GCharb
Bah, Blender is mostly hype to drive donations, a stack of half-baked tools that rarely get finished to a proper level, as for Houdini, I feel for you, but Indie at 200 USD per year on a 2-year subscription is a bargain, especially compared to the 7K full price, maybe you would have better chances if you asked if a user would be willing to convert the files for you!
Yeah, that's what I'm finding out too, it's a good start point but as I learn I'm starting to find out Blender wants to do a lot of things but doesn't really excel at most of them, some of which are important for my project, so that's when I started looking for alternatives and Houdini seems like a very interesting one for a big part of what I'm aiminig to do.
I might learn Houdini with Apprentice though and save the money for it while I learn but I'm not really happy to pay it like that because I don't know if in one year I'll have the 269 dollar at once again, not everyone is in the same financial situation and having the amount of money for a full year can be a difficult task sometimes or in a bad timing that ends up delaying the renewal for a long time period depending on the situation. Anyways thanks for the hints and understanding