TheLexx

Thanks protozoan.

I guess Houdini is more for big film studios with lots of computers. If one person or small studio wanted to make a Houdini film, are there options to speed up the rendering process eg specialist equipment or online render farm ?

I am extremely new to CGI, and have downloaded the Houdini learning package.
One thing which puzzles me greatly is the rendering times for Houdini (HD photorealism eg a ship swaying in the ocean or several realistic human characters chit-chatting to each other). If a PC is tooled up with graphics cards, does this help Houdini or is it CPU only ? Is it minutes to render each frame or hours ?
I find generally that 3d software sites only list the minimum requirements to run, but I lack any appreciation of what pushes them at the high end. I'd appreciate any insight.