I see that there are couple of you that had some type of contact with Houdini in their jobs. I forgot to add to the poll that I'm asking about game companies. Overall, 20% is not bad.
Now it would be good to test how much of those 20% is for procedural modeling vs special effects for cinematics.
I lied.
Actually, second question is for you all that work in games.
- What you would like to see made in Houdini to aid you in making games? Tools? Tutorials? Anything else? Can you give examples?
To get traction in this forum you would likely need very robust and relatively easy to use modeling tools. If you look at this thread you can see the type of thing that artists are looking for (a mere 51 pages of it). Houdini has the parametric workflow well built in, which would have it compete well with Max, but the tools do not sound streamlined.
Houdini is a tool which sounds and looks very powerful and useful for advanced FX stuff for games, but it also seems pretty difficult to get into - I have no idea where to begin in regards to learning how it works. Accessibility is a big deal.
Yeah ... I mean, I get that it's a powerful app but it looks like something for hardcore tech nerd types. Not for me.
That might not be true at all, but that's the impression I get as a casual consumer who looks at example videos like the above. For good or bad, there's some feedback.
I don't look at it as something I would use in my daily game art life at all.
I don't look at it as something I would use in my daily game art life at all.
Should I?
I don't think it's going to unseat Max/Maya/Modo any time soon. I have a couple of interesting articles bookmarked about how Guerilla Games used Houdini during production of Killzone 2 and 3, may shed some light on common uses of the software:
Yup, you guys have to sell it to game artists better, it feels like we're expected to do all the heavy lifting to understand why we need it.
The procedural terrain video doesn't really seem to have a payoff at the end; it should really start with a nice textured terrain in a game engine THEN go through the process of making the terrain. That's what got me to purchase World Machine.
I got a question. For those of you who seen/used Houdini at their jobs.
- To solving what type of tasks/problems Houdini was used?
The main purpose Houdini had, at the company where I worked was for dynamic fur, some rendering (main renderer was Arnold AFAIK) and various particle effects. It wasn't a game company though.
Yeah ... I mean, I get that it's a powerful app but it looks like something for hardcore tech nerd types. Not for me.
That might not be true at all, but that's the impression I get as a casual consumer who looks at example videos like the above. For good or bad, there's some feedback.
I don't look at it as something I would use in my daily game art life at all.
Yup, you guys have to sell it to game artists better, it feels like we're expected to do all the heavy lifting to understand why we need it.
The procedural terrain video doesn't really seem to have a payoff at the end; it should really start with a nice textured terrain in a game engine THEN go through the process of making the terrain. That's what got me to purchase World Machine.
Houdini is a tool which sounds and looks very powerful and useful for advanced FX stuff for games, but it also seems pretty difficult to get into - I have no idea where to begin in regards to learning how it works. Accessibility is a big deal.
To get traction in this forum you would likely need very robust and relatively easy to use modeling tools. If you look at this thread you can see the type of thing that artists are looking for (a mere 51 pages of it). Houdini has the parametric workflow well built in, which would have it compete well with Max, but the tools do not sound streamlined.
First wrong assumption that you are making is that it need to compete with Max/Maya/Modo/Whatever. It doesn't have to. It may complement each of those applications. There is a Houdini, and there is a Houdini Engine.
Most of you would need only Houdini Engine.
You are not the type of guys who build tools, so what you would need is only ability to download some useful tools. So the question for you is, what type of tools your current applications that you use are laking? Some things that are repetitive and you think that could be automated with procedural approach? Any cool tools that you have seen in company you worked, but they were propertiary and you can't buy them and don't know how to script/code them yourself?
There is a possibility to build them and upload to Orbolt, from which you could download them to your computer and load thru Houdini Engine to use them in your application of choice. Terrain tool? There is no problem in making asset that you could load and reuse in Maya, without knowing Houdini. You know how to press buttons, right?
The same asset can be used with Unity, UE4, Cinema4D and any application which have now/or will have soon Houdini Engine available. instead of using different plugins for each applications, use the same to accomplish the same task in each, with the same result. Think about Houdini Engine like if it was universal script/plugin that works in all applications but have to be developed only once. You got some scripts/tools that you have/used in Max/Maya/Modo, but are not available in each of those applications? With Houdini Engine this problem is solved. Why to learn new plugin/tool each time, while you can use the same in each application?
