Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 15 May 2018, at 06:16, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On this I believe you are way too close to Softimage because it is not 
> trivial either to follow a complex scene, or a character? not saying it is 
> not easier (it is) but it is not trivial either.
> 
> I disagree. A graph can be traversed and relevant nodes displayed in a view. 
> Softimage, Maya, Max, are all node graphs under the hood, but the data views 
> such as the schematic merely display subsets of the nodes which contain 
> certain characteristics (parent/child relationship). Houdini has parent/child 
> relationships too, but there isn't a convenient place where they are 
> displayed in isolation of other properties of the scene. Tools could be 
> written to traverse and display only the nodes which define a parent/child 
> relationship. This is, in my opinion, a low hanging fruit that could be 
> addressed.
> 
Tags and network isolation is a fantastic idea… still I am convinced this will 
be a manual task, the traversing part is very tricky as you are in a procedural 
world with nodes in various context interacting.

> As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people do 
> not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT is the 
> point.
> 
> Same as with Passes, Partitions, Groups, Overrides and Layers in
> Softimage?
> we build a consensus on how to use it (everything on the BG partition
> hidden
> for example) and even tools to move things to the right partitions based
> on
> one acting as template, etc..
> Not quite the same thing.
> 
> With passes, partitions, groups, etc.. Softimage defines the structure and 
> users merely label the parts in some way that is intuitive to them. 
> Partitions can only appear inside of passes, overrides always appear 
> immediately below the partition or object which it overrides, and so forth.
> 
You are defining the structure, not how we use it which relies on a gentlemen’s 
agreement as it can end up in a mess, which is what I intended to highlight.
> In Houdini, the networks are much more arbitrary. The user does more than 
> label things. They also define structure of the assets. The user can impose 
> self restraint and stick to a naming scheme, template for arranging elements 
> in the network view, etc.., but there is no consistent structure which all 
> users will see uniformly imposed by Houdini in the manner you see with 
> Softimage. This can be disorienting to the non-technical user as the data and 
> presentation can be radically different.
> 
It was not my intention to compare a pass system with a scene organisation… but 
it is worth talking about it too as there are insights worth sharing.

In Maya you tend to use groups to literally give you structure in your outliner 
(like dividers), in Softimage I was using empty groups to be able to separate 
those that did material overrides from those that managed visibility… and 
layers were forbidden because it was just too much to follow.

That is far from great.

> It is strange because it is precisely the very sophisticated HDAs system that 
> allows Houdini to scale teams massively while keeping complexity under 
> control.
> 
> A good example;
> 
> You're comparing apples to oranges here. The point is to get an intuitive 
> understanding of the data you're working with. You're talking about something 
> completely different.
> 
You raised the scalability issue but probably my answer didn’t explain well 
enough my thoughts… allow me another try;

- the solution to scalability in softimage is reference models and relaying on 
the traditional outliner and schematic interfaces to dive into the jungle of 
nodes you have now in your scene. This is very limited and we all know that.

- the solution to scalability in Houdini is abstraction, how are you going to 
visualise the data in an asset if the logic is controlled by the asset itself? 
Or a packed primitive whose attributes result in geometry shaders doing stuff 
like creating geometry at render time? Or a node that is dynamically evaluated 
under a very particular set of conditions? There is no point of even trying 
because it is pretty much an impossible or absurdly costly task. 

I hope this clarifies why I don’t see this schematic view in Houdini, it would 
not be meaningful.

Great thread though…

Thanks Matt.
jb

> Matt
> 
> Message: 1 Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 10:16:35 +0100 From: Jordi Bares 
> <jordiba...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: "Official 
> Softimage Users Mailing List.
> 
> On 14 May 2018, at 00:01, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote: you're 
> dissecting things at a more granular level than is intended, and as a result 
> you're losing sight of the overall discussion.
> 
> a new user c

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Lind]

> On this I believe you are way too close to Softimage because it is not 
> trivial either to follow a complex scene,
> or a character? not saying it is not easier (it is) but it is not trivial 
> either.

I disagree.  A graph can be traversed and relevant nodes displayed in a 
view.  Softimage, Maya, Max, are all node graphs under the hood, but the 
data views such as the schematic merely display subsets of the nodes which 
contain certain characteristics (parent/child relationship).  Houdini has 
parent/child relationships too, but there isn't a convenient place where 
they are displayed in isolation of other properties of the scene.  Tools 
could be written to traverse and display only the nodes which define a 
parent/child relationship.  This is, in my opinion, a low hanging fruit that 
could be addressed.


>> As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people do 
>> not,
>> or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT is the 
>> point.
>
>
> Same as with Passes, Partitions, Groups, Overrides and Layers in 
> Softimage?
> we build a consensus on how to use it (everything on the BG partition 
> hidden
> for example) and even tools to move things to the right partitions based 
> on
> one acting as template, etc..

Not quite the same thing.

With passes, partitions, groups, etc.. Softimage defines the structure and 
users merely label the parts in some way that is intuitive to them. 
Partitions can only appear inside of passes, overrides always appear 
immediately below the partition or object which it overrides, and so forth.

In Houdini, the networks are much more arbitrary.  The user does more than 
label things.  They also define structure of the assets.  The user can 
impose self restraint and stick to a naming scheme, template for arranging 
elements in the network view, etc.., but there is no consistent structure 
which all users will see uniformly imposed by Houdini in the manner you see 
with Softimage.  This can be disorienting to the non-technical user as the 
data and presentation can be radically different.



> It is strange because it is precisely the very sophisticated HDAs system 
> that allows
> Houdini to scale teams massively while keeping complexity under control.
>
> A good example;

You're comparing apples to oranges here.  The point is to get an intuitive 
understanding of the data you're working with.  You're talking about 
something completely different.


Matt








Message: 1 Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 10:16:35 +0100
From: Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
To: "Official Softimage Users Mailing List.


On 14 May 2018, at 00:01, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote: you're 
dissecting things at a more granular level than is intended, and as a result 
you're losing sight of the overall discussion.

a new user coming into Houdini doesn't have that historical background, nor 
does he/she care. He only sees a lot of special case tools that require 
inside knowledge to understand and use. That is the immediate point of 
frustration that isn't resolved well with documentation, and in many cases, 
not even discussed at all. This is one deterrent from adopting Houdini from 
the generalist's perspective.



You are right this could bring a lot of entry level comfort and easier 
transition. May comment it with the guys at SideFX.



Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a scene 
for the generalist. When you open a scene you're not familiar with, or one 
you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a general overview 
of it's structure in a few seconds. That is the purpose of mentioning the 
schematic view as it provides that overview at a glance. Does it tell you 
everything? No, of course not, but it doesn't have to either. It does tell 
you the links between nodes such as who is constrained to whom, where the 
envelopes reside, which nodes have shapes/lattices/etc. and very importantly 
? hierarchical relationships to understand how rigs are put together. Again, 
we're talking about the big picture. Explorer??? that?s for micro-level work 
when you want the dirty details on an object.



On this I believe you are way too close to Softimage because it is not 
trivial either to follow a complex scene, or a character? not saying it is 
not easier (it is) but it is not trivial either.



It's not good for the broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time 
clicking on nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, 
and even then there's often a lot more information displayed than you need 
leading to excessive noise. That's exactly the same problem with ICE 
compounds as digging into nested compound after nested compound you begin to 
lose sight over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp. This isn't a 
discussion about which is more powerful, it's about 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

> On May 14, 2018, at 1:06 PM,   wrote:
> 
> I’ve only had a few weeks of Houdini, but I really want to learn it,  I do 
> however, think it needs some consolidating. I found it very hard to figure 
> stuff out here on my own. I’m trying to do deformation work with it, and I 
> found it hard to find advice from people doing that.

Hey Paul, have you checked into the Houdini discord server? There’re quite a 
few very helpful people there.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__discordapp.com_invite_b8U5Hdy=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=9Z3zUtwUDC-k99YXocS91qSdtudg0-eMNM3T_fLAiwE=7P1S6xs2Kea1S8sUZQwJ9CwymBhiZaeSIGqJrKwz6sM=
 

> The kind of things that made me throw my toys out of the pram were having 
> different legacy ways of writing Expressions ( or was it accessing 
> attributes.. something like that, involving sometimes a dollar sign and 
> sometimes not) When I tried applying techniques I’d learnt from tutorials to 
> my own rudimentary tools, they just did not work. I asked on forums and got 
> back ‘try all the methods and see which one works’ and ‘You just have to 
> learn approach works where’
> They need to pick ONE way of doing things, and rewrite any old tools that use 
> the old method and keep them as legacy for a few versions until they die out. 
> Its hard enough trying to learn something new, without inconsistencies and 
> gotchas. 

Yes, you’re spot on old tutorials are neck breaking at this point. But 
consolidation is exactly what they are in the process of. They rid the $VARs 
and use @attribute syntax for everything. They are however overwhelmed by the 
mass of nodes.

> One thing I love about XSI is that it IS SO clear and consistent. 
> When I first purchased XSI I watched a 3 hour video on rigging. The 
> repetition of the same type of clear approach across the board, meant that, 
> by the end of watching that video, Not only did I feel like I knew exactly 
> what to do, I was spotting some inefficiencies in the (author of the) 
> tutorials approach. That same day, I could make a useful rig myself and I 
> never struggled to understand things, because of the highly consistent 
> approach from one panel to the next in XSI. Also when thinking ‘I wonder if I 
> can right click on that and do what I want’ or ‘Drag and drop’ that. The 
> answer was usually yes. You could smell the genius behind the design of it, 
> like it knew better than you, how to make life straightforward.

Yeah, it’s not going to be a smooth ride like that, I’m afraid.

Cheers,

Andy--
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

You only have to store new poses and the operation of bone influence 
subtraction seems to me easy given you can look at any part of the network.

Am I missing something?
jb


> On 14 May 2018, at 12:48, Andy Chlupka (Goehler) 
> <lists.andy.goeh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
> I believe the Edit SOP can create deltas, it should be in the manual. And 
> store shapes as point attributes as you like. Same goes for the rest P 
> attribute.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Andy
> 
> On Mon 14. May 2018 at 11:35, <p...@bustykelp.com 
> <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> wrote:
> In soft, you can make a shape in Secondary shape mode and have it reverse the 
> skinning and save the shape, and in Maya, the new Shape manager allows the 
> easy creation of corrective shapes in context of others.
>  
> How are blendshapes stored in Houdini? Are they always procedurally generated 
> from other meshes, or can the delta be saved somehow as an attribute.
>  
>  
> From: Jordi Bares <mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 10:19 AM
> To: Paul Smith <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com> ; Official Softimage Users Mailing 
> List. 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=zBNU051U7hQeAxGXVSDjeKzUJJ099MooBwk2jJiRJVI=_R7WHD4IFCzYD8Fy7Sh-IpdwIw7b_ow02Xe3jGPEnHo=
>  <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
>  
>  
>> On 14 May 2018, at 09:59, <p...@bustykelp.com <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> 
>> <p...@bustykelp.com <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of 
>> shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned 
>> mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other 
>> shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.
>> All this is doable without a shape manager of course, but it takes longer, 
>> and can become tedious when you have to keep doing it. Its very nice to have 
>> a tool to make this happen in a no-brainer way and not have workarounds that 
>> undermine and stall the flow of enthusiasm.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong but this is not a standard thing in any package 
> actually… I wish it was though.
> jb
> 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Anto Matkovic]

Pooby,
is there something specific you want to know.By my calculations, consolidation 
is going to happen between 2025 and 2007 (2007 because sometimes it's going 
backward :) ), we are somewhere in middle...From my small experience, VEX is a 
way to go, node or code whatever you like. So for rule of thumb, your way to 
build a push deformer is something with P and N inside Attribute VOP, before 
fighting with dollars an monkeys in Peak SOP - that is, rule of thumb. System 
is very well maintained, also, what loads H13 scene into H16  with zero 
problems, are exactly custom Attribute VOPs. There are few features not 
possible in ICE, probably interesting for building the deformations, like 
ability to filter closest distance query by polygon group, or ray-casting 
through multiple targets, ability to create groups (cluster in SI) directly in 
Attribute VOP, so on. While entire system is a bit stiff compared to ICE, for 
my taste.


  From: "p...@bustykelp.com" <p...@bustykelp.com>
 To: Official Softimage Users Mailing 
List.https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=HwzDV6riYb8HOqcHAXR-9fVyhTIOfV7dB0SEwXLDPiA=XEHpLd2AqI7xgWIpzPzl3-sH_4paHvHtHRJua1Z_Ljg=
 <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> 
 Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 1:06 PM
 Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
   
 I’ve only had a few weeks of Houdini, but I really want to learn it,  I do 
however, think it needs some consolidating. I found it very hard to figure 
stuff out here on my own. I’m trying to do deformation work with it, and I 
found it hard to find advice from people doing that.
 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

 mantra.

In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever
become another Softimage. You'll have to settle for
something that has great power but some degree of
cumbersome workflow.

Matt

Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From:
    Alastair Hearsum <alast...@glassworks.co.uk
<mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: Re: Houdini :
non VFX jobs? To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>

I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling
on lack of familiarity and not acknowledging that there are
some fundamental design issues . The first step to recovery
is to admit that there a problem. As everyone knows there
is some fantastic technology in there but its strung
together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a
20 year old in an octagenarian; each organ very capable in
its own right but not in the ideal host to get the best out
if it.

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-- 
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Creative Director of 3d
GLASSWORKS

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

I hope this isn't trolling, as I find it a very informative discussion.

But I wonder, if this hair pulling has an opposite to it? Has he not
experienced anything that he liked?

