hjgagne

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.

eetu
Just scale it to 1080p and say “2x speedup of rendering achieved by subsample filtering”

LOL … I'll give that a try … the instructor has eagle eyes though, so he'll likely take it as a “sales pitch”.



Cheers,

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,