Yes. Houdini Engine is a Houdini, just the execution part. You can't make new tools in it, but you can run existing ones. So every tool that someone build in Houdini will work in Houdini Engine. I'm not sure will it always support viewport interactions, but the UI is always there, the same.
Right now there are two plugins that come with Houdini Engine, Maya + Unity, and three more are on the way, 3dsmax/Cinema4D and UE4 (which is in last stadium of development). So probably before this years end you will have possibility to use exactly the same plugin in each of those applications with exactly the same predictable outcome.
If I'm not mistaken, Houdini seems on a basic level to do for modeling (and I think particle effects?) what Substance Designer does for texturing, except that the parameters cannot be tweaked at run-time.
Houdini Engine then is a plugin for other 3D software that allows both the procedural models, and the custom tools used to make them, to be run inside said software.
Sounds pretty awesome if I'm right, though I'm disappointed in a current lack of Modo support.
I'm curious how compatible Houdini assets are with Substances. The two combined could lead to some crazy results.
Houdini is not only modeling. HDA (Houdini Digital Asset) can contain any Houdini functionality. You can have fence with cloth on it generated procedurally, with some parameters that you could tweak, add custom modeled meshes, than simulate it, demolish etc. all in one plugin.
What's the best in all of this is that you don't have to break existing pipeline in a company. You just inject yourself with HEngine and all happens natively inside your company application.
I'm not familiar enough with Modo SDK, otherwise I would develop Houdini Engine for it myself .
There is not Substance support for Houdini inside Houdini right now, but if you run Houdini Engine, and the host application supports Substance, than you can use it just like you would any other mesh generated in this application and it will work.
Guys, if you have ideas for some tools, bring it here, I may think about them a little.
Out top of my head:
- Tool for making grass. I see many times that you model grass props. It would be easy to develop tool that procedurally generates mesh with custom variation of many parameters (density, size, rotation, etc.)
- All types of fences and terrain tools.
- Maybe some tool for texture tweaking? Houdini does have its own build in compositor, so processing image data is not a problem.
- And of course plants with phyllotaxis and proper ecosystem generation.
we did a custom fence tool with Houdini and Houdini engine to evaluate it, even linked it with a substance. Quite nice.
Would have been an awesome if Houdini engine itself were free, or cheaper. But just for a few tools that aren't always used it seems a lot of money. Unless you pull of some sort of game changing tool for your production team, it's a bit too expensive. Substance is better in that regard - you can use Substances for free in many other tools, and you only pay for Designer. That's a great deal.
Same thing where we had a client who wanted us to use Houdini based toold that plug into their pipeline. Something you'd use maybe once a day. But buying 20 seats... ouch.
we did a custom fence tool with Houdini and Houdini engine to evaluate it, even linked it with a substance. Quite nice.
Would have been an awesome if Houdini engine itself were free, or cheaper. But just for a few tools that aren't always used it seems a lot of money. Unless you pull of some sort of game changing tool for your production team, it's a bit too expensive. Substance is better in that regard - you can use Substances for free in many other tools, and you only pay for Designer. That's a great deal.
Same thing where we had a client who wanted us to use Houdini based toold that plug into their pipeline. Something you'd use maybe once a day. But buying 20 seats... ouch.
99$ for indie guys. For freelancers it's a really good value.
And if you say it's expensive, so I suppose Maya is cheap compared to it? You only need one Houdini FX license in a studio, and the rest can use Houdini Engine. I think that buying plugins for each Maya you have in a studio will be more costly, to provide the same functionality you will get with Houdini + couple HEngine licenses. Just FumeFX more than 800$. And that's not all the plugins you would need.
if you want to make some sales I'd expand on those hair tools and make it stand alone - if you make "the marvelous designer of hair" people will buy. But nowhere near 2000-4000 dollars like you are asking now. More like 200-300 for a real-time hair solution.
Other than that hair feature I also have trouble understanding what I'd use this for considering that hefty price tag.
Houdini Engine is 99$ for indie version. HoudiniFX is 200$ for indie version.
4000K is for full FX license. Everybody in a company doesn't have to use full Houdini. Rest can use Houdini Engine, which is 500$ for normal license. And you can also rent it.
What you should do is make a game that shows off what Houdini Engine can do for game studios, like Unreal Tournament or Gears of War showed off Unreal Engine. Something heavily procedural, like No Man's Sky, or something that's heavily procedural with user input, like a pen-and-paper D&D game where the game master creates bits of world as is necessary to provide a space for the players to move through, except instead of reading bits from a book he makes stuff with Houdini Engine tools. Until you can put your money where your mouth is and produce a game that really makes good use of Houdini, no one is actually going to believe that Houdini can really help their projects.