Andy


On Mon 14. May 2018 at 11:32, Alastair Hearsum <alast...@glassworks.co.uk>
wrote:

> Is this trolling? I'm not sure. But I feel I have to keep shooting this
> kind of thing down. Without naming names you know the guy that created a
> very complex feather system in ICE here at Glasswork, on the job. We have
> been using Houdini as you know for a few years now, so with the combination
> of a technically minded artist who operates at a high level exposed to
> Houdini for few years who is still tearing his hair out in frustration
> points to the issues with Houdini.
> They need to seriously look at improving their user interaction. Its not
> just about getting used to it.
>
>
> On 12/05/2018 16:18, Jordi Bares wrote:
>
> I would suggest to give it a proper go, if you have used ICE you will see
> how easy it is.
>
> jb
>
>
>
> On 12 May 2018, at 10:48, Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is a really interesting discussion and covers thoughts from all
> angles. There is an element to the discussion of technical types telling
> the rest of us we just need to "git gud" which is a bit disheartening
> though. (It's disheartening not because it's patronising but because the
> only way to use Houdini is to master it at fairly high technical level
> which will exclude a number of people, myself included). I understand that
> there is a technical learning curve to any piece of software but Houdini is
> a different beast to the other big three (Max, Maya, eXSI). You can drop a
> Maya artist in XSI and tell them to achieve a task and they'll do it -
> maybe not the most efficient way, but a way that works. I don't feel that's
> the same in Houdini. There's too much "well, nobody really models in
> Houdini" or "you can, but nobody really animates in Houdini". That's not
> necessarily bad, Zbrush is probably the "best" software on the market in
> terms of expectations to results but it's clear about it's narrow focus.
>
> To put it in a personal way, I've worked to some level in 3DS Max, Maya,
> Lightwave and XSI. I wouldn't consider myself particularly artistically
> gifted or technically proficient but I am good at understanding the needs
> of a non-technical person (eg art-director), drawing up a list of
> requirements and achieving them, getting support from concept artists are
> pipeline TD's if needed. XSI was* the software that allowed me to go the
> furthest independently (*was because I've had to move to Maya). I would
> love to replace that and Houdini appears to be a good fit but I'm not sure.
> Maybe the "uber-nodes" you're discussing are anathematic to Houdini's
> overall workflow but would be streamline the on-boarding process. XSI was
> excellent at getting people into the software and then allowing you to get
> into the more complex bits on your own; although ICE was the main weapon in
> my arsenal, it's possible to work for years without ever touching it.
>
> On 12 May 2018 at 09:34, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
>>
>> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node
>> functionality or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager,
>> exporting bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or
>> adding certain tools we use every single day, or bringing more “uber nodes”
>> to VOPs so we don’t have to be so granular) but always without sacrificing
>> proceduralism or breaking their core design.
>>
>> Jb
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play
>> that in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools
>> need to share information and work together. A node based system, by
>> design, requires each node to act independently. To get the Softimage
>> workflow in Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough
>> intelligence to cover all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs
>> to take control and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists
>> if they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In either case, it works
>> against a node based system's mantra.
>>
>> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another
>> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but
>> some degree of cumbersome workflow

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

Hi Paul,

I believe the Edit SOP can create deltas, it should be in the manual. And
store shapes as point attributes as you like. Same goes for the rest P
attribute.

Cheers,

Andy

On Mon 14. May 2018 at 11:35, <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

> In soft, you can make a shape in Secondary shape mode and have it reverse
> the skinning and save the shape, and in Maya, the new Shape manager allows
> the easy creation of corrective shapes in context of others.
>
> How are blendshapes stored in Houdini? Are they always procedurally
> generated from other meshes, or can the delta be saved somehow as an
> attribute.
>
>
> *From:* Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 14, 2018 10:19 AM
> *To:* Paul Smith <p...@bustykelp.com> ; Official Softimage Users Mailing
> List. 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=-h99jeUsw_seAT5zRRXB-_TzsXsfULcbxbl0JjeX-mc=x0UkxBWOmWdCVChSxeSXdL3TUaTSDdYhJpi0nfE3c54=
> <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Subject:* Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
>
>
>
> On 14 May 2018, at 09:59, <p...@bustykelp.com> <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:
>
>
> Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of
> shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned
> mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other
> shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.
> All this is doable without a shape manager of course, but it takes longer,
> and can become tedious when you have to keep doing it. Its very nice to
> have a tool to make this happen in a no-brainer way and not have
> workarounds that undermine and stall the flow of enthusiasm.
>
>
> Correct me if I am wrong but this is not a standard thing in any package
> actually… I wish it was though.
> jb
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

<jordiba...@gmail.com 
>>>>> <mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node 
>>>>> functionality or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape 
>>>>> manager, exporting bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides 
>>>>> in takes, or adding certain tools we use every single day, or bringing 
>>>>> more “uber nodes” to VOPs so we don’t have to be so granular) but always 
>>>>> without sacrificing proceduralism or breaking their core design.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jb
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com 
>>>>>> <mailto:speye...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play 
>>>>>> that in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools 
>>>>>> need to share information and work together. A node based system, by 
>>>>>> design, requires each node to act independently. To get the Softimage 
>>>>>> workflow in Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough 
>>>>>> intelligence to cover all the bases of a particular task, or the UI 
>>>>>> needs to take control and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping 
>>>>>> user's wrists if they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In 
>>>>>> either case, it works against a node based system's mantra.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another 
>>>>>> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but 
>>>>>> some degree of cumbersome workflow.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Matt
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum 
>>>>>> <alast...@glassworks.co.uk <mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: 
>>>>>> Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
>>>>>> <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>>>>>> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
>>>>>> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
>>>>>> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
>>>>>> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its 
>>>>>> strung together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 
>>>>>> year old in an octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right 
>>>>>> but not in the ideal host to get the best out if it.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
>>>>>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>>>>>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with “unsubscribe” in 
>>>>>> the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>>>>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with "unsubscribe" in 
>>>>> the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  --
>>>>> Softimage Mailing List.
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>>>>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with "unsubscribe" in 
>>>>> the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>> 
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> --
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>>>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with "unsubscribe" in the 
>>>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Alastair Hearsum
>>> Creative Director of 3d
>>> 
>>>  
>>> <https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6iB4H67Ot

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Anto Matkovic]

Shape editor in Maya 2017 has a Bay Raitt style shape fixers. Some comments are 
here:https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.chrisevans3d.com_pub-5Fblog_adsk-2Dships-2Dposespacedeformer-2Dignores-2Dclavicle_Also=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=Oi1qugY6fZ6AJuzQ1pbLbZyc_wNFT9O-y4ZI4De--fE=ztfEQgefeDBGm2aZCURV0Zo409qpTRT7ES2LINxIN9Q=,
 Blender addon called Animation Nodes (kind of nodal control of everything in 
Blender, plus per-point deformations) technically allows to build dependent 
shape keys, so sooner or later, there will be some interface on top, I guess.

  

Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of 
shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned 
mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other 
shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.All this is doable without a 
shape manager of course, but it takes longer, and can become tedious when you 
have to keep doing it. Its very nice to have a tool to make this happen in a 
no-brainer way and not have workarounds that undermine and stall the flow of 
enthusiasm.

Correct me if I am wrong but this is not a standard thing in any package 
actually… I wish it was though.jb--
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

to ever
become another Softimage. You'll have to settle for something
that has great power but some degree of cumbersome workflow.

Matt

Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From:
    Alastair Hearsum <alast...@glassworks.co.uk
<mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: Re: Houdini : non
VFX jobs? To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>

I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on
lack of familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some
fundamental design issues . The first step to recovery is to
admit that there a problem. As everyone knows there is some
fantastic technology in there but its strung together in an
awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in an
octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not
in the ideal host to get the best out if it.

-- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail
tosoftimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com>with
“unsubscribe” in the subject, and reply to confirm.




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Creative Director of 3d
GLASSWORKS
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

 get the Softimage 
>>>> workflow in Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough 
>>>> intelligence to cover all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs 
>>>> to take control and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's 
>>>> wrists if they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In either case, 
>>>> it works against a node based system's mantra.
>>>> 
>>>> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another 
>>>> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but 
>>>> some degree of cumbersome workflow.
>>>> 
>>>> Matt
>>>> 
>>>> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum 
>>>> <alast...@glassworks.co.uk <mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: 
>>>> Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
>>>> <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>>>> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
>>>> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
>>>> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
>>>> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung 
>>>> together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in 
>>>> an octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the 
>>>> ideal host to get the best out if it.
>>>> 
>>>> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
>>>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>>>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with “unsubscribe” in the 
>>>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
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>>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> --
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> 
> -- 
> Alastair Hearsum
> Creative Director of 3d
> 
>  
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net_wf_click-3Fupn-3D5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6mg4oLGBuQENbeDkYXezg3m6vjHxJcC6rUMd8QE2MtqzI-2D2F9k-2D2BWBXKW27XRR1WxPwQSotdeaTQI8WptYwcBKkUcT-2D2FIjt1MdC-2D2BMj2Ij4Jo30z1VWeO7hEur0HeotmiSt52Imrnziiw55sG52DIKtyXdSxCxNgBQyreKDj5yryss91TPwLdOO2lfMt5FJdnz5x-2D2FNuHAwS0uz9jOUfWZWj74-2D2FW7jEGZqssihgwRoDz9hunoY1bsd9enCLD6o7FeopCIZ4T2ynNYTh0uPKx8RcqqBzOXnR2qSXJhzVMOrbiQlUd7R1s6i0Snbnh94nJeMCfdjgG9ueKJDZAzWcMyLcaRcxB-2D2FGrUbyIY4-2D2BoQKfA38xaggl-5FxtAIgyeGUkaFYUSrrLyyFGCT559IxnI2CalBtcQNCt1DSpFhq1LQEnTO3x7mo8JGdicjmV50YWgnwnhkEqzDs-2D2FNGfFg5vP3MEYoDPuYlCFp-2D2FEt1DUWmGmAP3KOfXTGiUD6rkEmtQ8HA0th9hvOv9f64Ssi6-2D2BLtA0IulTDSt-2D2BhqV-2D2F-2D2FFP3P3EsIJF5nUUkDhZcBXJvWQHUxC9KE1uVSLL4ZqrkwdoWmWvmmClLzRgKlU4-2D3D=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=4je3Q_i7Fu9VCxcYPUT-p1aUj9TbxdR4juJe-Acf4cs=Apv0kEvKJyvJQgwUoSGnkQ2QEuL7uG2Kn7ZodUtpnj8=>
>  
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net_wf_click-3Fupn-3D5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6mg4oLGBuQENbeDkYXezg3m6vjHxJcC6rUMd8QE2MtqzI-2D2F9k-2D2BWBXKW27XRR1WxPwQY1GdzVHrOhzmNUkqtzt43aZvgyn1fmDQkaFQyqZTngJKZnYRZVIMuMPztozWZKfudeMpH2AFhwK6TTotjg9KwBgLpHWzrPHLL717WwU1XvKNoMcLQ14xlCHOETtezGjlWtJD8u8fzRN3uy4CdkBMPs33FzNbbbnGnYWkfvBrhoBzboV3aJ4TBN3kXaOK9HjDbxMG5SvKYa1XvO2rOuthgUplqk4Gck6NidcINrEQ1LiLQh49w0Nt42hoHrWtn3iYkCWyXznWyHCxoOyc63mX46hGWB4BQXVOfAmrXfho7CMmJW-2D2BsOTE1FCn437cJROf9OkJ-2D2BgPAY1fdr6gKAROfhsE-2D3D-5FxtAIgyeGUkaFYUSrrLyyFGCT559IxnI2CalBtcQNCt1DSpFhq1LQEnTO3x7mo8JGHqortpY3Rbf3UylfY6Q47uq7XqANC88p0EeFbccveN1P7hClm7d5S-2D2ByTapUxzQwt00R7qB6L9a-2D2BfAekqQ-2D2By3I2MJtXUug1-2D2BrZAhElXBKBTxCkf72F4BeKwj9jQgl8d2rqKu2hdPfTkqTj8YaUD5cFGvncCUy6HC8rq00GtLLMPc-2D3D=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=4je3Q_i7Fu9VCxcYPUT-p1aUj9TbxdR4juJe-Acf4cs=0intJ4CH8QAGddW

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[paul]

In soft, you can make a shape in Secondary shape mode and have it reverse the 
skinning and save the shape, and in Maya, the new Shape manager allows the easy 
creation of corrective shapes in context of others.

How are blendshapes stored in Houdini? Are they always procedurally generated 
from other meshes, or can the delta be saved somehow as an attribute.


From: Jordi Bares 
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 10:19 AM
To: Paul Smith ; Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=HQQzmvrJp_c6r0aZWeyiloxvslTHShSoKpfCa_wa3Pk=DhQiSuNc7MDO8HWz2nJODhvQdQaHEhA5-tbawWabp0o=
 
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?


  On 14 May 2018, at 09:59, <p...@bustykelp.com> <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:


  Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of 
shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned 
mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other 
shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.
  All this is doable without a shape manager of course, but it takes longer, 
and can become tedious when you have to keep doing it. Its very nice to have a 
tool to make this happen in a no-brainer way and not have workarounds that 
undermine and stall the flow of enthusiasm.


Correct me if I am wrong but this is not a standard thing in any package 
actually… I wish it was though.
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Is this trolling? I'm not sure. But I feel I have to keep shooting this 
kind of thing down. Without naming names you know the guy that created a 
very complex feather system in ICE here at Glasswork, on the job. We 
have been using Houdini as you know for a few years now, so with the 
combination of a technically minded artist who operates at a high level 
exposed to Houdini for few years who is still tearing his hair out in 
frustration points to the issues with Houdini.
They need to seriously look at improving their user interaction. Its not 
just about getting used to it.


On 12/05/2018 16:18, Jordi Bares wrote:
I would suggest to give it a proper go, if you have used ICE you will 
see how easy it is.


jb



On 12 May 2018, at 10:48, Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com 
<mailto:zagan...@gmail.com>> wrote:


This is a really interesting discussion and covers thoughts from all 
angles. There is an element to the discussion of technical types 
telling the rest of us we just need to "git gud" which is a bit 
disheartening though. (It's disheartening not because it's 
patronising but because the only way to use Houdini is to master it 
at fairly high technical level which will exclude a number of people, 
myself included). I understand that there is a technical learning 
curve to any piece of software but Houdini is a different beast to 
the other big three (Max, Maya, eXSI). You can drop a Maya artist in 
XSI and tell them to achieve a task and they'll do it - maybe not the 
most efficient way, but a way that works. I don't feel that's the 
same in Houdini. There's too much "well, nobody really models in 
Houdini" or "you can, but nobody really animates in Houdini". That's 
not necessarily bad, Zbrush is probably the "best" software on the 
market in terms of expectations to results but it's clear about it's 
narrow focus.


