gooch

Hello there everyone. I'm new to this forum. I am a senior character animator currently using Xsi as a tool. I may be working on a feature using Houdini as the tool of choice for character animation, so I am interested in finding out what kind of animation tool it can serve as.

To tell you the truth I am a little ignorant and therefore sceptical of Houdini's potential and performance in a professional feature film pipeline, so please forgive the amateur questions.

1: Can we compare Houdini to Xsi or Maya's powerful ik/fk switch?

2: Can we compare Houdini to manipulate a character with extremeley sophisticated scripting with any of the industry leading packages for character animation (XSI,Maya,Max)?

3: Which feature films with manual (no mocap) and character intensive have been done with Houdini?

4: How quick is the workflow in setting up a character (rigging and anim speed) hiding/unhiding, layers, selection sets, etc, compared with xsi or Maya?

5: How many years has Houdini been developping their animation tools?

6: Are there f-curves and can we manipulate the f-curves like Maya or Xsi ? Or is it like character studios TCB'S?

Thank you to whoever for answering my questions. It means alot!