The Houdini Apprentice forum is now up and running. You can see it on the main Forum index.

Robert

This forum has been opened to give artists using Houdini Apprentice and Houdini Indie a place to ask questions and post work in progress examples. While Apprentice and Indie users are welcome in any of the Houdini forums this one is meant to offer you a place to join other people learning Houdini for the first time.

To begin learning Houdini, here are a few different places where you can find lessons:

The "Start Here" browser which includes links to tutorials and learning paths. This should open automatically when you start Houdini. If not then choose Help > Start Here.

The Houdini help. Click on the help button in the top right of Houdini's UI. In here you can find help and links to example files.

Getting Started Learning Path:
https://www.sidefx.com/learn/getting_started/ [www.sidefx.com]

Learning Paths:
https://www.sidefx.com/learn/ [www.sidefx.com]

More Tutorials
https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/ [www.sidefx.com]

Good luck and we look forward to hearing from you as you begin working with Houdini and using it for your projects.

Good point.

We will look things over tomorrow at work and figure out the best approach. Thanks for the heads up!

We have considered setting up an Apprentice forum for newer customers but so far old and new customers have mingled very well in the Houdini forums. Everyone is very helpful and willing to answer questions at any level.

For cameras on motion paths, there are options on the camera node itself that you should look at. Draw a curve, create a camera then use the follow path tool (modify shelf) to attach the camera to the path. This will animate it from one end to the other based on your current timeline. You can adjust this animation in the curve editor.

You may also want to control the look at point. Set up a Null object then use the Look at tool to point the camera to the null. Then it can be attached to a different path or animated freely.

Actually this sounds like a good idea for a tutorial. I'll see what I can do….

We are pleased to post Andrew Lowell's Intro to CHOPS video tutorial in the Learning > Tutorials section of sidefx.com. This amazing intro to CHOPs is the first user created lesson in our tutorial section and is now available for download:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1052&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]

Having all of our lessons in a single place will help artists quickly find relevant learning material. Next week we will post some suggestions for capture software and file formats in case you would like to submit a lesson teaching everyone your favorite Houdini technique.

Thanks again to Andrew for this great lesson!

Robert

What a great discussion. thanks for all the suggestions for new lessons and for the nice comments regarding the lessons already built. One thing I have learned after 15 years of creating tutorials for a variety of 3D apps is that there are NEVER enough tutorials.

We will continue to get more lessons online and many of the ideas presented here will be great to incorporate.

Robert

achillepr
I thought that the license was good for the whole version 9 until 10. Yesterday I discovered, in a SideFX mail, that the license is only for 9.0 (until 9.1) version. I think that it isn't a good thing for person like me that use the program only for hobby and learning.

It is true that a new license will be needed to work with 9.1 when it is released. It has always been our plan to make these 9.1 licenses available to Apprentice HD customers for FREE and you can read about this further when we formally announce such an update.

In the future, there will be upgrade fees for Apprentice HD customers at major releases. Which releases require upgrade fees will be determined when the versions are announced. We have released .2 or .5 releases in the past that include more than enough functionality to justify an upgrade fee.

One thing to note is that your current license does not expire when another version comes out. It will be your option to continue using the version you have paid for without upgrading if you don't need the new functionality.

For our commercial customers, all dot releases require new licenses therefore an Annual Upgrade Plan is highly recommended to make sure that all software is up-to-date.

Robert

To everyone,

Thanks for the ideas regarding different ways we could set up the Houdini Apprentice HD prgram. While these ideas are intriguing it is our intention to focus this product on non-commercial projects being done by hobbyists, fan film artists, CG artists doing work in their spare time and of course students.

The term starving artist is a bit tongue in cheek but at the same time it represents the stage in an artists development when they are focusing on their craft and not really making money from it. We didn't make Apprentice a purely student driven initiative because we see a lot of other types of people interested in CG who could benefit from this program without competing and possibly underbidding commercial Houdini customers.

I mentioned in another forum that if someone starts out working on an art piece such as an animation for a festival and this results in you receiving financial reward then a couple things could happen. If your reward is substantial then it would be wonderful to think that you would purchase a commercial version at that point. If it was something less then tell us your story and let us use your art to help show off what Houdini is capable of. I am sure that there is a win-win in there somewhere.

Over at CGtalk, Jason Iverson nicely outlined a few options for renting licenses that would help out artists who want to work with Houdini commercially. These fees can be billed directly to clients and offer a path towards eventually owning a full license.

Robert

We are experiencing technical difficulties with our phone system in Toronto. We have people set up to take incoming calls but problems may persist. If you cannot get through please email us or contact our Santa Monica office. Fixes to these issues should be in place by early next week.

When you use the auto rig tools, you get two rigs to work with. First there is an animation rig which has parented in proxy geometry and then there is a deformation rig that plugs into the animation rig.

Even with relatively high rez geometry, the proxy rig runs smoothly and can be run in real time. You can get this rig set up in your first hour and begin blocking out motion.

The deform rig is then used to capture the geometry to a simple muscle system (instead of bones although you could use bones if you wanted) and when it is ready it will be plugged into the animation rig. If you capture high rez geometry then it will be slower but in all cases you will get interactive feedback. For real time you can then flipbook or turn off the display flag on the deform rig and work with the proxy rig.