To put it in a personal way, I've worked to some level in 3DS Max, 
Maya, Lightwave and XSI. I wouldn't consider myself particularly 
artistically gifted or technically proficient but I am good at 
understanding the needs of a non-technical person (eg art-director), 
drawing up a list of requirements and achieving them, getting support 
from concept artists are pipeline TD's if needed. XSI was* the 
software that allowed me to go the furthest independently (*was 
because I've had to move to Maya). I would love to replace that and 
Houdini appears to be a good fit but I'm not sure. Maybe the 
"uber-nodes" you're discussing are anathematic to Houdini's overall 
workflow but would be streamline the on-boarding process. XSI was 
excellent at getting people into the software and then allowing you 
to get into the more complex bits on your own; although ICE was the 
main weapon in my arsenal, it's possible to work for years without 
ever touching it.


On 12 May 2018 at 09:34, Jordi Bares<jordiba...@gmail.com 
<mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>>wrote:


@Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)

I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node
functionality or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape
manager, exporting bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical
overrides in takes, or adding certain tools we use every single
day, or bringing more “uber nodes” to VOPs so we don’t have to be
so granular) but always without sacrificing proceduralism or
breaking their core design.

Jb




On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com
<mailto:speye...@hotmail.com>> wrote:

Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox
at play that in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage
employed, tools need to share information and work together. A
node based system, by design, requires each node to act
independently. To get the Softimage workflow in Houdini requires
either monolithic nodes with enough intelligence to cover all
the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs to take control
and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists if
they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In either case,
it works against a node based system's mantra.

In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become
another Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has
great power but some degree of cumbersome workflow.

Matt

Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair
    Hearsum <alast...@glassworks.co.uk
<mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: Re: Houdini : non
VFX jobs? To:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>

I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on
lack of familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some
fundamental design issues . The first step to recovery is to
admit that there a problem. A

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 14 May 2018, at 09:59,   wrote:

> Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of 
> shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned 
> mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other 
> shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.
> All this is doable without a shape manager of course, but it takes longer, 
> and can become tedious when you have to keep doing it. Its very nice to have 
> a tool to make this happen in a no-brainer way and not have workarounds that 
> undermine and stall the flow of enthusiasm.

Correct me if I am wrong but this is not a standard thing in any package 
actually… I wish it was though.
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 14 May 2018, at 00:01, Matt Lind  wrote:
> you're dissecting things at a more granular level than is intended, and as a 
> result you're losing sight of the overall discussion.
> 
> a new user coming into Houdini doesn't have that historical background, nor 
> does he/she care. He only sees a lot of special case tools that require 
> inside knowledge to understand and use. That is the immediate point of 
> frustration that isn't resolved well with documentation, and in many cases, 
> not even discussed at all. This is one deterrent from adopting Houdini from 
> the generalist's perspective.
> 
You are right this could bring a lot of entry level comfort and easier 
transition. May comment it with the guys at SideFX.
> Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a scene 
> for the generalist. When you open a scene you're not familiar with, or one 
> you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a general overview of 
> it's structure in a few seconds. That is the purpose of mentioning the 
> schematic view as it provides that overview at a glance. Does it tell you 
> everything? No, of course not, but it doesn't have to either. It does tell 
> you the links between nodes such as who is constrained to whom, where the 
> envelopes reside, which nodes have shapes/lattices/etc. and very importantly 
> – hierarchical relationships to understand how rigs are put together. Again, 
> we're talking about the big picture. Explorer??? that’s for micro-level work 
> when you want the dirty details on an object.
> 
On this I believe you are way too close to Softimage because it is not trivial 
either to follow a complex scene, or a character… not saying it is not easier 
(it is) but it is not trivial either.
> It's not good for the broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time 
> clicking on nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, 
> and even then there's often a lot more information displayed than you need 
> leading to excessive noise. That's exactly the same problem with ICE 
> compounds as digging into nested compound after nested compound you begin to 
> lose sight over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp. This isn't a 
> discussion about which is more powerful, it's about presenting information 
> that is better suited for high level working for the non-technical user.
> 
Indeed this is a byproduct of a node approach, hence my personal preference for 
VEX Wrangles instead of VOPs (no wire, fully defined in one single node under 
the SOPs roof)
> As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people do 
> not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT is the 
> point.
> 
Same as with Passes, Partitions, Groups, Overrides and Layers in Softimage… we 
build a consensus on how to use it (everything on the BG partition hidden for 
example) and even tools to move things to the right partitions based on one 
acting as template, etc..
> I'm not suggesting Houdini be rebuilt from the ground up. I'm highlighting 
> sticking points between it's current state and why more generalists don't 
> adopt it. When you get into a larger production pipeline, as much as you need 
> the low level power Houdini provides with assets and such, there is just as 
> much need at the opposite end of the spectrum with getting users into the 
> pipeline to do work.
> 
It is strange because it is precisely the very sophisticated HDAs system that 
allows Houdini to scale teams massively while keeping complexity under control.

A good example;

- I am developing a character, export the asset to disk and animators start to 
use it.
- They discover a problem with one control…
- I pick the asset, fix it and export the same version
- These users (let’s say rather than 1 there are 20 animators) get the asset 
WHILE THEY ARE WORKING, without interruption.

No scripts, not nothing.. bang.

Imagine the change is enormous, just add a version and they can choose the 
version they want to use… again, all dynamically.


Now scale this to *everything is an asset* where the city buildings are all 
being modelled live, the cars rigged, the characters updated… and you have to 
do NOTHING to get the latest and greatest version.

And now go further assets contain assets that contain assets, all versioned 
based where.

- City v1.0 contains BuildingA v1, BuildingB v1 and BuildingC v1
- City v2.0 contains BuildingA v2 and , BuildingB v1 and BuildingC v1

And those buildings indeed contain the windows as assets, the doors, the roof 
furniture… all versioned of course

You get it… no pipeline required, no scripts, no nothing.

Very very quickly you can see that may be, just may be, having the best f-curve 
editor is not even important in the big scheme of things.

cheers
Jb

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

I think this is the overarching issue. It still feels like separate 
developers with their own sphere of interest not being unified into a 
cohesive product. As I said before they really really need someone like 
Steve Jobs who won't take no for an answer to knock some heads together 
and really get them to take the user experience as seriously as they do 
their technology.
The task seems clear to me. How its done is for someone who thinks abou 
this stuff for a living.


On 13/05/2018 22:48, Jordi Bares wrote:
There are historic reasons for this to be the case, in the very early 
days those were completely different programs, that was then unified 
and finally new contexts appeared (like VOPs) and lately MATs


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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[paul]

Hi Andreas,

When I say a shape manager, I don’t mean the part that applies the shapes as a 
deformer. I know that’s very easy to do and I never really use that part in 
Softimage I mostly use ICE. I do a lot of stuff with the deltas of Blendshapes 
that aren’t necessarily using them in a ‘traditional’ way.

(When I do mix blendshapes together in ICE, I dont just mix them in a linear 
additive way. I might have multiple streams that override other streams using 
the power of the nodal network ICE allows.  I know I can do the same in VOPS. 
However often I’m using the difference in the angle of surfaces to Rotate 
shapes. This is nowhere near as easy in Houdini as there aren’t many inbuilt 
geometry attributes to look up( like Point reference frame) and Matrices didn’t 
appear to be allowed as attributes. I found my trees were 4 times the size to 
achieve the same results as I had to keep manually constructing things like 
Point reference frame and found I couldn’t just make it as a freestanding 
‘compound node’ as it needed input wires ( although you probably can with VEX)

Anyway.  What I’m talking about is a tool that helps with the creation of 
shapes that are , for example in context of the current pose of the skinned 
mesh. Or making a shape that is a corrective, in context of 2 or more other 
shapes that are applied, and that kind of thing.
All this is doable without a shape manager of course, but it takes longer, and 
can become tedious when you have to keep doing it. Its very nice to have a tool 
to make this happen in a no-brainer way and not have workarounds that undermine 
and stall the flow of enthusiasm. 


From: Andreas Böinghoff 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 4:35 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

On 5/11/2018 5:21 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:

  Is it possible to make something like a ‘Shape Manager’ in Houdini? 
On SOP level you can use the Blend shape node. Or you make your own one. 
Blendshapes are just an linear interpolation between two meshes with the same 
topo. 


If you want to make your custom deformer use the mix node in VOPs or the lerp 
function in vex. For weighting you can use any float attribute.

Andy

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

It is interesting to note that your OBJ context is meant to show the “big 
picture” like Softimage could never do. My suggestion is to avoid using the 
given contexts (SHOPs, MATs, CHOPs, etc…) and do everything as a CHOP network, 
a MAT network, etc… _inside_ the OBJ, this way you get;

- The full picture
- Full modular design (assets embedding all the nuts and bolts for example)
- The ability to build HDAs and version up and down those…

etc…

Hope that helps… ultimately I still remember having to explain Softimage users 
the norms and conventions on using the Passes system, Partitions, Groups and 
Layers in Softimage the “company way” so we all worked the same way because the 
Softimage does not guide here either… and rightly so it _should not_.

cheers
jb


> On 14 May 2018, at 06:50, Andy Chlupka (Goehler) 
>  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On May 14, 2018, at 1:01 AM, Matt Lind > > wrote:
>> 
>> Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a scene 
>> for the generalist. When you open a scene you're not familiar with, or one 
>> you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a general overview 
>> of it's structure in a few seconds. That is the purpose of mentioning the 
>> schematic view as it provides that overview at a glance.
>> 
> I think it does… Using Subnetworks, allows you to keep the top level very 
> simple, just like collapsed nodes in the schematic. Tools like network boxes 
> allow for documentation right there, same as icetrees. Color coding nodes can 
> group them in a visual way. These all aid to reduce complexity and provide 
> overview. 
>> Does it tell you everything? No, of course not, but it doesn't have to 
>> either. It does tell you the links between nodes such as who is constrained 
>> to whom, where the envelopes reside, which nodes have shapes/lattices/etc. 
>> and very importantly – hierarchical relationships to understand how rigs are 
>> put together.
>> 
> Again, this is fine for people who are proficient at those tasks. You make it 
> sound so simple, yet understanding someone else's rig is never done in a 
> matter of seconds. Not to other riggers, and especially to generalists. I 
> would agree, that there’s more help in Soft finding the details, but not in a 
> first glance overview.
> 
>> Again, we're talking about the big picture. Explorer??? that’s for 
>> micro-level work when you want the dirty details on an object. It's not good 
>> for the broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time clicking on 
>> nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, and even then 
>> there's often a lot more information displayed than you need leading to 
>> excessive noise. That's exactly the same problem with ICE compounds as 
>> digging into nested compound after nested compound you begin to lose sight 
>> over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp. This isn't a discussion 
>> about which is more powerful, it's about presenting information that is 
>> better suited for high level working for the non-technical user.
>> 
> And where exactly do we draw the line between ‘technical’ and 'non-technial’ 
> users? At the macro level shouldn’t it benefit both? I guess I’m failing in 
> grasping the broad term of generalist. I strongly believe, all of our staff 
> would fail so hard if they had to use Max or Maya tomorrow coming from Soft.
>> As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people do 
>> not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT is the 
>> point. There is no consistent or uniform way of having information presented 
>> to you to get the high level picture of what's going on in the scene. There 
>> needs to be some base level of communicating to the user where things are 
>> placed, how they relate to each other, and so on, and not require the user 
>> to dig, dig, dig, dig, to get oriented to find ‘basic’ information.
>> 
> Are you still refering to the schematic? Because I’d generally describe them 
> just as messy, unorganized ;)
>> Someone can easily build a forest and hide 50,000 trees and other 
>> geographical features inside of a single network or subnetwork which appears 
>> as a single node in the network view, and even build it recursively. That is 
>> not informative. This is where Houdini needs to improve. In contrast, 
>> although it can be done, it's pretty difficult to hide those details in 
>> Softimage's Schematic view. You open the scene, BAM! you see the complexity 
>> right away.
>> 
> :) Honestly? It’s just as easy to shoot someone else in the foot with said 
> scenario in softimage (nesting point clouds, instancing groups) In the end 
> you’re dealing with complexity and I fail to see how the schematic helps to 
> decipher that in seconds.
>> I'm not suggesting Houdini be rebuilt from the ground up. I'm highlighting 
>> sticking points between it's current state and why more 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Good stuff Matt. Couldn't find anything to disagree with there.

On 14/05/2018 00:01, Matt Lind wrote:


you're dissecting things at a more granular level than is intended, 
and as a result you're losing sight of the overall discussion.


a new user coming into Houdini doesn't have that historical 
background, nor does he/she care. He only sees a lot of special case 
tools that require inside knowledge to understand and use. That is the 
immediate point of frustration that isn't resolved well with 
documentation, and in many cases, not even discussed at all. This is 
one deterrent from adopting Houdini from the generalist's perspective.


Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a 
scene for the generalist. When you open a scene you're not familiar 
with, or one you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a 
general overview of it's structure in a few seconds. That is the 
purpose of mentioning the schematic view as it provides that overview 
at a glance. Does it tell you everything? No, of course not, but it 
doesn't have to either. It does tell you the links between nodes such 
as who is constrained to whom, where the envelopes reside, which nodes 
have shapes/lattices/etc. and very importantly – hierarchical 
relationships to understand how rigs are put together. Again, we're 
talking about the big picture. Explorer??? that’s for micro-level work 
when you want the dirty details on an object. It's not good for the 
broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time clicking on 
nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, and 
even then there's often a lot more information displayed than you need 
leading to excessive noise. That's exactly the same problem with ICE 
compounds as digging into nested compound after nested compound you 
begin to lose sight over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp. 
This isn't a discussion about which is more powerful, it's about 
presenting information that is better suited for high level working 
for the non-technical user.


As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people 
do not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT 
is the point. There is no consistent or uniform way of having 
information presented to you to get the high level picture of what's 
going on in the scene. There needs to be some base level of 
communicating to the user where things are placed, how they relate to 
each other, and so on, and not require the user to dig, dig, dig, dig, 
to get oriented to find ‘basic’ information. Someone can easily build 
a forest and hide 50,000 trees and other geographical features inside 
of a single network or subnetwork which appears as a single node in 
the network view, and even build it recursively. That is not 
informative. This is where Houdini needs to improve. In contrast, 
although it can be done, it's pretty difficult to hide those details 
in Softimage's Schematic view. You open the scene, BAM! you see the 
complexity right away.