Also, the price of Maya is why many of us are choosing to use Blender or Modo instead of Maya for our amateur, indie, or freelance projects. Price is absolutely a factor.
Yeah more game examples, clearer pricing and what you are getting at those price points. Comparisons like you mentioned against other plugins.
It's not the consumers fault for not understanding your messaging.
Also saying maya is expensive too will not help you. Expense is the exact reason I have to choose one thing over the other. And right now I'm not convinced by anything I've seen other than the hair tools that Houdini is that great for real time art.
So you are saying that this pricing information is not clear enough?
What you should do is make a game that shows off what Houdini Engine can do for game studios, like Unreal Tournament or Gears of War showed off Unreal Engine. Something heavily procedural, like No Man's Sky, or something that's heavily procedural with user input, like a pen-and-paper D&D game where the game master creates bits of world as is necessary to provide a space for the players to move through, except instead of reading bits from a book he makes stuff with Houdini Engine tools. Until you can put your money where your mouth is and produce a game that really makes good use of Houdini, no one is actually going to believe that Houdini can really help their projects.
Also, the price of Maya is why many of us are choosing to use Blender or Modo instead of Maya for our amateur, indie, or freelance projects. Price is absolutely a factor.
The whole teams makes games. Especially as big as No Mans Sky. Epic is a game studio, so it's not a problem for them to make game.
I haven't seen Autodesk making any game to prove that Maya is so good at game making. Beside this, you are not making game in Maya, you use Maya to help make game. And Houdini gives you all of things that Maya brings to table + procedural approach and Houdini Engine that allows you to use assets you make in Houdini in other applications.
Would making example tool that shows that I can take a tool I made in Houdini, and then load it into Maya, and then load it into Unity, and then load it into UE4, and the load it into 3dsmax, and lastly load it into Cinema4D, without changing anything, and use it to accomplish the same task in each of those applications with the same result that would be hard to make in each of those applications otherwise, would convince you?
One issue is that the Indie restrictions seem to be similar to the limitations of MayaLT, which makes it unusable for a lot of artists. In particular :
Houdini Indie cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini
Houdini Indie uses its own file format for saving scenes and assets
It is restricted to 1920x1080 when rendering out animations
Houdini Indie does not work with third party renderers.
A practical example : I have been doing a few assets with LT just for the sake of putting the app to the test, only to realize later that it was impossible for me to work back and forth with other freelancers or students who have access to the unlimited version of the program. There was no way for me to help someone with a specific issue on a model, and no way for me to pass over a character for rigging. That's a big issue.
Anyways - from what I have seen so far it seems like a Houdini license would be very useful to a Tech Art Lead, but not so much to regular artists, which make up for a majority of this forum.
I would be indeed very interested in seeing some useful standalone tools and/or plugins being built with Houdini and released as affordable software for artists. Things like an easy to use destruction tool, a hair combing and simulation tool as mentioned above, or even just a simple flow map generator, which is something that studios have internally but there is unfortunately no publicly available tool for that task.
Now I am personally extremely interested in procedural tools for animation, modeling and texturing but never quite had the time to research this subject. I certainly would love to learn more about it, but I honestly have no idea where to start ! The new Unreal node based game logic editor seems solid though, so there's that ...
I also see on the Customer Stories page that Houdini is being used to procedurally generate levels at Frima studios :
That's great ! And having seen and used similar tools in the past, I can confirm that this kind of stuff is a huge time saver in production. But a regular game artist likely does not have the skills to write such a tool, as I suppose that it involves some coding and scripting, while most of us spend our free time polishing our visual art skills. As a matter of fact, artists are usually the ones precisely describing the features of such tools to TAs in charge of making it happen. But maybe Houdini makes the authoring of such tools very easy, in which case I would love to learn more about it.
A practical example : I have been doing a few assets with LT just for the sake of putting the app to the test, only to realize later that it was impossible for me to work back and forth with other freelancers or students who have access to the unlimited version of the program. There was no way for me to help someone with a specific issue on a model, and no way for me to pass over a character for rigging. That's a big issue..
