I still do all my rigging in Softimage using Gear. I find it fairly easy to use, the prebuilt rigs (biped and quad) do 99 percent what I need and adding "bones" is really straight forward. I really want to move away from Softimage eventually. Perhaps some could comment on the ease of use of the new system in Houdini, I am not super technical, I prefer prebuilt setups.

thanks

Out of curiosity, how are you using the rigs built in Softimage?!

I am using an addon Gear which came from Blur (or a guy from Blur, back when they used softimage). It is a very nice addon that allows you to easily make rigs, but I mainly use it for their prebuilt biped guides and quadped guides. Or are you suprised that Softimage still opens in Windows 11

Maybe a better question is if anyone is using the tools, if no one really uses the character tools, that doesn't bode well for future upgrades.

coccarolla
Out of curiosity, how are you using the rigs built in Softimage?!

Im pretty sure OP is also animating them in Softimage, not in Houdini

jamination
I am using an addon Gear which came from Blur (or a guy from Blur, back when they used softimage). It is a very nice addon that allows you to easily make rigs, but I mainly use it for their prebuilt biped guides and quadped guides. Or are you suprised that Softimage still opens in Windows 11

Maybe a better question is if anyone is using the tools, if no one really uses the character tools, that doesn't bode well for future upgrades.

I'm just curious if you are exporting them, animating them in SI... how are you integrating SI into your 2026 workflow basically!

coccarolla

jamination
I am using an addon Gear which came from Blur (or a guy from Blur, back when they used softimage). It is a very nice addon that allows you to easily make rigs, but I mainly use it for their prebuilt biped guides and quadped guides. Or are you suprised that Softimage still opens in Windows 11

Maybe a better question is if anyone is using the tools, if no one really uses the character tools, that doesn't bode well for future upgrades.

I'm just curious if you are exporting them, animating them in SI... how are you integrating SI into your 2026 workflow basically!

I do all my character animation in Softimage. I use Houdini for motion graphics and pyro/water stuff. I am hoping to eventually move to doing character stuff elsewhere. I have exported from Softimage to Houdini via Redshift proxy (I didn't want to mess with retexturing) 1x for something simple. I enjoy using Houdini as an ICE replacement for motion graphics, it is a pretty similiar workflow. Some things in Houdini are quite combersome, I was hoping the new character stuff had a nice workflow.

I'm constantly wondering if there is anyone that can create something like Gear for Softimage, or its counterpart mGear, or even uGear for Unreal, but to work for Houdini. I'm sure there would be clients willing to even buy it. Me first!
I unfortunately had to move away from Softimage, but in Maya, mGear made rigging possible. Without it, it's the same mess as Houdini is now, hahahaha.
We really need something user-friendly and straightforward in Houdini. Unless regular people are not the target audience for Houdini at all, but only bigger studios with dedicated geniuses who handle rigging alone — not small teams that juggle a ton of things at once. 😄

Thanks for the post Mirko, I hoping for better news but I appreciate your input for sure. I have watched some videos, but it is hard to find the time with day to day stuff to do. Some of the stuff looks promising but some looks like a long hike. Plus I would still need to animate in houdini afterwards, and I tend to rely on softimage aniamtion mixer alot, I get a strong feeling this would be another problem when using Housini.