Adrian Schultz2

Alright thank you for the answers!

Hey everyone, I'm new here and I got some general questions to a 3D workflow.

I've been doing photography and photoshopping everything for 6 years now, I so I'm pretty comfortable with it. I've also been doing after effects based motion graphics and compositing for a couple of years now, so I know my way around AE and how to fit 2D objects and indeed to some extend 3D objects in an existing scene. I know how to motion track stuff (I'm okay I know the basics and how it works and done a couple). I've also modeled and textured a bit in maya and I'm also familiar with maya rendering procedure in general (certainly not very good but eventually I get where I need to go) Mainly to integrate some 3D elements in existing footage. I'm saying all this since you kind of need to know what I know to answer my question.

I'm completely new to houdini and I'm not really so good at the 3D side of things so I can't really extrapolate from what I know and apply it to houdini. But here's what I know about a 3D workflow.

First comes the modeling and texturing of your 3D objects. Then you need to light it properly and animate and then render it. After that is all said in done you need a compositor to place all your elements in your scene (so that's the rough scheme of things).

What I'm wondering now is, if you don't want to integrate 3D objects in your scene but rather build an entire 3D scene from the ground up. How do you go about it? For example lets say you build a scene in which two people have a conversation in front of a fire place and that's all 3D. Do you first model every bit and put it in one complete scene and render everything in one go, with all the particles etc included? (except the 2D assets I guess) Or do you render each objects separately and piece everything together in the compositor to then render the final image? (I would think not since a ray tracer needs the other objects to be included to work out reflections and stuff) And what about particle simulations? Are those rendered separately with simple objects to take the main objects place?
And on a side note to that, which compositor would you say is a good one? From what I've read AE is not really suited for 3D work, no unified 3D field and all that and the built in houdini compositor is more of a rough estimation rather than for your final composite.
From what I've read NUKE is supposed to be a good way to go, but I'm sort of confused on what it's purpose is exactly. I mean I've seen complete 3D models in NUKE's window, like it's used to place a complete model and composite with that. (I always thought the 3D program renders 3D scenes and you piece them together with your compositor?). And apparently it also has it's own particle emitter and particle system. Do you render your particles in houdini or the final compositor? Or do those two particle system have separate uses? (One for complex 3D simulation and one simple one to add extra effects would be my best guess?)

I know it's a lot but those are the questions that came up during the first times I played around in houdini.

Thank you.