I'm not suggesting Houdini be rebuilt from the ground up. I'm 
highlighting sticking points between it's current state and why more 
generalists don't adopt it. When you get into a larger production 
pipeline, as much as you need the low level power Houdini provides 
with assets and such, there is just as much need at the opposite end 
of the spectrum with getting users into the pipeline to do work. Many 
of whom are not thoroughly trained and need to learn on the fly, and 
probably won't have a great deal of interest learning all the ins and 
outs beyond the bare necessities to get their job done to 
satisfaction. As production scales up, the quality of your users tends 
to drop because you have the matter of filling seats to crank out work 
by a specific deadline, and each seat has a salary cap. Therefore, 
whatever pipeline you have, it must accommodate these less than ideal 
users. Many generalists struggle with learning and/or forming good 
habits even when given good instruction as you're forcing 
non-technical people into a technical environment. It's alien to them 
in a migraine headache creating type of way because an artist is 
generally right-brained while technical users are generally 
left-brained. A schematic view is right-brained approach. 
Explorer/networks is a left-brained approach. While Houdini has a 
functional equivalent of a schematic view in the network view, it 
doesn't provide the same information the generalist seeks because it 
requires additional attention to detail to dissect the graphs in a 
more left-brained approach. Houdini needs more right-brained tools and 
interfaces to accommodate the generalist.


Matt

Message: 2 Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 22:48:16 +0100 From: Jordi Bares 
<jordiba...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: 
"Official Softimage Users Mailing List.


This thread is getting really really useful, thanks Matt?

More comments below.

On 13 May 201

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

> On May 14, 2018, at 1:01 AM, Matt Lind  wrote:
> 
> Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a scene 
> for the generalist. When you open a scene you're not familiar with, or one 
> you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a general overview of 
> it's structure in a few seconds. That is the purpose of mentioning the 
> schematic view as it provides that overview at a glance.
> 
I think it does… Using Subnetworks, allows you to keep the top level very 
simple, just like collapsed nodes in the schematic. Tools like network boxes 
allow for documentation right there, same as icetrees. Color coding nodes can 
group them in a visual way. These all aid to reduce complexity and provide 
overview. 
> Does it tell you everything? No, of course not, but it doesn't have to 
> either. It does tell you the links between nodes such as who is constrained 
> to whom, where the envelopes reside, which nodes have shapes/lattices/etc. 
> and very importantly – hierarchical relationships to understand how rigs are 
> put together.
> 
Again, this is fine for people who are proficient at those tasks. You make it 
sound so simple, yet understanding someone else's rig is never done in a matter 
of seconds. Not to other riggers, and especially to generalists. I would agree, 
that there’s more help in Soft finding the details, but not in a first glance 
overview.

> Again, we're talking about the big picture. Explorer??? that’s for 
> micro-level work when you want the dirty details on an object. It's not good 
> for the broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time clicking on 
> nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, and even then 
> there's often a lot more information displayed than you need leading to 
> excessive noise. That's exactly the same problem with ICE compounds as 
> digging into nested compound after nested compound you begin to lose sight 
> over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp. This isn't a discussion about 
> which is more powerful, it's about presenting information that is better 
> suited for high level working for the non-technical user.
> 
And where exactly do we draw the line between ‘technical’ and 'non-technial’ 
users? At the macro level shouldn’t it benefit both? I guess I’m failing in 
grasping the broad term of generalist. I strongly believe, all of our staff 
would fail so hard if they had to use Max or Maya tomorrow coming from Soft.
> As for networks and subnetworks. Great, you have a system. Most people do 
> not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours. THAT is the 
> point. There is no consistent or uniform way of having information presented 
> to you to get the high level picture of what's going on in the scene. There 
> needs to be some base level of communicating to the user where things are 
> placed, how they relate to each other, and so on, and not require the user to 
> dig, dig, dig, dig, to get oriented to find ‘basic’ information.
> 
Are you still refering to the schematic? Because I’d generally describe them 
just as messy, unorganized ;)
> Someone can easily build a forest and hide 50,000 trees and other 
> geographical features inside of a single network or subnetwork which appears 
> as a single node in the network view, and even build it recursively. That is 
> not informative. This is where Houdini needs to improve. In contrast, 
> although it can be done, it's pretty difficult to hide those details in 
> Softimage's Schematic view. You open the scene, BAM! you see the complexity 
> right away.
> 
:) Honestly? It’s just as easy to shoot someone else in the foot with said 
scenario in softimage (nesting point clouds, instancing groups) In the end 
you’re dealing with complexity and I fail to see how the schematic helps to 
decipher that in seconds.
> I'm not suggesting Houdini be rebuilt from the ground up. I'm highlighting 
> sticking points between it's current state and why more generalists don't 
> adopt it. When you get into a larger production pipeline, as much as you need 
> the low level power Houdini provides with assets and such, there is just as 
> much need at the opposite end of the spectrum with getting users into the 
> pipeline to do work. Many of whom are not thoroughly trained and need to 
> learn on the fly, and probably won't have a great deal of interest learning 
> all the ins and outs beyond the bare necessities to get their job done to 
> satisfaction. As production scales up, the quality of your users tends to 
> drop because you have the matter of filling seats to crank out work by a 
> specific deadline, and each seat has a salary cap. Therefore, whatever 
> pipeline you have, it must accommodate these less than ideal users. Many 
> generalists struggle with learning and/or forming good habits even when given 
> good instruction as you're forcing non-technical people into a technical 
> environment. It's alien to them in a migraine 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Anto Matkovic]

About epiphany :) expected after few months or so, well, still nothing here :), 
after four years and more than thousand of hours in front of H. 
I'd say, H is really special case, where usual story about adaptation to 
another DCC doesn't work.
First of all, this app is already 'adapted' to all wishes of coders, to level 
unseen in DCC world. OK, these people were before, anyway, they obviously did 
not tried to adapt self to 3d standards, it seems to me they did everything to 
adapt H to their habits.If anyone is example unwilling to adapt, well that's 
Houdini people :). In times of H13, they tried to explain me why I don't need 
HTML help (which btw is working with fifty fifty success here, all these 
years), why H textport is better, so on. For small example (one of many) how 
that works from another side: Houdini allows to write expression in number 
input field directly, which us probably great for coding, but whenever I've 
tried to animate in H, because I have habit to do not care about mouse position 
when entering K key, this was taken as expression not able to evaluate, next 
mouse-keyboard action caused crash. Whenever I felt relaxed enough to forget 
where I am, it was Houdini to explain me. For similar problems in Maya, it was 
just remapping of S key to something harmless.
IMO, only way to adapt to and love  H is just to forget any view port 
interaction, to do not use view port for anything else than display - then, 
generally it's fine, question is how much someone is able to reallocate to 'no 
view port centric ' method. Animator or modeler, not that much.
Second, apps like SI, Maya, Max, C4d or Blender, they are similar in many ways, 
so actually *is* possible to use one as another, at least in introductory 
phase. When I started with SI, I used a few scripts to allow Max style of 
transform offset for around first two years, always tried to avoid SI dopeshit, 
and.. still I'd consider my SI experience as successful. I disabled Blender 
cursor as much as possible, Blender is still usable.
Third, 'speaking with Martians'. At some point I've figured out that only 
available quaternion interpolation in Animation Editor is qlinear() thing, so 
no TCB keys or anything like. When complained on forums, got long answer about 
quaternions and math behind, explaining to me idiot, that such type of only 
linear interpolation is smooth enough by self (by the way I'd say it is only 
and only if there is constant angular speed across keyframes, otherwise is 
not). It was one of developers I think, clearly not showing the understanding 
of basics. Now what, I have to submit RFE hoping for feature granted in Maya, 
Max, Blender for decades. Have no energy for that, there are another options.
Fourth... Maya is... Maya, it is a norm, industry standard, hundred of movies, 
possible careers, first DCC I was learning, huge user base. If I am good in one 
field and dislike the another, someone else could take the counterpart, that's 
it. It is bad, but not *that* bad to move on. Same works with Max and C4d, more 
or less.

Anyway, just to put something positive, and of course shameless plug: I'm 
slowly working on streamlined version of this 
thinghttp://forums.odforce.net/topic/23842-no-skin/For some unknown reason this 
one seems to be most popular of all things I've tried to present to Houdini 
people (most popular in Houdini world means a lot of conversation with another 
authors or like-to-be-authors and no one end user, as usually :)). This time 
I'd try to make it as much 3d app independent (no chops, no VEX code), relying 
only on VOP structure and simple mocap style rig, there should be some way of 
interpolation to make it faster, so on. To be honest, I wanted to redo it in 
Fabric, but, we are where we are, hope to have something to conquer the 3d 
world :) sometime in summer.


  
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Lind]

you're dissecting things at a more granular level than is intended, and as a 
result you're losing sight of the overall discussion.

a new user coming into Houdini doesn't have that historical background, nor 
does he/she care.  He only sees a lot of special case tools that require 
inside knowledge to understand and use.  That is the immediate point of 
frustration that isn't resolved well with documentation, and in many cases, 
not even discussed at all.  This is one deterrent from adopting Houdini from 
the generalist's perspective.

Houdini doesn't have good tools for dealing with the macro view of a scene 
for the generalist.  When you open a scene you're not familiar with, or one 
you haven't opened in a very long time, you want to get a general overview 
of it's structure in a few seconds.  That is the purpose of mentioning the 
schematic view as it provides that overview at a glance.  Does it tell you 
everything?  No, of course not, but it doesn't have to either.  It does tell 
you the links between nodes such as who is constrained to whom, where the 
envelopes reside, which nodes have shapes/lattices/etc. and very 
importantly - hierarchical relationships to understand how rigs are put 
together.  Again, we're talking about the big picture.  Explorer???  that’s 
for micro-level work when you want the dirty details on an object.  It's not 
good for the broader picture as you have to spending a lot of time clicking 
on nested node after node until you find what you're looking for, and even 
then there's often a lot more information displayed than you need leading to 
excessive noise.  That's exactly the same problem with ICE compounds as 
digging into nested compound after nested compound you begin to lose sight 
over the bigger picture you're trying to grasp.  This isn't a discussion 
about which is more powerful, it's about presenting information that is 
better suited for high level working for the non-technical user.

As for networks and subnetworks.  Great, you have a system.  Most people do 
not, or if they do, it will not be the same system as yours.  THAT is the 
point.  There is no consistent or uniform way of having information 
presented to you to get the high level picture of what's going on in the 
scene.  There needs to be some base level of communicating to the user where 
things are placed, how they relate to each other, and so on, and not require 
the user to dig, dig, dig, dig, to get oriented to find 'basic' information. 
Someone can easily build a forest and hide 50,000 trees and other 
geographical features inside of a single network or subnetwork which appears 
as a single node in the network view, and even build it recursively.  That 
is not informative.  This is where Houdini needs to improve.  In contrast, 
although it can be done, it's pretty difficult to hide those details in 
Softimage's Schematic view.  You open the scene, BAM! you see the complexity 
right away.

I'm not suggesting Houdini be rebuilt from the ground up.  I'm highlighting 
sticking points between it's current state and why more generalists don't 
adopt it.  When you get into a larger production pipeline, as much as you 
need the low level power Houdini provides with assets and such, there is 
just as much need at the opposite end of the spectrum with getting users 
into the pipeline to do work.  Many of whom are not thoroughly trained and 
need to learn on the fly, and probably won't have a great deal of interest 
learning all the ins and outs beyond the bare necessities to get their job 
done to satisfaction.  As production scales up, the quality of your users 
tends to drop because you have the matter of filling seats to crank out work 
by a specific deadline, and each seat has a salary cap.  Therefore, whatever 
pipeline you have, it must accommodate these less than ideal users.  Many 
generalists struggle with learning and/or forming good habits even when 
given good instruction as you're forcing non-technical people into a 
technical environment.  It's alien to them in a migraine headache creating 
type of way because an artist is generally right-brained while technical 
users are generally left-brained.  A schematic view is right-brained 
approach.  Explorer/networks is a left-brained approach.  While Houdini has 
a functional equivalent of a schematic view in the network view, it doesn't 
provide the same information the generalist seeks because it requires 
additional attention to detail to dissect the graphs in a more left-brained 
approach.  Houdini needs more right-brained tools and interfaces to 
accommodate the generalist.


Matt




Message: 2 Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 22:48:16 +0100
From: Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
To: "Official Softimage Users Mailing List.

This thread is getting really really useful, thanks Matt?

More comments below.



On 13 May 2018, at 21:00, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote: Another 
example is 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

> On May 13, 2018, at 10:00 PM, Matt Lind  wrote:
> 
> An example of the boiler plate burden is exactly what was already discussed – 
> modeling and tweaking as that's a good bulk of the early work. Bad first 
> impressions can be a major deterrent.
> 
> Another example is the need to learn the various categories of operators 
> (SOPS, CHOPS, VOPS, …). Sometimes nodes from different categories do the same 
> thing. that adds confusion. If nodes from one category cannot work with a 
> node of a different category, then that's a problem too. This is where 
> documentation is sorely needed. It's not strictly a case of a SOP does this 
> and a VOP does that, but rather a discussion about strategy. When is it 
> appropriate to use the various OPs? When should a SOP be used in place of 
> wrangled nodes, or vice versa? that is a huge void in the documentation and a 
> place where users easily get lost and frustrated to the point they throw in 
> the towel.

I wholeheartedly agree, further improvements are needed. Have you given this 
feedback?  
> In short, Houdini has a lot of spring cleaning to do to tidy things up for 
> the generalist. Right now it's an idiosyncratic development environment. It 
> can be very powerful, but it requires a lot of inside knowledge to use it. 
> The generalist doesn't want to (or need to) deal with the inside knowledge. 
> They need something they can hit the ground running without fuss.
> 
I’ve had three freelancers with very different backgrounds (maya, softimage) 
and I had them up and running in Houdini in 2-3 days. They were able to move on 
very quickly from there. Scene assembly, lighting and rendering.
None of them had a technical background, quite the opposite.

> As for the show dependencies thingy, that's just it. I don't want to see more 
> wires inside of a graph which is already very crowded, messy, and lacking 
> structure. There needs to be a way to illustrate the structured connectivity 
> at a high level so users aren't forced into the weeds to get basic 
> information.

Help me understand, how is this not the case with the Schematic view? It’s 
still the preferred view for most of our animators.

