is it nodelock or per seat? i tried to read license but i could not find my answer because of my bad English.

One, it is node locked.

AFAIK,

You can purchase a maximum of three (3) Houdini Indie licenses … one per computer. There are three license components required per computer so it's not possible to leverage additional computers for distributed rendering purposes.

The license manager does allow returning of a license … not certain if that means a license can float between more than one computer.

There's also TONS of restrictions between “modes” of Houdini (Corporate, Indie, Education, Apprentice, etc.) which makes moving projects between sites an absolute nightmare.

Additionally, moving projects between Minor versions (13.#.##, etc.) of Houdini is a challenge and backwards compatibility between versions (12, 13, 14, etc.) is spotty at best.

There's tremendous potential for this product and I can only assume that all of the restrictions are to ensure sufficient revenue streams to continue R&D and pay salaries.

Hopefully one day, someone will revisit the license model restrictions to see how they can be improved.

Hope that helps,

I think the licensing scheme is quite elegant and well thought out. The Indie licence is so stupidly cheap that it is very understandable that it has restrictions.

Opinions of course differ

Hi eetu,

From my extensive experience in the software industry, this is not one of the better licensing models.

There use to be a time when a legitimate license could be used on at least two systems. In comparison to other industries which I've worked in, the CG industry seems to be getting the “short-end” of the deal.

So agreed, opinions differ.

Hi hjgagne,

It sounds like you would be surprised to learn that SideFx has one of most respected software development efforts in the CG industry.

Although I agree a license to share across desktop & laptop is badly needed, concerning the remarks of sharing of Houdini files across ‘sites’, and the backwards compatibility remarks seem to reflect a superficial understanding of this field.

Perhaps you could show an example where this is done better? Thanks!

For 400$ you can have it on two machines … please find me commercial 3d software that offers this much for that price.

It's a limited mindset to base your considerations on what others offer. Sure, you can, but that's equivalent to ‘looking at the future through the rear vision mirror’

while I agree the Indie license offers a huge amount of useability for very little money, there are still …let´s say quirks…on SESI approach to license types.

One of the recent issues is that forbidding the access of indie users to third party renders automatically makes it useless for all the freelancers out there that want to take advantage of freelance-oriented renderers, such as Octane. It makes very little sense to state that Indie is for an individual that earns less than 100K a year, and then limit their access to the tools that only that range of professionals use. It would make a thousand times more sense to just deny access to network render and leave it at that.

So as to avoid detracting the initial thread any further and/or starting an all out discussion of philosophies on software development …

MartybNz
Hi hjgagne,
It sounds like you would be surprised to learn that SideFx has one of most
respected software development efforts in the CG industry.

Although I agree a license to share across desktop & laptop is badly needed, concerning the remarks of sharing of Houdini files across ‘sites’, and the backwards compatibility remarks seem to reflect a superficial understanding of this field.

Perhaps you could show an example where this is done better? Thanks!

It should always be possible to open previous Houdini project versions (ex: 11, 12, 13) in newer versions of Houdini (ex: 14) without catastrophic consequences to the project. My experience over the past year has demonstrated that this is not the case.

Traditionally, point release versions of a product are intended to address deficiencies (aka bugs). I have several 13.x.509 projects that required rework as a result of incompatibilities/changes in 13.x.582.

Legacy Node functionality should always be supported, broken or not, so as to provide a working starting point when migrating to a new version. It's not always practical to have multiple versions of a product installed.

The software vendor should provide a migration roadmap or a utility to upconvert previous project versions. If the legacy nodes are included in the newer version of the product, it should be dead obvious on where to find them if they are required.

SreckoM
For 400$ you can have it on two machines … please find me commercial 3d software that offers this much for that price.

The cost of a product should not be indicative of the amount of attention to compatibility. The usability, documentation, learning resources, and compatibility components are usually indicative of product lifespan. I've experienced first-hand the demise of great products that failed in these areas.

That said, there remain numerous areas for improvement in Houdini and the improvements in version 14 seem to demonstrate that SideFX is actively listening to it's customers.

MartybNz
It's a limited mindset to base your considerations on what others offer. Sure, you can, but that's equivalent to ‘looking at the future through the rear vision mirror’

There are many commercial/enterprise applications that provides backwards compatibility. Your replies seems to imply that this has never been the case in the CG industry - if this is the case, it is most unfortunate.

IMHO, future proofing a product by ensuring that a clean upgrade path exists is exercising hindsight to a problem before it happens.


Respectfully,

That all sounds too academically splendid and void of the real commercial world, to be honest.

Hi MartybNz,

The tone of your reply implies have taken a protective position.

It is most unfortunate that you see my seeking out an academic program to fasttrack learning Houdini as academic splendor.

I suppose three decades of software development, quality assurance, integration, programming, training, and software lifecycle methodologies in the enterprise/commercial space makes it that I'm void of real commercial world knowledge. :wink:

Your posts on this forum indicate that your quite knowledgeable in Houdini and have dedicated a significant amount of time, energy, and livelihood working with the SESI product suites.

Continued success in your endeavors.

It would be most effective to post an RFE, Request Feature Enhancement, for you software development ideas in the Support menu above.

Sesi are always looking for great ideas.

Hi hjgagne, Marty is correct in that you should submit an RFE for this license feature.

We are well aware that some software vendors allow a second complimentary license to be used off-site on another computer. Others still tie software to a dongle. A third licensing model that is quite novel is the Steam model where your license follows your log-in on various machines. All these but the dongle approach require the vendor to poll your license usage on your machine to a central server (cloud?) and determine if you are legitimate.

Interesting times with licensing.

Currently our license tools are not structured to do any of the above scenarios. We have always and will continue to look at improvements to licensing.

You can return-redeem your licenses 3x before we charge a fee for this service. Not intended for general use but to recover from hardware failure, etc.

Hope this helps clear things up.

Wanted to install another copy to my laptop for an upcoming Houdini party and found this post. Now I know why I can not and this really sucks.

In a perfect world, I would love to have the licensing like the Steam model or Substance. The Steam model is the best, I can have one copy but use it on multiple devices like when I'm away at shows or on the road. Steam, as you notice will not allow you play multiple instances but does allow as many installs as required. To limit my work to one machine in this day and age is a complete logistics nightmare.

I work on a PC at home mainly, but I also work abroad on the laptop but not enough to warrant buying the program again. Side Effects needs to be a little bit more open with their approach in my opinion. Example, look what happened when Unity opened up a free version for under 100k , well it left the competition behind. I think the licensing model will actually change the amount of user coming into the program. The Unity gamedevs will line up when they know what Houdini can do, but in it's current form it's very unapproachable. I am amazed how many people do not use Houdini since it's the most wonderful program I've ever used.

I installed the H 16.5.290 update, and noticed that there is a indie.steam.exe file in there?

Licensing only punishes people who do the right thing, while thieves will do as they please regardless.
Just get rid of licensing altogether, charge for support, make support more worthwhile by prioritizing requests that will actually save valuable time for a flat-out busy artist… rather than the lucky-dip it is now.