Indeed a complex question.

I'll try answering it in a general sense.
Keep in mind these are my personal opinions.
From the standpoint of artists there are generally two types, and I'm making a very broad generalization.
You have the 9-5 worker bees who have found a niche they are comfortable with, who do a good job and that's all they are really looking for. Provided their job is not threatened they have no incentive to learn a new software package.
Then you have the crazy fanatics who are constantly looking for new things to test themselves on and love to dig into the most challenging work. These people are pretty much forced to learn new tools and techniques in order to solve the problems they've dropped themselves into.
For the former, Houdini would make their lives easier provided they were willing to learn it. For the later it's a no-brainer; Houdini can keep up with their curiosity.

From a company standpoint Houdini is simply cheaper. That is of course provided you have users who know Houdini well and are willing to invest in re-jigging of your pipeline and have the time to implement changes.

My opinion is that Houdini should be a company's production backbone. You are never going to be without other software tools, but can regard Houdini almost like an asset manager that comes with production tools.
Due to Houdini's flexibility it is great for the most expensive areas of a production; R&D, rigging/character animation, visual effects, lighting, rendering.
For a small shop, you can do everything but final composit in Houdini. Plus you can take on more work, more complex work, with the same staff.

probbins
Plus you can take on more work, more complex work, with the same staff.

This is very true and would be actually the main reason in my opinion.

Dragos

probbins
…That is of course provided you have users who know Houdini well and are willing to invest in re-jigging of your pipeline and have the time to implement changes.

And these are the deal breakers.
Finding users will improve over time (three cheers for apprentice!),
but integration has to be easier out of the box, so to speak.
This means providing compiled import/export plugins for other
3D apps and render managers. Presently an outfit that wishes to
adopt houdini must add the cost of a programmer, and that still
comes with too many what-ifs. For example: what if a max/xsi/maya
bgeo-reader can't stream-in a topologically varying fluid sim?

Otherwise I totally agree with your answer, so much time could be
saved with Houdini for fx if you have the glue in place. for most
challenging fx shots I'll try re-creating afterwards in Houdini for the
perverse fun of it. usually the setup time in H is about 2~4 hours,
while in max it can be anywhere from a day to a week, depending
on how slow or unstable it gets. tho shader-based fx in max still rule!

cpb
but integration has to be easier out of the box, so to speak.

What happened with the Collada stuff which started so powerful?? A Collada exporter is long overdue and I simply can't understand why the essential part of the integration of Houdini with other packages seems neglected.
Yes, Houdini can BE the pipeline, but to get there you have to FIT it in first.

Dragos

Finding programmers to do your plugin development can be very cheap and effective, if you look in the right place, i.e. East Europe/Russia.

We got mdd/geo in and out of Maya (every attrib/groups supported) that way, in a short amount of time… These formats are so open and easy to code for that I'm sure sesi could put a programmer on it and have it pretty much done in a couple of weeks… very little expense for pluging a huge hole.

For a lot of stuff (especially vehicle animation) we spit out Mdd'd boxes from Maya that we simply attach rivets to in Houdini and parent in our geometry..

Sergio