> With ICE or the rendertree in Softimage, the nodes were text-based so you 
> could follow the logic while hiding unconnected ports. However, even ICE 
> trees could get very complex very quickly, so the use of compounds were 
> introduced, and while that helped, it wasn't the same as a schematic view as 
> compounds could be recursively nested to very deep levels hiding the very 
> information you sought. Houdini's nodes are very iconic, but not very 
> descriptive as to what they do. You can see various node icon shapes, but 
> that still doesn't tell you the logic in the same way as following an ICE 
> tree or rendertree. The design/layout of the network view leads to lots of 
> bloat very fast making it difficult to keep track of your work when you get 
> beyond simple models.

I don’t follow, SOPs in current Houdini show the type name of the operator 
(node) above the node name making a graph quite readable. I can’t see how the 
render- nor icetree do better here, besides the default nodes having very 
descriptive names. Both approaches break once you introduce custom nodes 
(compounds/subnets) named shortsightedly (in most cases not named) by the user. 

> While networks make a lot of sense for VFX work, they are often less than 
> ideal for character driven work. Character work benefits more from 
> straightforward relationships which are easy to identify and follow as 
> characters are often a hub for other work such as VFX, simulations, 
> attachments, constraint interactions, and other details which come later in 
> the pipeline.

Networks represent spatial organization/view. No matter the task, some people 
prefer spatial navigation. Some prefer the hierarchical view for everything.


> People working in those later steps need to be able to quickly jump into the 
> asset and immediately know what to do and where to do it. They can't be 
> burdened with a messy network graph which they must study to the N'th degree 
> before they understand where to start.

Hmmm, I couldn’t save my live with either the explorer or the schematic in 
Softimage trying to figure out what a character rig does. To me this comes down 
to a level of expertise/familiarity to the task at hand. 

Cheers,

Andy

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

lex scenes with many levels of 
subnetworks.
> While networks make a lot of sense for VFX work, they are often less than 
> ideal for character driven work. Character work benefits more from 
> straightforward relationships which are easy to identify and follow as 
> characters are often a hub for other work such as VFX, simulations, 
> attachments, constraint interactions, and other details which come later in 
> the pipeline. People working in those later steps need to be able to quickly 
> jump into the asset and immediately know what to do and where to do it. They 
> can't be burdened with a messy network graph which they must study to the 
> N'th degree before they understand where to start.
> 
I am sorry but I don’t agree with this _at all_, I find much easier to follow 
the complex nature of a character and its relationships in Houdini than 
Softimage, may I remind you about following operator stacks, constraints, 
expressions buried in local transforms vs global ones, scripted operators, 
relationships with blend shapes, mixer curves vs curves? On a shitty curve 
editor? Or the mini editor for time-warps, groups assignments collisions, delta 
changes? Then you add to the mix character maintenance, versions, 
multi-resolution… 

You need order in both applications and a certain approach everyone understands 
and comforts to but overall, you will see less concept clutter in Houdini 
although may be more wires. ;-)

cheers
jb


> Matt
> 
> Message: 2 Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 17:28:12 +0100 From: Jordi Bares 
> <jordiba...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: "Official 
> Softimage Users Mailing List.
> 
> below
> 
> On 12 May 2018, at 23:26, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I wouldn't steer towards uber nodes. The larger a node gets, the more 
> maintenance it requires and more taxing it becomes as a bottleneck. If a node 
> gets too big, you may end up with a situation where it becomes really popular 
> from having a larger feature set and everybody and his cousin uses the node 
> in every project. At that point the node can become an albatross around the 
> developer's neck because any tweaks to the node could cause negative ripple 
> effect throughout the community should something go wrong. The whole point of 
> having a node system is to guard against that scenario by distributing the 
> workload and only use the features you need. Uber nodes would automatically 
> add bloat to your workflow from the many features you often wouldn't use but 
> have to come along for the ride.
> 
> I was referring to the kind of ?uber node? you find in Softimage where you 
> don?t have to do all the heavy lifting? certainly I agree with you, 
> monolithic Albatros is not the idea of uber-node I had in mind. :-)
> 
> I think what's needed are more dedicated nodes for modeling, texturing, and 
> animation tasks to fill in the current voids. There also needs to be some 
> more UI polish to work with modeling and character animation workflows. Both 
> are merely the base level adequate. They need to improve into good or great.
> 
> My take is that in order to compete in the modelling market the edit SOPs and 
> the Retopo SOP will have to be extended to bring a lot more functionality and 
> this is where I see the non-procedural approach acceptable. Right now these 
> are very limited compared with Softimage.
> 
> Houdini needs a few modules to account for workflows where a node base system 
> simply doesn't make any sense or provide advantage. Think pushing and pulling 
> points on geometry to sculpt a character, or tweaking texture UVs for game 
> assets. Building a network with hundreds of nodes containing all the tweaks 
> is counter productive beyond a handful. It would be better to make a 
> dedicated user interface to work on that task in long session form, then 
> merely bake out the stack of tweaks as a single node in the tree when all is 
> said and done ? or something to that effect. Perhaps the user would apply 
> markers to decide how many tweaks can be bundled together as a single node 
> upon completion in the same fashion a user can define an arbitrary point as a 
> restore point when updating Windows.
> 
> We are on the same page here as well.
> 
> The FCurve editor is mostly OK, but the layout of tools on all sides of the 
> windows needs a rethink. While they're making good use of screen space, it 
> puts more burden on the mind of the user to keep track of all the tools and 
> be more conscious of pointing and clicking with the mouse when tweaking 
> FCurve Key values so as to avoid inadvertently clicking a tool placed on the 
> perimeter of the FCurve editing workspace. Sometimes it's better to have 
> emptiness on one or more sides of the workspace.
> 
&

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Lind]

An example of the boiler plate burden is exactly what was already 
discussed - modeling and tweaking as that's a good bulk of the early work. 
Bad first impressions can be a major deterrent.

Another example is the need to learn the various categories of operators 
(SOPS, CHOPS, VOPS, ...).  Sometimes nodes from different categories do the 
same thing.  that adds confusion.  If nodes from one category cannot work 
with a node of a different category, then that's a problem too.  This is 
where documentation is sorely needed.  It's not strictly a case of a SOP 
does this and a VOP does that, but rather a discussion about strategy.  When 
is it appropriate to use the various OPs?  When should a SOP be used in 
place of wrangled nodes, or vice versa?  that is a huge void in the 
documentation and a place where users easily get lost and frustrated to the 
point they throw in the towel.

In short, Houdini has a lot of spring cleaning to do to tidy things up for 
the generalist.  Right now it's an idiosyncratic development environment. 
It can be very powerful, but it requires a lot of inside knowledge to use 
it.  The generalist doesn't want to (or need to) deal with the inside 
knowledge.  They need something they can hit the ground running without 
fuss.


As for the show dependencies thingy, that's just it.  I don't want to see 
more wires inside of a graph which is already very crowded, messy, and 
lacking structure.  There needs to be a way to illustrate the structured 
connectivity at a high level so users aren't forced into the weeds to get 
basic information.  With ICE or the rendertree in Softimage, the nodes were 
text-based so you could follow the logic while hiding unconnected ports. 
However, even ICE trees could get very complex very quickly, so the use of 
compounds were introduced, and while that helped, it wasn't the same as a 
schematic view as compounds could be recursively nested to very deep levels 
hiding the very information you sought.  Houdini's nodes are very iconic, 
but not very descriptive as to what they do.  You can see various node icon 
shapes, but that still doesn't tell you the logic in the same way as 
following an ICE tree or rendertree.  The design/layout of the network view 
leads to lots of bloat very fast making it difficult to keep track of your 
work when you get beyond simple models.  While networks make a lot of sense 
for VFX work, they are often less than ideal for character driven work. 
Character work benefits more from straightforward relationships which are 
easy to identify and follow as characters are often a hub for other work 
such as VFX, simulations, attachments, constraint interactions, and other 
details which come later in the pipeline.  People working in those later 
steps need to be able to quickly jump into the asset and immediately know 
what to do and where to do it.  They can't be burdened with a messy network 
graph which they must study to the N'th degree before they understand where 
to start.


Matt




Message: 2 Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 17:28:12 +0100
From: Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
To: "Official Softimage Users Mailing List.


below



On 12 May 2018, at 23:26, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't steer towards uber nodes. The larger a node gets, the more 
maintenance it requires and more taxing it becomes as a bottleneck. If a 
node gets too big, you may end up with a situation where it becomes really 
popular from having a larger feature set and everybody and his cousin uses 
the node in every project. At that point the node can become an albatross 
around the developer's neck because any tweaks to the node could cause 
negative ripple effect throughout the community should something go wrong. 
The whole point of having a node system is to guard against that scenario by 
distributing the workload and only use the features you need. Uber nodes 
would automatically add bloat to your workflow from the many features you 
often wouldn't use but have to come along for the ride.



I was referring to the kind of ?uber node? you find in Softimage where you 
don?t have to do all the heavy lifting? certainly I agree with you, 
monolithic Albatros is not the idea of uber-node I had in mind. :-)



I think what's needed are more dedicated nodes for modeling, texturing, and 
animation tasks to fill in the current voids. There also needs to be some 
more UI polish to work with modeling and character animation workflows. Both 
are merely the base level adequate. They need to improve into good or great.



My take is that in order to compete in the modelling market the edit SOPs 
and the Retopo SOP will have to be extended to bring a lot more 
functionality and this is where I see the non-procedural approach 
acceptable. Right now these are very limited compared with Softimage.



Houdini needs a few modules to account for workflows where a node base 
system simply doesn

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Just to clarify...

> On 13 May 2018, at 17:28, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>> I would like to use Houdini, but am choosing to not pursue it until I see 
>> more adoption for character and modeling work.
>> 
> FYI I am rigging and animating a human character in Houdini as we speak... 
> For a film.

And the Film quote I mean, “this is going to be a big screen”, it is a very 
small project with just 3 of us in 3D working on it so please don’t assume huge 
pipeline blah blah blah…

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

; system for these types of tasks.
> 
I am not saying you are wrong but… could you point to some? I would love to 
analyse those and may be we can find ways to address those and minimise the 
friction.
> There's documentation on individual nodes and interfaces, but there really 
> isn't anything to tie it all together in a harmony that makes sense to the 
> end user. One hand isn't talking to the other. I am a technical user and 
> found this to be the most frustrating part of learning Houdini. While there 
> are videos, the last thing I want to do is spend hours and hours scrubbing 
> through videos to find the one nugget I need to get to the next step of the 
> task.
> 
Very much agree the documentation efforts need a further push… these have been 
left behind by the rapid development and lost tons of examples that helped a 
lot.
> I would like to use Houdini, but am choosing to not pursue it until I see 
> more adoption for character and modeling work.
> 
FYI I am rigging and animating a human character in Houdini as we speak... For 
a film.

jb

> Matt
> 
> Message: 1 Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 09:34:28 +0100 From: Jordi Bares 
> <jordiba...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: "Official 
> Softimage Users Mailing List.
> 
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> 
> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
> 
> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node functionality 
> or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager, exporting 
> bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or adding 
> certain tools we use every single day, or bringing more ?uber nodes? to VOPs 
> so we don?t have to be so granular) but always without sacrificing 
> proceduralism or breaking their core design.
> 
> Jb
> 
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> and reply to confirm.
> 
> 

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Lind]

I wouldn't steer towards uber nodes.  The larger a node gets, the more 
maintenance it requires and more taxing it becomes as a bottleneck.  If a 
node gets too big, you may end up with a situation where it becomes really 
popular from having a larger feature set and everybody and his cousin uses 
the node in every project.   At that point the node can become an albatross 
around the developer's neck because any tweaks to the node could cause 
negative ripple effect throughout the community should something go wrong. 
The whole point of having a node system is to guard against that scenario by 
distributing the workload and only use the features you need.  Uber nodes 
would automatically add bloat to your workflow from the many features you 
often wouldn't use but have to come along for the ride.

I think what's needed are more dedicated nodes for modeling, texturing, and 
animation tasks to fill in the current voids.  There also needs to be some 
more UI polish to work with modeling and character animation workflows. 
Both are merely the base level adequate.  They need to improve into good or 
great.

Houdini needs a few modules to account for workflows where a node base 
system simply doesn't make any sense or provide advantage.  Think pushing 
and pulling points on geometry to sculpt a character, or tweaking texture 
UVs for game assets.  Building a network with hundreds of nodes containing 
all the tweaks is counter productive beyond a handful.  It would be better 
to make a dedicated user interface to work on that task in long session 
form, then merely bake out the stack of tweaks as a single node in the tree 
when all is said and done - or something to that effect.  Perhaps the user 
would apply markers to decide how many tweaks can be bundled together as a 
single node upon completion in the same fashion a user can define an 
arbitrary point as a restore point when updating Windows.

The FCurve editor is mostly OK, but the layout of tools on all sides of the 
windows needs a rethink.  While they're making good use of screen space, it 
puts more burden on the mind of the user to keep track of all the tools and 
be more conscious of pointing and clicking with the mouse when tweaking 
FCurve Key values so as to avoid inadvertently clicking a tool placed on the 
perimeter of the FCurve editing workspace.  Sometimes it's better to have 
emptiness on one or more sides of the workspace.

What needs most attention is management of large networks of ops as when 
dealing with character rigging as you need some degree of assessment of how 
the character's parts are hooked up to function.  A schematic view makes 
that fairly straightforward and the parts that are overdriven by expressions 
or other tools are easy enough to locate with arrows and wires connecting 
them.   Doing the same in Houdini on a complex character is quite a chore as 
the trees of nodes don't necessarily illustrate the patterns of parent/child 
relationship or trickle down behavior one would expect to be able to follow. 
This makes the process of rigging a bit counter-productive from an 
organizational standpoint and puts extra burden on new users or users who 
haven't seen the asset before and need to become familiar with it before 
they begin work.  It requires a great deal more study to get up to speed.

What most non-technical artists complain about is the lack of attention to 
detail in getting boiler plate tasks done.  Not because the application 
isn't capable, but because it requires a lot more time and energy than 
should be necessary.  It's kind of like having to rebuild your car from 
scratch every time you want to go grocery shopping.  Even if all you have to 
buy is a carton of milk, the effort to get there is just not worth it. 
Furthermore, the houdini manuals aren't particularly good at describing how 
to make use of the system for these types of tasks.  There's documentation 
on individual nodes and interfaces, but there really isn't anything to tie 
it all together in a harmony that makes sense to the end user.  One hand 
isn't talking to the other.  I am a technical user and found this to be the 
most frustrating part of learning Houdini.  While there are videos, the last 
thing I want to do is spend hours and hours scrubbing through videos to find 
the one nugget I need to get to the next step of the task.

