Francis Pimenta

Nima
How much are you sure about 16.5?
Maybe SESI wants to release 17.

There was some info for a H16.5 version but it also can happen that a H17 will come depending on the features.

16.5 => a lot new stuff and optimizations
17.0 => a huge amount of new stuff and massive backend optimizations.

houdini is a top procedural based product that beats MCG for sure but that is not the main question.

do you want to learn houdini ?
or/and do you want to learn MCS ?

both will expand your knowledge even if MCS is not that mature it will gives you knowledge that helps you for your projects and that's the main goal.

siggraph 2017 is on the 30.july so i hope that SESI release some teaser's.