One of the key goals of the Apprentice Program has always been to provide a way for the community to keep their Houdini skills up-to-date. In order to ensure that everyone using Apprentice HD has access to the latest release, the HD program will be moving to an annual license. This new Apprentice HD license will cost $99, include all major and minor upgrades and can be renewed annually.

Anyone who purchased Apprentice HD up to 90 days before the release date will be sent a Houdini 12 license which will expire on the anniversary of its original purchase. All other Apprentice HD customers will need to pay the $99 annual fee to join the program. If you choose not to renew then you can continue to work with a free Apprentice license and can rejoin the HD program at any time.

Houdini 12 is going to be an exciting release with a wealth of features and performance enhancements which make it significantly faster and more memory efficient. With a new geometry engine, targeted optimizations to dynamics and rendering, and viewport enhancements, you will be able to accomplish more and iterate faster. This new version also includes Bullet solver integration, Pyro FX 2, production-ready cloth, Alembic exporter and much more.

As soon as Houdini 12 goes gold, details about joining the new Apprentice HD program will be posted. This is a ground-breaking release and everyone is going to want to be on board.

So to be clear, once this is enacted, we will lose our HD Apprentice licenses? I just purchased mine 3 months ago. I will not be eligible for the free upgrade, but I will have not even gotten a year out of my license. If that is correct, this seems grossly unfair. I understand not being upgraded automatically, but to have a license that I paid for simply taken, without SideFX granting one year of use, seems like bait and switch. Please clarify, but the way I read this sounds like its tough luck to all the people who bought licenses in the fall.

Actually, you will not lose your H11 Apprentice HD license. What it means is that there is no “upgrade” path from that license to the H12 Annual HD license. The people within the 90 days will be giving up their H11 license when they move to the new annual license but you will be able to keep the H11 license then add a H12 annual license if you choose.

To get H12 you would join the program for $99 at whatever time seems appropriate to you. In the old system you would have paid $69 to upgrade while now the cost will be $99 - and any upgrade which occurs in the next year would be included in that price.

It is the idea of asking someone who bought 91 days before a release to pay the same upgrade fee as someone who bought 500 days before that prompted the idea of an annual license with automatic upgrades. It makes sure that everyone always has access to the latest version which is important for skill-building within the community.

Robert

Thanks for the clarification Robert. I was concerned my 11 HD license would get zapped via Internet deauthorization, but clearly that is not the case. Thanks again!

This is a ground-breaking release and everyone is going to want to be on board.

I am sure that I will Tnx guys!

I don't like this new policy. I was waiting on HD 12 before I bought a license…now I am either going to purchase a HD 11 license or never and just use the Apprentice.

I would prefer not to have any watermark but I would rather have the watermark then have to pay $99 a year in order to keep using a license. I tend to not upgrade my software every year but every few years due to economic reasons. I involve myself in CG for fun and learning, it's not my day job.

Please re-think this change. Thank you.

Will the new apprentice licence have the same limitations as before? Specifically, will apprenctice be able to save out collada or fbx?

rmagee,

Can you please give some clarification by stating what scenario(s) below is/are valid:

A. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. They are automatically moved to the H12 HD license that is annual and the H11 HD license that was perpetual ceases.

B. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They also receive an H12 HD license that is annual and will expire on the anniversary date of purchase unless renewed.

C. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They have an option to move their H11 HD to the H12 HD annual license, the H11 HD license ceases to exist.

D. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They have an option to purchase a H12 HD annual license for an additional cost of $99.

It sounds like your comments are in line with scenario A or D. but I'm not certain of whether the “you” in your comment to BradASchreiber was in relation to him, ie. those that purchased prior to 90 days or to those that purchased within the 90 days….so I am not clear on what specifically will happen.

syme
rmagee,

Can you please give some clarification by stating what scenario(s) below is/are valid:

A. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. They are automatically moved to the H12 HD license that is annual and the H11 HD license that was perpetual ceases.

B. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They also receive an H12 HD license that is annual and will expire on the anniversary date of purchase unless renewed.

C. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They have an option to move their H11 HD to the H12 HD annual license, the H11 HD license ceases to exist.

D. A person purchases H11 HD license within 90 days before H12 comes out. Their H11 HD license remains perpetual. They have an option to purchase a H12 HD annual license for an additional cost of $99.

It sounds like your comments are in line with scenario A or D. but I'm not certain of whether the “you” in your comment to BradASchreiber was in relation to him, ie. those that purchased prior to 90 days or to those that purchased within the 90 days….so I am not clear on what specifically will happen.

If you purchase within 90 days then you will be sent an upgrade from H11 HD to H12 HD - if you accept this then your perpetual license will be replaced with one that expires one year from your original date of purchase. At this point you can

A) Install the H12 upgrade and give up your perpetual H11 license.

B) Ignore the upgrade and continue using H11 HD. You can then purchase a new H12 HD license if you desire or simply use the free H12 Apprentice to explore the new features.

freeflyklown
Will the new apprentice licence have the same limitations as before? Specifically, will apprenctice be able to save out collada or fbx?

Apprentice HD will still not export to those formats. Collada out is not a part of H12 and FBX out remains a commercial feature.

Robert

Thanks for the answer. What about Torque DTS? Is it updated? Or the same as in H11?

freeflyklown
Thanks for the answer. What about Torque DTS? Is it updated? Or the same as in H11?

The Torque exporter will not be in H12. You will still be able to run H11 with your H12 license key and export from there but we have removed Torque for Houdini as of H12. We were not in a position to update the exporter to our satisfaction to meet the needs of H12. We are looking at other export options for independent gamers to other game engines but nothing will be ready for the release of H12.

Robert

Unity is popular at the moment, would be the way to go if there was some sort of FBX export that would only import into Unity.

I would highly recommend the Unity engine. Especially since most are using it in a non-commercial capacity due to it's pricing structure. ( Having both Free and paid versions)

too bad ;-(! However, as most engines today do not have their own fileformats anymore, doesit mean that there might be a version of Houdini HD Apprentice which will allow export to either collada or fbx?

I purchased HD for H12 just a short time ago.
What's the easiest way to find out -

a) What form of HD licence I have ?

b) what is the expiry date of the annual HD licence ?

Thank you

GrahamR

Email support AT sidefx DOT com

We were not in a position to update the exporter to our satisfaction to meet the needs of H12. - rmagee

That's unfortunate. I wish the Torque exporter was there.

I think this new policy is like biting your own tail.
You want more money, offcourse, who doesn't?
But in the end this will lead to increased piracy, sadly…

I think the annual subscription plan for Apprentice is still an amazing deal. Maybe not as great as the 9, 10 , 11 way but still——-You get to use/learn /play with this crazy amazing application for 99 dollars for a year. Still pretty nice —–so I for one , say thanks to Side Effects for continuing the Apprentice.

Rich