Houdini and Maya

[skellington]

Hi anyone. . .

I'm currently using Maya 2.0 (IRIX version, duel 250Mhz Octane)and have been using Maya since the 1.0 stage. A few years back, I used Houdini (from 1.0 to about 2.0). I've always love Houdini and I think it's an amazing package and I've wanted to return to using Houdini for quite some time. I started my small animation shop with a single lincese of A|w's Alias PowerAnimator package. I'm still a one person shop and over the past couple of years, I've managed to sock away some extra cash. Thus my desire to purchase Houdini. But having two (2) major 3D packages seems excessive.

Could I, as a one person shop, get away with JUST using Houdini? Is it stable enough? I probably can't afford two (2) support payments (Maya and Houdini).

My other question is also a non-technical theorical query. Is Houdini 3.0 worth the $21,000 (US dollars) price tag? I realize this is a subjective question with a subjective answer, but if you could e-mail me your thoughts, I'd be grateful.

Thank you for your time.

Best Regards;
Keith Alan Shepard - ceo | animator | janitor

Kas! | Blue Pixel Digital - a digital foundry.
--
Are you normal enough?

[kaiser-sosa]

If you want absolute particle and procedural modeling control , then yes.. But I dont think its as all-around comprehensive as maya...

Perlow Prod

[actarus]

Hmmm, I dont know about that.
I've always been under the impression that houdini
is one of THE most complete packages you can get.
It's full featured in pretty much every aspect,
even compositing!

You really cant say that about maya, considering it was designed with rendering in another package(renderman) in mind.

I mean that is one of the things that MAKES houdini,
it's full featuredness, also one of the reasons for the high pricetag.
-Tad

-Tad

[fredc]

Tad,
It depends on the nature of your work. Unless you are doing heavy character work, I see no reason why Houdini can't do it all, and very well.
To resolve concerns about stablity or scope of new features, you might see if you can get a temporary license from a reseller.

We'll that's my 2 cents.
Urp

[robrich]

hmmm...I've always wondered what Houdini does...

i'm a softimage user, and i've got my hands on some other softwares before like maya, max, lightwave, studio...and some others. and they are pretty easy to figure out how to model, animate and etc...but when i was just trying out Houdini once i found that i had no idea how it works.

it has all these windows, i don't even see how i can model a head, or maybe just an apple. where are these NURBS tools? since i'm pretty happy with softimage, so i didn't spend more time and money to learn Houdini. I only went through the first tutorial. but i would really like to know if houdini is a good modeling tool, or is it just a good animation/particle package with not many modeling features?

here is a list of features i wonder if houndini has:

Skin, Proportional modeling, and other NURBS tools (are they easy to use?)
Polygon tools, (full set?)
Bones, IK, dynamics, softbody

i'm more concerned with the modeling tools, since that's where everything starts.

[heydiddlediddle]

Actually, Houdini was made with Renderman in mind, Mantra (Houdini's internal renderer) is well, ok, but not great. If you need motionblurred (non hardware rendered) particles, Renderman (and maybe MentalRay) is the only choice. For character, Houdini is not the way to go, either SI3D or Maya is. For effects work (like explosions, a field of leaves taking flight and forming the shape of a company logo, ice breaking off a ship cruising through the northseas, etc), Houdini is the way to go. If you're doing a lot of character, I'd stick with Maya. If you're doing a lot of particle effects work to be composited with live action, or fancy dancy flying logos that defy a traditional particle system, Houdini may be the way to go. But as previously posted, Maya is the best all purpose 3D system.

[yuanyuan]

I have been a Maya user since it's beginning and with Wavefront before that. Over the last year I have had to learn much of Houdini. We are currently using a Maya Houdini Renderman Character Pipeline. Maya for animation, modeling, and lipsync. Houdini for Project Networking, Deformations, Compositing and Renderman for Rendering. Houdini works great with Renderman. I now believe that this pipeline uses the best features of each. Houdini takes longer to set up but once you get your project setup it is amazing. You can make changes anywhere up or down stream and have everything still work perfectly. You can change your pipeline at anytime by just changing, adding or removing a node. When someone else makes a change it will automatically follow up the pipeline. With a larger team of people working together this kind of project management is a must. For a smaller company of one, I believe Maya has more than everything you will ever need. Houdini doesn't seem to have quite as many features (like say..Paint Effects..3D camera tracking...but you pay for those extras.. up front or as add-ons) but the core stuff is in both if you need them..They both have there strong areas and weaker areas.
(in my opinion...if it's mostly modelling you're going to be doing...stick with Maya)
S.Alexander
Pinnacle Studios
Seattle, WA