I would like to use Houdini, but am choosing to not pursue it until I see 
more adoption for character and modeling work.

Matt



Message: 1 Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 09:34:28 +0100
From: Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
To: "Official Softimage Users Mailing List.

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

The things Matt mentioned are spot on.

From the ongoing discussion I stand by my point that the superoir workflows 
being discussed are modeling and animation based. From my experience scene 
assembly, alembic handling, fx and caching, lighting, shading, rendering 
workflows are all surpassed at this point. Not to mention robustness and 
unmatched bug fixing support :-)

I’m not saying this trying to convince people. It just happened that I found 
lots of value in other parts of Houdini, that made it less painful leaving my 
familiar workflows behind. Not all is great, but it also lead to different even 
more efficient workflows. Especially based on the very robust digital assets 
system.
 
> On May 11, 2018, at 7:44 PM, Alastair Hearsum  
> wrote:
> 
> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. 

I could turn this the other way around. Maybe it’s a lack of acknowledging the 
different fundamental design. Accept its weaknesses and build on its 
advantages. The first step to peace of mind is to admit there is a different 
philosophy by design :-)

And Alastair, your totally right with your findings on the curve editor and 
else. If you haven’t already, please do bring these up with SideFX. 

Have a great weekend.

Andy
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

I would suggest to give it a proper go, if you have used ICE you will see how 
easy it is.

jb



> On 12 May 2018, at 10:48, Tom Kleinenberg <zagan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This is a really interesting discussion and covers thoughts from all angles. 
> There is an element to the discussion of technical types telling the rest of 
> us we just need to "git gud" which is a bit disheartening though. (It's 
> disheartening not because it's patronising but because the only way to use 
> Houdini is to master it at fairly high technical level which will exclude a 
> number of people, myself included). I understand that there is a technical 
> learning curve to any piece of software but Houdini is a different beast to 
> the other big three (Max, Maya, eXSI). You can drop a Maya artist in XSI and 
> tell them to achieve a task and they'll do it - maybe not the most efficient 
> way, but a way that works. I don't feel that's the same in Houdini. There's 
> too much "well, nobody really models in Houdini" or "you can, but nobody 
> really animates in Houdini". That's not necessarily bad, Zbrush is probably 
> the "best" software on the market in terms of expectations to results but 
> it's clear about it's narrow focus.
> 
> To put it in a personal way, I've worked to some level in 3DS Max, Maya, 
> Lightwave and XSI. I wouldn't consider myself particularly artistically 
> gifted or technically proficient but I am good at understanding the needs of 
> a non-technical person (eg art-director), drawing up a list of requirements 
> and achieving them, getting support from concept artists are pipeline TD's if 
> needed. XSI was* the software that allowed me to go the furthest 
> independently (*was because I've had to move to Maya). I would love to 
> replace that and Houdini appears to be a good fit but I'm not sure. Maybe the 
> "uber-nodes" you're discussing are anathematic to Houdini's overall workflow 
> but would be streamline the on-boarding process. XSI was excellent at getting 
> people into the software and then allowing you to get into the more complex 
> bits on your own; although ICE was the main weapon in my arsenal, it's 
> possible to work for years without ever touching it.
> 
> On 12 May 2018 at 09:34, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com 
> <mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
> 
> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node functionality 
> or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager, exporting 
> bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or adding 
> certain tools we use every single day, or bringing more “uber nodes” to VOPs 
> so we don’t have to be so granular) but always without sacrificing 
> proceduralism or breaking their core design.
> 
> Jb
> 
> 
> 
>> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com 
>> <mailto:speye...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play that 
>> in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools need to 
>> share information and work together. A node based system, by design, 
>> requires each node to act independently. To get the Softimage workflow in 
>> Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough intelligence to cover 
>> all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs to take control and hide 
>> the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists if they attempt to fiddle 
>> with the nodes involved. In either case, it works against a node based 
>> system's mantra.
>> 
>> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another 
>> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but some 
>> degree of cumbersome workflow.
>> 
>> Matt
>> 
>> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum 
>> <alast...@glassworks.co.uk <mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>> Subject: Re: 
>> Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
>> <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
>> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
>> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
>> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
>> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung 
>> together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in an 
>> octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the ideal 
>> host to get the best out if it.
>> 
>> --

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Tom Kleinenberg]

This is a really interesting discussion and covers thoughts from all
angles. There is an element to the discussion of technical types telling
the rest of us we just need to "git gud" which is a bit disheartening
though. (It's disheartening not because it's patronising but because the
only way to use Houdini is to master it at fairly high technical level
which will exclude a number of people, myself included). I understand that
there is a technical learning curve to any piece of software but Houdini is
a different beast to the other big three (Max, Maya, eXSI). You can drop a
Maya artist in XSI and tell them to achieve a task and they'll do it -
maybe not the most efficient way, but a way that works. I don't feel that's
the same in Houdini. There's too much "well, nobody really models in
Houdini" or "you can, but nobody really animates in Houdini". That's not
necessarily bad, Zbrush is probably the "best" software on the market in
terms of expectations to results but it's clear about it's narrow focus.

To put it in a personal way, I've worked to some level in 3DS Max, Maya,
Lightwave and XSI. I wouldn't consider myself particularly artistically
gifted or technically proficient but I am good at understanding the needs
of a non-technical person (eg art-director), drawing up a list of
requirements and achieving them, getting support from concept artists are
pipeline TD's if needed. XSI was* the software that allowed me to go the
furthest independently (*was because I've had to move to Maya). I would
love to replace that and Houdini appears to be a good fit but I'm not sure.
Maybe the "uber-nodes" you're discussing are anathematic to Houdini's
overall workflow but would be streamline the on-boarding process. XSI was
excellent at getting people into the software and then allowing you to get
into the more complex bits on your own; although ICE was the main weapon in
my arsenal, it's possible to work for years without ever touching it.

On 12 May 2018 at 09:34, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote:

> @Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)
>
> I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node
> functionality or assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager,
> exporting bundles in and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or
> adding certain tools we use every single day, or bringing more “uber nodes”
> to VOPs so we don’t have to be so granular) but always without sacrificing
> proceduralism or breaking their core design.
>
> Jb
>
>
>
> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play
> that in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools
> need to share information and work together. A node based system, by
> design, requires each node to act independently. To get the Softimage
> workflow in Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough
> intelligence to cover all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs
> to take control and hide the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists
> if they attempt to fiddle with the nodes involved. In either case, it works
> against a node based system's mantra.
>
> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another
> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but
> some degree of cumbersome workflow.
>
> Matt
>
> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum <
> alast...@glassworks.co.uk> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To:
> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
>
> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of
> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design
> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As
> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung
> together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in
> an octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the
> ideal host to get the best out if it.
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

@Matt, Exactly my thoughts (but clearly better explained)

I would certainly advocate to improve things in terms of node functionality or 
assisting better in certain aspects (blend shape manager, exporting bundles in 
and out, or adding hierarchical overrides in takes, or adding certain tools we 
use every single day, or bringing more “uber nodes” to VOPs so we don’t have to 
be so granular) but always without sacrificing proceduralism or breaking their 
core design.

Jb



> On 11 May 2018, at 22:04, Matt Lind <speye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play that 
> in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools need to 
> share information and work together. A node based system, by design, requires 
> each node to act independently. To get the Softimage workflow in Houdini 
> requires either monolithic nodes with enough intelligence to cover all the 
> bases of a particular task, or the UI needs to take control and hide the 
> nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists if they attempt to fiddle with 
> the nodes involved. In either case, it works against a node based system's 
> mantra.
> 
> In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another 
> Softimage. You'll have to settle for something that has great power but some 
> degree of cumbersome workflow.
> 
> Matt
> 
> Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100 From: Alastair Hearsum 
> <alast...@glassworks.co.uk> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs? To: 
> softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
> 
> I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
> familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
> issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
> everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung 
> together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in an 
> octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the ideal 
> host to get the best out if it.
> 
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the subject, 
> and reply to confirm.
> 
> 

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Lind]

Given Houdini is a node based system, there is a simple paradox at play that 
in order to get the level of cohesiveness Softimage employed, tools need to 
share information and work together.  A node based system, by design, 
requires each node to act independently.  To get the Softimage workflow in 
Houdini requires either monolithic nodes with enough intelligence to cover 
all the bases of a particular task, or the UI needs to take control and hide 
the nodes behind the scenes slapping user's wrists if they attempt to fiddle 
with the nodes involved.  In either case, it works against a node based 
system's mantra.

In short, I don't think it's possible for Houdini to ever become another 
Softimage.  You'll have to settle for something that has great power but 
some degree of cumbersome workflow.


Matt




Message: 2 Date: Fri, 11 May 2018 18:44:10 +0100
From: Alastair Hearsum <alast...@glassworks.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com

I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its strung 
together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 year old in an 
octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right but not in the ideal 
host to get the best out if it.


--
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To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

I think there is real danger in pinning all this grumbling on lack of 
familiarity and not acknowledging that there are some fundamental design 
issues . The first step to recovery is to admit that there a problem. As 
everyone knows there is some fantastic technology in there but its 
strung together in an awful way. Its like putting the organs of a 20 
year old in an octagenarian; each organ very capable in its own right 
but not in the ideal host to get the best out if it.


On 11/05/2018 18:21, Jordi Bares wrote:
It is like moving houses… hard at first… little by little you discover 
how to use it and finally you are ready to enjoy it.


;-)
jb

On 11 May 2018, at 16:43, Bradley Gabe > wrote:


I find it a humorous coincidence that people are coming to the 
conclusion that Houdini is not Softimage or Maya, and you eventually 
have to come around to thinking the Houdini way in order to unlock 
its full potential.


Didn’t we have the exact same issue with Maya people trying to use 
XSI with Maya thinking? Setting up rigs and hierarchies in a Maya 
way, using a Maya-linear-production workflow, all highly inefficient. 
And then they didn’t like XSI because it wasn’t very good at being 
Maya. :-)


It’s a big reason I dreaded the idea of switching apps. I assumed 
Maya was going to really bad at being XSI for me. Still wish I had 
time to pick up Houdini at some point.


-B -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
 with “unsubscribe” 
in the subject, and reply to confirm.






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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

It is like moving houses… hard at first… little by little you discover how to 
use it and finally you are ready to enjoy it.

;-)
jb

> On 11 May 2018, at 16:43, Bradley Gabe  wrote:
> 
> I find it a humorous coincidence that people are coming to the conclusion 
> that Houdini is not Softimage or Maya, and you eventually have to come around 
> to thinking the Houdini way in order to unlock its full potential.
> 
> Didn’t we have the exact same issue with Maya people trying to use XSI with 
> Maya thinking? Setting up rigs and hierarchies in a Maya way, using a 
> Maya-linear-production workflow, all highly inefficient. And then they didn’t 
> like XSI because it wasn’t very good at being Maya. :-)
> 
> It’s a big reason I dreaded the idea of switching apps. I assumed Maya was 
> going to really bad at being XSI for me. Still wish I had time to pick up 
> Houdini at some point.
> 
> -B -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the subject, 
> and reply to confirm.
> 
> 

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Bradley Gabe]

I find it a humorous coincidence that people are coming to the conclusion that 
Houdini is not Softimage or Maya, and you eventually have to come around to 
thinking the Houdini way in order to unlock its full potential. 

Didn’t we have the exact same issue with Maya people trying to use XSI with 
Maya thinking? Setting up rigs and hierarchies in a Maya way, using a 
Maya-linear-production workflow, all highly inefficient. And then they didn’t 
like XSI because it wasn’t very good at being Maya. :-)

It’s a big reason I dreaded the idea of switching apps. I assumed Maya was 
going to really bad at being XSI for me. Still wish I had time to pick up 
Houdini at some point. 

-B
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Below 


> On 11 May 2018, at 16:22, <p...@bustykelp.com> <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:
> 
> Is it possible to make something like a ‘Shape Manager’ in Houdini?

Of course, the Autorig panel is a good example of that…

> I can understand that it sounds bad to try and force ‘traditional workflows’ 
> into Houdini. However, it seems a bit purist and counterproductive to not 
> allow useful creation tools just because they aren’t part of the procedural 
> workflow. Its not like having a shape manager in there to create shapes / 
> correctives easily and in context of the rig is going to suddenly corrupt 
> everyone and make them stop using a procedural approach.  I need both when 
> I’m doing work in XSI.

It makes perfect sense to have one, it may be simply a matter of time as it 
against traction with animators...

> I think having 3d software that goes from simple accessible and easy, when 
> you want to do creative work, to Very deep when you want to do complex stuff, 
> is the best approach.  These types of ‘traditional’ tools aren’t going to be 
> noticeable to the people that don’t want to use them.