Houdini Indie cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini
It's an indie tool. And it's a fully fledged Houdin FX version, so I'm not sure why you would need other Houdini versions to accomplish task if this version can do what FX version for companies can.
Houdini Indie uses its own file format for saving scenes and assets
Houdini Indie includes a wide range of file formats including OBJ, FBX import and export and ALEMBIC import and export. The use of these formats falls under the same limited commercial license as the use of Indie Houdini itself.
Digital Assets and scene is saved as own format. Just like UE4 uses UASSET format, Houdini uses HDA etc.
It is restricted to 1920x1080 when rendering out animations
That's for animations. Do you have enough horse power to render animations in 4K/8K as indie?
For stills this limitation doesn't exist.
Houdini Indie does not work with third party renderers.
There is no such a thing like INDIE in movie world, it came from games. So the Indie version is aimed at game makers. That means Realtime. And built in Mantra is more than capable to be used as renderer.
I see on the Customer Stories page that Houdini is being used to procedurally generate levels at Frima studios. That's great ! But a regular game artist likely does not have the skills to write such a tool, as I suppose that it involves some coding and scripting, and most of us spend our free time polishing our visual art skills.
As I said before, most of you would only need Houdini Engine, to use existing tool easily in each supported by it application.
As long as you don't venture in custom simulation solvers and HDK (Houdini C++ SDK), you can stay away from programming. Many people can do wonders with just SOP operators (that's geometry modification context).
...or even just a simple flow map generator, which is something that studios have internally but there is unfortunately no publicly available tool for that task...
It takes the spatial features of a 3d model and combines them with user-input describing direction to generate a map that can them be used to control anisotropic highlights.
While flow (=direction) maps for things like lava and water are easy to paint in 2D (and there are indeed a few tools available for their creation already), flow maps for hair are a whole different story and there is currently no publicly available tool to generate them.
99$ for indie guys. For freelancers it's a really good value.
And if you say it's expensive, so I suppose Maya is cheap compared to it? You only need one Houdini FX license in a studio, and the rest can use Houdini Engine. I think that buying plugins for each Maya you have in a studio will be more costly, to provide the same functionality you will get with Houdini + couple HEngine licenses. Just FumeFX more than 800$. And that's not all the plugins you would need.
Which sounds is reasonable. Yet I still think SideFX may be served better with a more aggressive pricing model to attract corporate customers - or a beefed up selection of ready made tools for Engine (see list of improvement ideas)
Even with the license option on the table, I'm still not sure about giving it another try. We worked with the Beta version and it was quite good. There were bugs and yet, we could still not find really great use cases for Engine - although everyone is still convinced that the idea behind it is potentially powerful.
original post:
Elevating Houdini as a Maya competitior for game dev, to justify the price, is unrealistic. Houdini is, currently, at most, a complimentary application for game developers. I don't know anyone in game dev, currently, who'd ditch their Max/Maya licenses for a studio full of Houdini seats.
SideFX must be aware that the Engine is a new product which they still have to introduce to a mass market. Introducing a new tool as if it were an established one like Maya won't be easy.
You can even argue, that Houdini itself, is a new kid on the block, when it comes to game dev. Nevermind its history in FX. For game dev, it's a new tool that has to compete with established ones.
(500 bucks for a 1 year node locked license is not cheap given that it is node locked. That's the deal breaker. Because it prevents flexible use across the studio. ) retrated.
Maya gets used pretty much constantly, so fixed nodes make sense. But programs which do not get used the majority of time are more economic to run on a floating license based model.
Want to change it? Here's some suggestions:
* expand the library of ready made tools that you can download / purchase from Side FX. That gives a stronger buying incentive for the Engine.
* Get some tool devs to make tools you can use as marketing tools for the Engine. So far most tools from SideFX fall more under the category of "example", rather than "reusable AAA ready production tool".
* Make it work for Max - increases reuse and Houdini tool dev base -> more tools for Houdini Engine.
* ( Lower the price if you insist on node locked licenses with expiry date. It's just not an attractive ENTRY offer to get studio on board for your new product. ) retracted, expcet for the expiry date issue - still not sure what the benefit of this model is for the customer, are there massive yearly updates, or is it software-as-a-service?
* If you want to popularize a tool, consider givinf the player (e.g. Engine) away for free, charge for the authoring tools (even twice if you have to) - it works for Substance.
I'm not an indie dev. I'm running a tool developer team serving a 1000+ people studio which runs dozens of concurrent outsourcing projects. But we too have to look at the money and do cost vs. benefit analysis.