The idea of having the handle tool access the operator inside an object is very interesting. For now the handle tool is designed to let you go between different types of objects (lights, cameras, objects) and you get the appropriate “object-level” handle for each. Unfortunately the geometry object y handles are basically just translate/rotate/scale therefore they don't offer any special capabilities.

Another idea that has been floated around would be to have distinct looks for the object vs geometry level handles. That way as you navigate up and down there is some visual clue that something has changed.

The relationship between the object and geometry levels is one that inevitably requires some explanation. We have promoted some aspects of the geometry level up so that they don't get missed.

Robert

I have encountered the same problem in some cases. The menu is certainly the easiest way and we will look into this. Until then you can click on the input on the second node then again in empty space to disconnect. Let us know if this does not offer a workaround for you.

Robert

onesk8man
Thanks for the reply. it works ok.
Maybe the problem was that i was rendering with “render region” and with that tool is doing some weird things. Can you tell me why? Doesn't make sense :?:

By default the render region tool uses a default mantra which is not very good quality - it is designed for very rough tests and you have no control over it. If you create a render node with Render > Create Render Node then when you use Render Region you can choose the mantra node from the operator control bar.

onesk8man
Aswell I don't understand why I need to point the light to the object

The depth map itself comes from a camera that is attached to the light. if the camera is not looking at the object then the shadow map will not be rendered.

onesk8man
Also, I'm trying to render particles with a light template + shadow shader in depth shadow, and it's ok, I'm getting a shadow, but I cant find where can I setup the transparence

Why are you sing a light template instead of one of the lights on the shelf. That light should have all the controls you need for tranparent shadows whether you render with raytracing or depth maps.

Steven - what is the problem you have encountered with the default light. It does have depth map shadow support built in and all the bells and whistles we felt were needed. If anything is missing please let us know. (I did see the thread earlier about camera controls).

Joe
Also, the new, easy to download FX Tools [sidefx.com] shelf works in Escape too, so if the prebuilt tools we ship are to your liking, you don't need Master at all.

Joe is being a bit optimistic here. The FX tools offer a good taster set of visual effects tools but generally speaking you would need Houdini Master for most effects work.

The chart on the pricing page [sidefx.com]gives you a breakdown of features in the two packages. As you can see Escape is great for everything from modeling, to animation, to character work and lighting and rendering. Effects and Dynamics are the domain of Houdini Master. Working together you can do your TD work in Master and then animate in Escape but until our FX toolset grows considerably then Houdini Master is necessary for effects.

We recently repriced Master to make it more affordable to shops that want access to these higher end tools. I think that you would find that the time you would take to work around Escape's limitations would soon set you back more than the cost of one Houdini Master license to anchor your pipeline.

Robert

Side Effects Software has just released a technical paper outlining methods for “Building Tools in Houdini 9.” After putting together the FX Tools (that are available on the shelf for download from the Exchange), the Production Consulting team pooled together everything they learned into a single document. You can access this document from the following URL:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=966&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]]http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com…&Itemid=132 [sidefx.com]

This is technical paper was created by the Side Effects Software Production Consulting team to help you work with Houdini’s more advanced tools. To help us understand how you are using this document, please send your feedback to Senior Production Consultant Judith Crow at judith@sidefx.com .

Robert

probbins
At Object level, should there be a hot key combination( Ctrl-Alt?), or some other option, so that when I call in a primitive I'm automatically sent to that objects sop space?

There are actually two hotkey options. You can either press 2, 3, or 4 to go to the geometry level and begin selecting respectively points, edges, or faces. Another option is to press F8 which toggles between object and geometry levels. Your last geometry selection mask will be there when you toggle with F8.

This hotkey is designed to help “M” users transition because it is the hotkey for toggling between object/component levels in that app. The 2, 3, 4 hotkeys offer more choices.

Houdini 9 was designed so that if you make a selection first (go to sop level and select faces) then polyextrude then the extrude will happen right away. If you have an object selected at the object level and click polyextrude first then Houdini puts you into sop mode and prompts you for a selection. M just polyextrudes every face on the object but we thought that that was a little presumptuous. Therefore we revert to an action/selection method which then requires that you confirm the selection.

Robert

We have just posted some of the videos that we bshowed at SIGGRAPH. The artist demo reel, fluid examples and dragon animation are all available from the following location:


http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=872&Itemid=243 [sidefx.com]

For the first time ever, Side Effects is offering Masterclass sessions where you will be able to learn directly from Side Effects Software developers and product experts. Each session costs $100 USD or you can purchase all six sessions for $400 USD. You can also register free for our lunchtime experts panel.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=821&Itemid=215 [sidefx.com]

Register here:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=763&Itemid=182 [sidefx.com]

To celebrate 20 years in the CG business, Side Effects Software has posted a video highlighting a bit of our history.

We have also announced that July 10th will be the official release date for the Houdini 9 public beta. One of the tutorial videos has been posted to give everyone a taste for what the new redesigned User Interface has to offer.

You can find the article here:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=758&Itemid=66 [sidefx.com]