Houdini vs MCG 3dmax vs Sverchok/ Blender vs Cinema4d?

gnoop

What's   state of procedural geometry creation in modern  3d packages ?   Where it's  more artist friendly ?     I am talking not about some complex particle effects  but rather typical  procedural environment  generation ?     Starting form something as trivial as  alternating  wall blocks ,  building  modules  along a splines or sketch drawing  texture ?  

it's not that hard in my experience with arraying random mesh instances   but when it comes to UV-ing /texturing  actual procedural geo, proper decals distribution  and most of all LODS/geometry degradation system  all those tools are turning into never ending research projects.      Does anyone  have an opinion?  

 I am curious about Sverchok  and a possibility of incorporating it into in-house, never going to be published  level editor.   

ps.  I spent a while trying to learn  Houdini  decade ago  then decided I am just wasting time.   Kind of for a sake of a sport, not actual production where desirable results could be reached much more simpler and quicker ways.     But scenes are getting more and more complex every next year since.

poopipe

There is no shortcut to decent procedural generation. 

If you're serious about generating a lot of stuff and want to build systems go with Houdini and accept you're going to have to either learn a lot or hire someone to do the work. 

If you want  powerful instancing, non destructive modelling and free uvs  then use Max, learn how to properly deal with the parametric tools,  animation/placement controllers and accept the fact you're going to need to write code or hire someone to do it.

MCG is a dead end - it is more effort than simply writing the code. 


it's a difficult decision . 
Houdini is a great platform but it's really something you have to commit to and invest in

It can't do anything you can't do by writing code, - the benefit is that you can hire (expensive) specialists and make use of a lot of most likely relevant stuff people have already done. 

Left field suggestion... Use unreal blueprints and export the results. Christ knows how the licensing would work but at least it's not 10k a seat and utterly impenetrable like Houdini. 

gnoop

Thanks for you opinion  poopipe.    I  have always thought blueprint is rather for game logic than  scene creation .So I never touched it  since it has always been out of my focus.    I'v also never worked for a game on  unreal. 

  Is it capable for building  procedural game environments  from random combination of instanced modules , blocks  ?  

poopipe

Absolutely yes. 

As well as the runtime scripting you have construction scripts that run in editor - which is where you'd do the work. 

gnoop

cool.  thanks again  poopipe