For any tool that is complementary, we're looking for a good price vs. value ratio. In our minds, Houdini Engine is at the same league, production wise as Quixel, Substance and other specialized apps, which complement existing workflows, which are centered around Maya/Max/ZB/Photoshop.
If SideFX wants to change that, then it has to show how the Engine is more than just something complementary that can run some tools authored in Houdini. It needs to show that it can transform and benefit Maya in a wide range of use cases that really, easily, extend Maya's features. And not in a way the old Maya joke goes "Maya has great modeling tools - you just write them yourself!"
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Replies
Now it would be good to test how much of those 20% is for procedural modeling vs special effects for cinematics.
https://vimeo.com/109427737
https://vimeo.com/117276411
I lied.
I got a question. For those of you who seen/used Houdini at their jobs.
- To solving what type of tasks/problems Houdini was used?
Actually, second question is for you all that work in games.
- What you would like to see made in Houdini to aid you in making games? Tools? Tutorials? Anything else? Can you give examples?
To get traction in this forum you would likely need very robust and relatively easy to use modeling tools. If you look at this thread you can see the type of thing that artists are looking for (a mere 51 pages of it). Houdini has the parametric workflow well built in, which would have it compete well with Max, but the tools do not sound streamlined.
That might not be true at all, but that's the impression I get as a casual consumer who looks at example videos like the above. For good or bad, there's some feedback.
I don't look at it as something I would use in my daily game art life at all.
Should I?
I don't think it's going to unseat Max/Maya/Modo any time soon. I have a couple of interesting articles bookmarked about how Guerilla Games used Houdini during production of Killzone 2 and 3, may shed some light on common uses of the software:
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1454&Itemid=68
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1952&Itemid=68
The procedural terrain video doesn't really seem to have a payoff at the end; it should really start with a nice textured terrain in a game engine THEN go through the process of making the terrain. That's what got me to purchase World Machine.
The main purpose Houdini had, at the company where I worked was for dynamic fur, some rendering (main renderer was Arnold AFAIK) and various particle effects. It wasn't a game company though.
First wrong assumption that you are making is that it need to compete with Max/Maya/Modo/Whatever. It doesn't have to. It may complement each of those applications. There is a Houdini, and there is a Houdini Engine.
Most of you would need only Houdini Engine.
You are not the type of guys who build tools, so what you would need is only ability to download some useful tools. So the question for you is, what type of tools your current applications that you use are laking? Some things that are repetitive and you think that could be automated with procedural approach? Any cool tools that you have seen in company you worked, but they were propertiary and you can't buy them and don't know how to script/code them yourself?
There is a possibility to build them and upload to Orbolt, from which you could download them to your computer and load thru Houdini Engine to use them in your application of choice. Terrain tool? There is no problem in making asset that you could load and reuse in Maya, without knowing Houdini. You know how to press buttons, right?
The same asset can be used with Unity, UE4, Cinema4D and any application which have now/or will have soon Houdini Engine available. instead of using different plugins for each applications, use the same to accomplish the same task in each, with the same result. Think about Houdini Engine like if it was universal script/plugin that works in all applications but have to be developed only once. You got some scripts/tools that you have/used in Max/Maya/Modo, but are not available in each of those applications? With Houdini Engine this problem is solved. Why to learn new plugin/tool each time, while you can use the same in each application?
Right now there are two plugins that come with Houdini Engine, Maya + Unity, and three more are on the way, 3dsmax/Cinema4D and UE4 (which is in last stadium of development). So probably before this years end you will have possibility to use exactly the same plugin in each of those applications with exactly the same predictable outcome.
Houdini Engine then is a plugin for other 3D software that allows both the procedural models, and the custom tools used to make them, to be run inside said software.
Sounds pretty awesome if I'm right, though I'm disappointed in a current lack of Modo support.
I'm curious how compatible Houdini assets are with Substances. The two combined could lead to some crazy results.
What's the best in all of this is that you don't have to break existing pipeline in a company. You just inject yourself with HEngine and all happens natively inside your company application.
I'm not familiar enough with Modo SDK, otherwise I would develop Houdini Engine for it myself
There is not Substance support for Houdini inside Houdini right now, but if you run Houdini Engine, and the host application supports Substance, than you can use it just like you would any other mesh generated in this application and it will work.