The point is that you could do such things in multiple places… not only SOP 
level, but also CHOPs or VOPs… so… that “simple” tool in the procedural world 
is quite a beast to develop and support. I am not advocating not to do it but 
playing devil’s advocate because one of the principles I have seen is that 
SideFX develops with a very open minded approach… you never know how people are 
using your toolset and a good example of this is the latest biharmonic 
weighting, direct result of their FEM technology.

jb


>   
> From: Jordi Bares <mailto:jordiba...@gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 4:05 PM
> To: Paul Smith <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com> ; Official Softimage Users Mailing 
> List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list 
> <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
>  
> You hit the nail on the head with “Slow stop-start workflows can stall your 
> creative flow”, that is the critical factor for me as well, in the sense that 
> in a few occasions (may be too many?) you are forced/invited to stop your 
> creative flow to write your own tool (for example a path deform) and that 
> should be there from the start. This is getting better though so I am hopeful.
>  
> But I do not agree with your suggestion of “wrapping”, the self tools really 
> is a framework to do those but I don’t think SideFX should be the one 
> promoting traditional workflows because I suspect it will lead to linear 
> networks and although the motive is great, the result may be a non-Houdini 
> approach, remember Houdini is a huge massively parallel ICE network.
>  
> And yes, Softimage workflow is/was king, no doubt…
>  
> Jb
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>> On 11 May 2018, at 14:28, <p...@bustykelp.com <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> 
>> <p...@bustykelp.com <mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> wrote:
>>  
>> I Agree.
>>  
>> I know that Houdini has a wider scope and thus more ability to achieve 
>> ultimately whatever you want, than XSI / ICE.
>> However, in my character workflow, I’m diving into ICE, making a deformer, 
>> going back and adding shapes, reading nearby surfaces, and in ICE using them 
>> to rotate the vectors of shapes deltas, readjusting the shapes, and 
>> generally ping ponging around between programming and using ‘traditional’ 
>> tools to feed into the procedure that leads to the final result. In XSI that 
>> all happens without the slightest delay or workaround as everything is just 
>> there. for me personally, I can do everything i wish to do with ICE/XSI.
>> Obviously I know XSI inside out which helps, but my forays into Houdini 
>> never give me hope that I will ever have that workflow at my fingertips. 
>> I feel like it needs a layer above the deeper procedural approach, that 
>> gives you some tools to manage blendshapes etc. Maya now has a decent 
>> version of Softimage’s shape mixer. I know that Houdini doesnt’ want to keep 
>> its ‘everything procedural’ approach but sometimes you just want to make a 
>> shape and thats it, and you might want to see it in context of the rig, and 
>> be able to do a ‘secondary shape mode’ etc, and not have to make your own 
>> ‘tools’ to do this. Sculpting is not something that fits well within 
>> Houdini’s philosophy, but again ,if you want to do characters, then its a 
>> necessary thing to be able to make poses look good. and you dont always want 
>> to export, Zbrush it, import. hook up blendshape shape etc.. Slow stop-start 
>> workflows can stall your creative flow.
>>  
>&g

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andreas Böinghoff]

On 5/11/2018 5:21 PM, p...@bustykelp.com wrote:
Is it possible to make something like a ‘Shape Manager’ in Houdini? 


On SOP level you can use the Blend shape node. Or you make your own one. 
Blendshapes are just an linear interpolation between two meshes with the 
same topo.


If you want to make your custom deformer use the mix node in VOPs or the 
lerp function in vex. For weighting you can use any float attribute.


Andy
--
*ANDREAS BÖINGHOFF*
3D Artist

*THE | MARMALADE*
www.themarmalade.com 


T:  +49 40 43291 200

The Marmalade Post GmbH & Co. KG
Lippmannstraße 79
22769 Hamburg
Geschäftsführung:
Torsten Eichten, Manfred Brunwey
Amtsgericht Hamburg HRA 95793

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[paul]

Is it possible to make something like a ‘Shape Manager’ in Houdini? 
I can understand that it sounds bad to try and force ‘traditional workflows’ 
into Houdini. However, it seems a bit purist and counterproductive to not allow 
useful creation tools just because they aren’t part of the procedural workflow. 
Its not like having a shape manager in there to create shapes / correctives 
easily and in context of the rig is going to suddenly corrupt everyone and make 
them stop using a procedural approach.  I need both when I’m doing work in XSI.
I think having 3d software that goes from simple accessible and easy, when you 
want to do creative work, to Very deep when you want to do complex stuff, is 
the best approach.  These types of ‘traditional’ tools aren’t going to be 
noticeable to the people that don’t want to use them.


From: Jordi Bares 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 4:05 PM
To: Paul Smith ; Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=b3UIXUuym66S4YPhMqJJyQ58HuVf_IMuoZ8tZrzPmVM=0IXRO4Vmp_3CTvEuaoXOaBvNX9oWqDeX1EvXCYLD35w=
 
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

You hit the nail on the head with “Slow stop-start workflows can stall your 
creative flow”, that is the critical factor for me as well, in the sense that 
in a few occasions (may be too many?) you are forced/invited to stop your 
creative flow to write your own tool (for example a path deform) and that 
should be there from the start. This is getting better though so I am hopeful.

But I do not agree with your suggestion of “wrapping”, the self tools really is 
a framework to do those but I don’t think SideFX should be the one promoting 
traditional workflows because I suspect it will lead to linear networks and 
although the motive is great, the result may be a non-Houdini approach, 
remember Houdini is a huge massively parallel ICE network.

And yes, Softimage workflow is/was king, no doubt…

Jb





  On 11 May 2018, at 14:28, <p...@bustykelp.com> <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:

  I Agree.

  I know that Houdini has a wider scope and thus more ability to achieve 
ultimately whatever you want, than XSI / ICE.
  However, in my character workflow, I’m diving into ICE, making a deformer, 
going back and adding shapes, reading nearby surfaces, and in ICE using them to 
rotate the vectors of shapes deltas, readjusting the shapes, and generally ping 
ponging around between programming and using ‘traditional’ tools to feed into 
the procedure that leads to the final result. In XSI that all happens without 
the slightest delay or workaround as everything is just there. for me 
personally, I can do everything i wish to do with ICE/XSI.
  Obviously I know XSI inside out which helps, but my forays into Houdini never 
give me hope that I will ever have that workflow at my fingertips. 
  I feel like it needs a layer above the deeper procedural approach, that gives 
you some tools to manage blendshapes etc. Maya now has a decent version of 
Softimage’s shape mixer. I know that Houdini doesnt’ want to keep its 
‘everything procedural’ approach but sometimes you just want to make a shape 
and thats it, and you might want to see it in context of the rig, and be able 
to do a ‘secondary shape mode’ etc, and not have to make your own ‘tools’ to do 
this. Sculpting is not something that fits well within Houdini’s philosophy, 
but again ,if you want to do characters, then its a necessary thing to be able 
to make poses look good. and you dont always want to export, Zbrush it, import. 
hook up blendshape shape etc.. Slow stop-start workflows can stall your 
creative flow.

  I definitely think that if they can add a level of ‘art’ tools that can feed 
back into the procedural system seamlessly without interfering , then it would 
make Houdini more appealing and fun to use. 

  From: Alastair Hearsum
  Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 2:03 PM
  To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
  Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

  I see ease of access as a liberating force


  On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:

I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it is 
about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of your comfort 
zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting older makes me biased??  
;-)  

jb

  On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

  I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector 
thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)

 


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  -- 

  Alastair Hearsum
  Creative Director of 3d

  

  See our latest work here

  The Penthouse,
  5th Floor,
  

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

There is a whole raft of improvements they should/could make to the user 
experience without jeopordising their principles: Improving the fcurve 
editor and having time controls in the texture node are two examples 
that spring immediately to mind.



On 11/05/2018 16:05, Jordi Bares wrote:
You hit the nail on the head with “Slow stop-start workflows can stall 
your creative flow”, that is the critical factor for me as well, in 
the sense that in a few occasions (may be too many?) you are 
forced/invited to stop your creative flow to write your own tool (for 
example a path deform) and that should be there from the start. This 
is getting better though so I am hopeful.


But I do not agree with your suggestion of “wrapping”, the self tools 
really is a framework to do those but I don’t think SideFX should be 
the one promoting traditional workflows because I suspect it will lead 
to linear networks and although the motive is great, the result may be 
a non-Houdini approach, remember Houdini is a huge massively parallel 
ICE network.


And yes, Softimage workflow is/was king, no doubt…

Jb





On 11 May 2018, at 14:28, <p...@bustykelp.com 
<mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> <p...@bustykelp.com 
<mailto:p...@bustykelp.com>> wrote:


I Agree.
I know that Houdini has a wider scope and thus more ability to 
achieve ultimately whatever you want, than XSI / ICE.
However, in my character workflow, I’m diving into ICE, making a 
deformer, going back and adding shapes, reading nearby surfaces, and 
in ICE using them to rotate the vectors of shapes deltas, readjusting 
the shapes, and generally ping ponging around between programming and 
using ‘traditional’ tools to feed into the procedure that leads to 
the final result. In XSI that all happens without the slightest delay 
or workaround as everything is just there. for me personally, I can 
do everything i wish to do with ICE/XSI.
Obviously I know XSI inside out which helps, but my forays into 
Houdini never give me hope that I will ever have that workflow at my 
fingertips.
I feel like it needs a layer above the deeper procedural approach, 
that gives you some tools to manage blendshapes etc. Maya now has a 
decent version of Softimage’s shape mixer. I know that Houdini 
doesnt’ want to keep its ‘everything procedural’ approach but 
sometimes you just want to make a shape and thats it, and you might 
want to see it in context of the rig, and be able to do a ‘secondary 
shape mode’ etc, and not have to make your own ‘tools’ to do this. 
Sculpting is not something that fits well within Houdini’s 
philosophy, but again ,if you want to do characters, then its a 
necessary thing to be able to make poses look good. and you dont 
always want to export, Zbrush it, import. hook up blendshape shape 
etc.. Slow stop-start workflows can stall your creative flow.
I definitely think that if they can add a level of ‘art’ tools that 
can feed back into the procedural system seamlessly without 
interfering , then it would make Houdini more appealing and fun to use.

*From:*Alastair Hearsum <mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>
*Sent:*Friday, May 11, 2018 2:03 PM
*To:*softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
<mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>

*Subject:*Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
I see ease of access as a liberating force

On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think 
it is about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out 
of your comfort zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting 
older makes me biased??  ;-)

jb
On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com 
<mailto:facialdel...@gmail.com>> wrote:
I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / 
vector thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)



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--
Alastair Hearsum
Creative Director of 3d
GLASSWORKS
<https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6iB4H67OtDu1LYz6krlc8-2FqBeLCXrELBQVbfMn71cNywwCM9MLKQNt6NvY2bdnUVgiRuzEw0g0OZUwVhB4KIDvkjTtq34l13Jmfjgwg01isCCK511SfOUct9zBCzgDFFRO-2FaVrThr3vNXUM7RiWhBe-2BeNhsuRVYy8WcsXk6VbpXImEfuRQawGiawr4d49P-2FHnLnlELB9OOSGEp8kBIqiFZxa2fSH2uroog4eQsi5i0iGOvAlBanKasL72X371xL3Z1-2FMAUK-2F1-2Bn7d4-2Fi9jwJGmD-2FXB0QlJXgqMM4kstz-2Fm56HjIsU-2BkoNKiHaHAxbA8n7qCi7fJECJ12MiQJpTrx2jfXGBXF3zfBvDddlR827i4aFwrn2yvXBGGOoEZOMg9hjJ1wpoyeQ1zfNS-2FsdMLrqqJ4p8jeHAMVxgfxirnYH1ojedKzjZLCUyM-2F57hbGcdlsMWECtycgvH0n5RbnXbIIP0IxPzp8f2qskSKUGrEAEQWxh93WtQw37vtB2ZfdQ8nMqELwmNrYTCc9YLJfaYRYKW-2FH896GdDhLf3Di2fMbgpgS3mKL14EN04x7-2BcsMHSWQxmMTljGMnSrXRt1rL9nSvse0sI9vQQJbpyTY-2BmAPAJfWssKTPRUR-2FcGqEnWrUWad45zc0MLLv7-2BVw2j-2BGq9vPqWKi4Kpm9zxtpHrFFzq9cDYChdW86FZorB2ub6UEvt6Q-2BlzuX586qMgO4INt

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

You hit the nail on the head with “Slow stop-start workflows can stall your 
creative flow”, that is the critical factor for me as well, in the sense that 
in a few occasions (may be too many?) you are forced/invited to stop your 
creative flow to write your own tool (for example a path deform) and that 
should be there from the start. This is getting better though so I am hopeful.

But I do not agree with your suggestion of “wrapping”, the self tools really is 
a framework to do those but I don’t think SideFX should be the one promoting 
traditional workflows because I suspect it will lead to linear networks and 
although the motive is great, the result may be a non-Houdini approach, 
remember Houdini is a huge massively parallel ICE network.

And yes, Softimage workflow is/was king, no doubt…

Jb





> On 11 May 2018, at 14:28, <p...@bustykelp.com> <p...@bustykelp.com> wrote:
> 
> I Agree.
>  
> I know that Houdini has a wider scope and thus more ability to achieve 
> ultimately whatever you want, than XSI / ICE.
> However, in my character workflow, I’m diving into ICE, making a deformer, 
> going back and adding shapes, reading nearby surfaces, and in ICE using them 
> to rotate the vectors of shapes deltas, readjusting the shapes, and generally 
> ping ponging around between programming and using ‘traditional’ tools to feed 
> into the procedure that leads to the final result. In XSI that all happens 
> without the slightest delay or workaround as everything is just there. for me 
> personally, I can do everything i wish to do with ICE/XSI.
> Obviously I know XSI inside out which helps, but my forays into Houdini never 
> give me hope that I will ever have that workflow at my fingertips. 
> I feel like it needs a layer above the deeper procedural approach, that gives 
> you some tools to manage blendshapes etc. Maya now has a decent version of 
> Softimage’s shape mixer. I know that Houdini doesnt’ want to keep its 
> ‘everything procedural’ approach but sometimes you just want to make a shape 
> and thats it, and you might want to see it in context of the rig, and be able 
> to do a ‘secondary shape mode’ etc, and not have to make your own ‘tools’ to 
> do this. Sculpting is not something that fits well within Houdini’s 
> philosophy, but again ,if you want to do characters, then its a necessary 
> thing to be able to make poses look good. and you dont always want to export, 
> Zbrush it, import. hook up blendshape shape etc.. Slow stop-start workflows 
> can stall your creative flow.
>  
> I definitely think that if they can add a level of ‘art’ tools that can feed 
> back into the procedural system seamlessly without interfering , then it 
> would make Houdini more appealing and fun to use. 
>  
> From: Alastair Hearsum <mailto:alast...@glassworks.co.uk>
> Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 2:03 PM
> To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com <mailto:softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
>  
> I see ease of access as a liberating force
> 
> On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
>> I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it is 
>> about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of your 
>> comfort zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting older makes me 
>> biased??  ;-) 
>>  
>> jb
>>  
>>> On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:facialdel...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>  
>>> I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector 
>>> thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>> <mailto:softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com> with "unsubscribe" in the 
>> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
> -- 
> Alastair Hearsum
> Creative Director of 3d
> 
>  
> <https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6mg4oLGBuQENbeDkYXezg3m6vjHxJcC6rUMd8QE2MtqzS3nHFJpHH1mihN2vNWVF73yH4QzPTUaj-2BU-2FV4xCvLLTnZ7suFMzmFdGmjVRnYdJAxVY-2F5M380PkfQ8TNK8ovM5rxNeeTCOnkRGaT-2F-2Fqta38pWvWMaql23pwdaAWmes-2Fu-2FwoONKissOPCP2dnxYlCF8MuvS9SagvsIc6CtFXU7v7dMieqREDdkqKDPcfejV-2FTJALRx-2FMJGI6QHbuV-2FHw0uA22A3gndOd7xTwC48BqXAf0lEJbaUBTMwK1n2BJ876nw6BM9VXC-2FROZR0M05CMwV4VfZ5OdBABz-2B-2B2HEfiW2dqwZtPKhf90ZFcf8JKJJjPeKKOap5hCek4iTOZAVcoM2ZZiOcNPCyOI-2Fw8Q3EKRCxNiyMTyumrqjqI67yZbxMojdCXaFv-2BwmJQMxQPSfOhqcGPCMeybJcgv8IZxE-2ByL9kqY2ygJbqYCBP2Z1WV3KyrZkHHKtOASEpq3kVteytDSU6fsIFk2uWaVOkhZz2f-2B2KSY8DfDmwNAhBdCYMKQw57C6ZViVcxOvMQB9tdPpRuHaGWBjgjuw2heXfZBN-2BrhzFSkghMIR-2Bf8bvihsZnwVQU90WDjEcrnwOzdlBuFhyThRMi3kb4x4ytKSjkLlQqoWk