Out top of my head:
- Tool for making grass. I see many times that you model grass props. It would be easy to develop tool that procedurally generates mesh with custom variation of many parameters (density, size, rotation, etc.)
- All types of fences and terrain tools.
- Maybe some tool for texture tweaking? Houdini does have its own build in compositor, so processing image data is not a problem.
- And of course plants with phyllotaxis and proper ecosystem generation.
Would have been an awesome if Houdini engine itself were free, or cheaper. But just for a few tools that aren't always used it seems a lot of money. Unless you pull of some sort of game changing tool for your production team, it's a bit too expensive. Substance is better in that regard - you can use Substances for free in many other tools, and you only pay for Designer. That's a great deal.
Same thing where we had a client who wanted us to use Houdini based toold that plug into their pipeline. Something you'd use maybe once a day. But buying 20 seats... ouch.
99$ for indie guys. For freelancers it's a really good value.
And if you say it's expensive, so I suppose Maya is cheap compared to it? You only need one Houdini FX license in a studio, and the rest can use Houdini Engine. I think that buying plugins for each Maya you have in a studio will be more costly, to provide the same functionality you will get with Houdini + couple HEngine licenses. Just FumeFX more than 800$. And that's not all the plugins you would need.
Houdini Engine is 99$ for indie version. HoudiniFX is 200$ for indie version.
4000K is for full FX license. Everybody in a company doesn't have to use full Houdini. Rest can use Houdini Engine, which is 500$ for normal license. And you can also rent it.
Automation of all things that you would have to spend a lot of time doing otherwise, like for example cables => https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=35639
Also, the price of Maya is why many of us are choosing to use Blender or Modo instead of Maya for our amateur, indie, or freelance projects. Price is absolutely a factor.
So you are saying that this pricing information is not clear enough?
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=385&Itemid=190#batch
What else you would like to see there listed?
Each product have its own page (look into Products in page menu, thats first option), for example:
- Houdini Indie, which costs 200$ for year, and it also comes with one Houdini Engine license, so you can use all assets you make with Maya/Unity and soon three other packages (Ue4/3dsmax/Cinema4D) => http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=244&Itemid=399
You have listed there what Indie license gives you. What are restriction. What the tool can do.
What else you would like to see listed there?
The whole teams makes games. Especially as big as No Mans Sky. Epic is a game studio, so it's not a problem for them to make game.
I haven't seen Autodesk making any game to prove that Maya is so good at game making. Beside this, you are not making game in Maya, you use Maya to help make game. And Houdini gives you all of things that Maya brings to table + procedural approach and Houdini Engine that allows you to use assets you make in Houdini in other applications.
Would making example tool that shows that I can take a tool I made in Houdini, and then load it into Maya, and then load it into Unity, and then load it into UE4, and the load it into 3dsmax, and lastly load it into Cinema4D, without changing anything, and use it to accomplish the same task in each of those applications with the same result that would be hard to make in each of those applications otherwise, would convince you?
Is Indie pricing of Houdini still too much?
A practical example : I have been doing a few assets with LT just for the sake of putting the app to the test, only to realize later that it was impossible for me to work back and forth with other freelancers or students who have access to the unlimited version of the program. There was no way for me to help someone with a specific issue on a model, and no way for me to pass over a character for rigging. That's a big issue.
Anyways - from what I have seen so far it seems like a Houdini license would be very useful to a Tech Art Lead, but not so much to regular artists, which make up for a majority of this forum.
I would be indeed very interested in seeing some useful standalone tools and/or plugins being built with Houdini and released as affordable software for artists. Things like an easy to use destruction tool, a hair combing and simulation tool as mentioned above, or even just a simple flow map generator, which is something that studios have internally but there is unfortunately no publicly available tool for that task.
Now I am personally extremely interested in procedural tools for animation, modeling and texturing but never quite had the time to research this subject. I certainly would love to learn more about it, but I honestly have no idea where to start ! The new Unreal node based game logic editor seems solid though, so there's that ...
I also see on the Customer Stories page that Houdini is being used to procedurally generate levels at Frima studios :
https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2926&Itemid=68
That's great ! And having seen and used similar tools in the past, I can confirm that this kind of stuff is a huge time saver in production. But a regular game artist likely does not have the skills to write such a tool, as I suppose that it involves some coding and scripting, while most of us spend our free time polishing our visual art skills. As a matter of fact, artists are usually the ones precisely describing the features of such tools to TAs in charge of making it happen. But maybe Houdini makes the authoring of such tools very easy, in which case I would love to learn more about it.
Houdini Indie includes a wide range of file formats including OBJ, FBX import and export and ALEMBIC import and export. The use of these formats falls under the same limited commercial license as the use of Indie Houdini itself.
Digital Assets and scene is saved as own format. Just like UE4 uses UASSET format, Houdini uses HDA etc.
That's for animations. Do you have enough horse power to render animations in 4K/8K as indie?
For stills this limitation doesn't exist.
There is no such a thing like INDIE in movie world, it came from games. So the Indie version is aimed at game makers. That means Realtime. And built in Mantra is more than capable to be used as renderer.
As I said before, most of you would only need Houdini Engine, to use existing tool easily in each supported by it application.
As long as you don't venture in custom simulation solvers and HDK (Houdini C++ SDK), you can stay away from programming. Many people can do wonders with just SOP operators (that's geometry modification context).
What is flow map generator? What it does?
While flow (=direction) maps for things like lava and water are easy to paint in 2D (and there are indeed a few tools available for their creation already), flow maps for hair are a whole different story and there is currently no publicly available tool to generate them.
More on that here :
http://youtu.be/DAyx-C3O1Hc?t=59m50s
Now this example relies on UVs strips, which makes it much easier to hack/paint. But if the model was more of a shell shape, things would get messy
EDIT: retracting some of my criticism over the license. Google led me to the price of the floating license, which about 1 year ago was pegged to be 800 USD. http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2721&Itemid=391
Which sounds is reasonable. Yet I still think SideFX may be served better with a more aggressive pricing model to attract corporate customers - or a beefed up selection of ready made tools for Engine (see list of improvement ideas)
Even with the license option on the table, I'm still not sure about giving it another try. We worked with the Beta version and it was quite good. There were bugs and yet, we could still not find really great use cases for Engine - although everyone is still convinced that the idea behind it is potentially powerful.
original post:
Elevating Houdini as a Maya competitior for game dev, to justify the price, is unrealistic. Houdini is, currently, at most, a complimentary application for game developers. I don't know anyone in game dev, currently, who'd ditch their Max/Maya licenses for a studio full of Houdini seats.
SideFX must be aware that the Engine is a new product which they still have to introduce to a mass market. Introducing a new tool as if it were an established one like Maya won't be easy.
You can even argue, that Houdini itself, is a new kid on the block, when it comes to game dev. Nevermind its history in FX. For game dev, it's a new tool that has to compete with established ones.
(500 bucks for a 1 year node locked license is not cheap given that it is node locked. That's the deal breaker. Because it prevents flexible use across the studio. ) retrated.
Maya gets used pretty much constantly, so fixed nodes make sense. But programs which do not get used the majority of time are more economic to run on a floating license based model.
Want to change it? Here's some suggestions:
* expand the library of ready made tools that you can download / purchase from Side FX. That gives a stronger buying incentive for the Engine.
* Get some tool devs to make tools you can use as marketing tools for the Engine. So far most tools from SideFX fall more under the category of "example", rather than "reusable AAA ready production tool".
* Make it work for Max - increases reuse and Houdini tool dev base -> more tools for Houdini Engine.
* ( Lower the price if you insist on node locked licenses with expiry date. It's just not an attractive ENTRY offer to get studio on board for your new product. ) retracted, expcet for the expiry date issue - still not sure what the benefit of this model is for the customer, are there massive yearly updates, or is it software-as-a-service?
* If you want to popularize a tool, consider givinf the player (e.g. Engine) away for free, charge for the authoring tools (even twice if you have to) - it works for Substance.
I'm not an indie dev. I'm running a tool developer team serving a 1000+ people studio which runs dozens of concurrent outsourcing projects. But we too have to look at the money and do cost vs. benefit analysis.
For any tool that is complementary, we're looking for a good price vs. value ratio. In our minds, Houdini Engine is at the same league, production wise as Quixel, Substance and other specialized apps, which complement existing workflows, which are centered around Maya/Max/ZB/Photoshop.
If SideFX wants to change that, then it has to show how the Engine is more than just something complementary that can run some tools authored in Houdini. It needs to show that it can transform and benefit Maya in a wide range of use cases that really, easily, extend Maya's features. And not in a way the old Maya joke goes "Maya has great modeling tools - you just write them yourself!"