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Anto Matkovic]

Yeah that one could be used as introduction of Autodesk Fusion 360 advertising, 
or some else CAD app - ''ok now stop with that small Houdini joke, let's see 
what procedural, powerful NURBS modeler can do, brought to you by Autodesk''. 
That is, mentioned AD app has usable, easy to use construction history, so it's 
procedural, and that is just a base for few state-of-art NurbS engines on 
top.Same story with 'replicating C4d Mograph in H' series too, I'm afraid - 
'let's see how our artist friendly procedure become convoluted, slow and over 
complicated in Houdini''
I'd say, it is a bit unfair to take Houdini as example of procedural modeling ( 
unfair to procedural modeling ).
Neither Side FX nor Houdini community ever showed significant effort in this 
field. H got decent booleans (decent = comparable to what 3ds Max has for 
decades) just a year ago, NurbS engine is catastrophe compared to Maya NurbS 
from 1998, re-meshers are really basic, voxel modeling via OpenVDB is nowhere 
close to power of zBrush (of course I'm talking about modeling, only), so on. 
Direct modeling is looking like bad copy of Maya modeling -  so, bearable dose 
of poison in Maya, in small player like H become a lethal one. 'Houdini 
modeling', that's looking more like limited, from time to time initiative by 
SideFX, but also a subject of permanent sabotage by H community who's spreading 
artist repellents all around, words like ''code is better'' even there is no 
need for any code in particular case, UNIX style naming and expressions and 
such. If I'm correct, only one Christmas tree available on Orbolt, as an 'total 
example' of procedural modeling, is created by someone from SideFX team, not by 
member of community.
Anyway it still provides a bit of everything related to 'indirect modeling', of 
course it's able to animate and simulate all that, and  I think not 
occasionally, it fills a lot of Maya gaps. For example, for any deformation 
above Maya skin-blendshape-wrap-deltamush combo, I'd be ready to switch (for 
that part) to H, instead of possible fighting with Maya Muscles and like.


  From: David Saber <davidsa...@sfr.fr>
 To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
 Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2018 11:32 AM
 Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
   
The one I'm following now is the rocket ship : 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__vimeo.com_141986424=DwID-g=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=wocXfs-0FToIcmkYvAMVju9h5If2iF4hNr38EyHFgsw=utEfA5UTDe68AgzmsoSAgvZ3jT6MUCUkjyNQ2jQzeg8=
 . I enjoy Rohan's videos, but I'm not so found of procedural modelling. To 
create the rocket ship's door, a dozen nodes are needed… All working with some 
kind of curves (carve nodes) to draw the shape of the door, then delete nodes 
to cut out the volume. Like some kind of nurbs boolean workflow. Everything is 
done in the network editor and I don't find this workflow funny. So of course 
the beauty of this kind of work is that you can go back to the first node (in a 
tree so high it's scary) and if you modify it, all the subsequent nodes will 
evolve accordingly. And when the ship will be shape-animated everything will 
follow nicely. But the same could be achieved with non procedural modelling , 
not?



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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

And that is the bit that I feel that SideFX underestimates

On 11/05/2018 14:20, Jordi Bares wrote:

That as well…

jb

On 11 May 2018, at 14:03, Alastair Hearsum > wrote:


I see ease of access as a liberating force

On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think 
it is about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out 
of your comfort zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting 
older makes me biased??  ;-)


jb

On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel > wrote:


I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / 
vector thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)




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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[paul]

I Agree.

I know that Houdini has a wider scope and thus more ability to achieve 
ultimately whatever you want, than XSI / ICE.
However, in my character workflow, I’m diving into ICE, making a deformer, 
going back and adding shapes, reading nearby surfaces, and in ICE using them to 
rotate the vectors of shapes deltas, readjusting the shapes, and generally ping 
ponging around between programming and using ‘traditional’ tools to feed into 
the procedure that leads to the final result. In XSI that all happens without 
the slightest delay or workaround as everything is just there. for me 
personally, I can do everything i wish to do with ICE/XSI.
Obviously I know XSI inside out which helps, but my forays into Houdini never 
give me hope that I will ever have that workflow at my fingertips. 
I feel like it needs a layer above the deeper procedural approach, that gives 
you some tools to manage blendshapes etc. Maya now has a decent version of 
Softimage’s shape mixer. I know that Houdini doesnt’ want to keep its 
‘everything procedural’ approach but sometimes you just want to make a shape 
and thats it, and you might want to see it in context of the rig, and be able 
to do a ‘secondary shape mode’ etc, and not have to make your own ‘tools’ to do 
this. Sculpting is not something that fits well within Houdini’s philosophy, 
but again ,if you want to do characters, then its a necessary thing to be able 
to make poses look good. and you dont always want to export, Zbrush it, import. 
hook up blendshape shape etc.. Slow stop-start workflows can stall your 
creative flow.

I definitely think that if they can add a level of ‘art’ tools that can feed 
back into the procedural system seamlessly without interfering , then it would 
make Houdini more appealing and fun to use. 

From: Alastair Hearsum 
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2018 2:03 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com 
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

I see ease of access as a liberating force


On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:

  I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it is 
about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of your comfort 
zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting older makes me biased??  
;-) 

  jb

On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel <facialdel...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector 
thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)

   
   

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

That as well…

jb

> On 11 May 2018, at 14:03, Alastair Hearsum  wrote:
> 
> I see ease of access as a liberating force
> 
> On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
>> I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it is 
>> about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of your 
>> comfort zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting older makes me 
>> biased??  ;-)
>> 
>> jb
>> 
>>> On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel >> > wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector 
>>> thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)
>> 
>>  
>> 
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>> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
> -- 
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> Creative Director of 3d
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 
>   
> 
>   
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

I see ease of access as a liberating force

On 11/05/2018 12:47, Jordi Bares wrote:
I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it 
is about a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of 
your comfort zone, not age (but may be the fact that keep getting 
older makes me biased??  ;-)


jb

On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel > wrote:


I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / 
vector thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)




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 Vimeo 
 Instagram 
 Twitter 


See our latest work _here_ 

The Penthouse,
5th Floor,
87-91 Newman Street
London
W1T 3EY
T +44 (0)20 7434 1182
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Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk 

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 
73 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3QQ.

VAT registration number: 198083762)
Please consider the environment before you print this email.
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andreas Böinghoff]

It is really fun to read the hole thread. We are currently in a state 
where we buy more and more houdini licenses. Half of the team is doing 
most of the work in houdini. For our daily commercial/fx work, with a 
small amount of keyframe animation, it is the tool! After the good old 
softimage times, we can highly recommend Houdini. With the great 
integration of Redshift and Arnold working is fun again.


Andy


On 5/10/2018 9:02 PM, Andy Chlupka (Goehler) wrote:
Funny how that is. When I first got my feet wet with Houdini I had the 
same feelings. I could rage about the looks of everything UI. Then 
something else happened… And this is not to say that the UI/UX doesn’t 
need work, but while learning the ins and outs of Houdini I started to 
appreciate how things worked and not how they looked.


I also find these recurring workflow statements misleading. While 
modeling and animation workflows maybe champions. Let us not put 
others on the same pedestal. High Quality Viewport, Fur, ICE caching, 
Passes, Schematic View, etc. are no champions of their league. Some of 
them quite dated for their time, others just embarrassing.


To each its own I guess :—)



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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

I see technology and maths as a liberation force so I want to think it is about 
a personal attitude towards the challenge of getting out of your comfort zone, 
not age (but may be the fact that keep getting older makes me biased??  ;-)

jb

> On 10 May 2018, at 20:38, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:
> 
> I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector thingy 
> are the best creative things that happened to me :)

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Olivier Jeannel]

I'm from an old fine art degree. Proceduralism and other math / vector
thingy are the best creative things that happened to me :)

2018-05-10 21:32 GMT+02:00 Graham D. Clark :

>
> On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 4:54 AM, Alastair Hearsum <
> alast...@glassworks.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Oh dear
>>
>> On 02/05/2018 22:26, Jonathan Moore wrote:
>>
>> Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts
>> education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application like
>> Houdini.
>>
>> I get the person you are describing if they are no longer thinking the
> way they were as fine art students, and don't have some technical chops.
> But pure fine arts thinking is very good fit for Houdini in the OP
> networks (the rest of it not so much without an accessible and usable
> heterogeneous scene graph). It's about process.
>
> I know you're not saying this, but it can't be all technical, Houdini
> artist was an oxymoron for a while.
>
> Thank you for the links Jonathan! I didn't know about some of these.
>
> Graham D Clark
> phone: why-I-stereo
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imdb.me_grahamdclark=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=FRp0ser86lOMY1kWrDCgs5dcgp_8leJzyY8zaVmWSog=9CXOeB4DAlpczV_Uqxb8L4P0SEqXZw--T6g4j3MiZ64=
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_grahamclark=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=FRp0ser86lOMY1kWrDCgs5dcgp_8leJzyY8zaVmWSog=eucHoM-wnhhgSdrc3uqW4akwloY8I8_RIxPcUt03Mes=
> 
>
>
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Graham D. Clark]

On Thu, May 10, 2018 at 4:54 AM, Alastair Hearsum  wrote:

> Oh dear
>
> On 02/05/2018 22:26, Jonathan Moore wrote:
>
> Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts
> education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application like
> Houdini.
>
> I get the person you are describing if they are no longer thinking the way
they were as fine art students, and don't have some technical chops.
But pure fine arts thinking is very good fit for Houdini in the OP networks
(the rest of it not so much without an accessible and usable heterogeneous
scene graph). It's about process.

I know you're not saying this, but it can't be all technical, Houdini
artist was an oxymoron for a while.

Thank you for the links Jonathan! I didn't know about some of these.

Graham D Clark
phone: why-I-stereo
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imdb.me_grahamdclark=DwIBaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=0td1QE6So0SfEI8iLl1iEezPiyd7To0bKVPIe0VU5E8=LCCvLmR4D6eDX0PHBCJ25HlBi-nXtl6zSk0LCVcCCz8=
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_grahamclark=DwIBaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=0td1QE6So0SfEI8iLl1iEezPiyd7To0bKVPIe0VU5E8=-cuMoldAj2bVYJ92UfVk_sEvZMEgssjpVjxjqIITxIY=
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Andy Chlupka (Goehler)]

Funny how that is. When I first got my feet wet with Houdini I had the same 
feelings. I could rage about the looks of everything UI. Then something else 
happened… And this is not to say that the UI/UX doesn’t need work, but while 
learning the ins and outs of Houdini I started to appreciate how things worked 
and not how they looked.

I also find these recurring workflow statements misleading. While modeling and 
animation workflows maybe champions. Let us not put others on the same 
pedestal. High Quality Viewport, Fur, ICE caching, Passes, Schematic View, etc. 
are no champions of their league. Some of them quite dated for their time, 
others just embarrassing.

To each its own I guess :—)



> On May 10, 2018, at 11:34 AM, David Saber  wrote:
> 
> LOL. I have the same one at home, a gift from my granny !!
> 
> On 2018-05-10 11:06, Alastair Hearsum wrote:
> 
> that GI Light icon is like your granny's occasional table table cloth
> 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[David Saber]

LOL. I have the same one at home, a gift from my granny !!


On 2018-05-10 11:06, Alastair Hearsum wrote:
> that GI Light icon is like your granny's occasional table table cloth

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[David Saber]

  
  
Thanks Olive this works much better :)



On 2018-05-10 00:27, Olivier Jeannel
  wrote:


  is this better ?
https://discord.gg/WeSFNAR
  
  
2018-05-09 16:35 GMT+02:00 Anto
  Matkovic <a...@matkovic.com>:
  

  
About
that 'node vs code', I think Matt Estela already
gave answer, that with noises ''definitely worth
using vops as a sketch pad for this kind of thing''.
Story is, that building a custom deformation as
somehow typical ICE task, also fits into "using as
sketch pad'', where the core of job is not
particular function, loop or like, instead it is
more a set a recipes or combinations where I'm not
completely, in advance, sure what I want.
Long
story short, here's code for thing like loops,
everything else is VOP. Generally H VOPs are just
fine, IMO.

  
By the way there's practical  :) advantage
  of code - by textual nature, code is relative easy to
  transfer from something like Apprentice to full H
  (while I'm not sure how that practice fits into EULA).
  VOP or HDA have to be passed through the Orbolt, or
  another procedure authorized by Side FX...

  


  

  

   From:
  Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
  To:
  Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list
  <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
  
  Sent:
  Monday, May 7, 2018 11:15 AM
Subject:
                    Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
   
  

  

  


http://www.tokeru.com/cgwiki/index.php?title=JoyOfVex




  

  


  


  

  

  

  

  
  


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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Their declared aims are commendable but as I said in another mail they 
don't comprehend how far they have to go to attract the non technical 
artist/animator and I don't think they appreciate how irritating the 
sludgy workflow is. Don't get me started on the graphic design of the 
interface; that GI Light icon is like your granny's occasional table 
table cloth. What they need is for that dead MAC man to come back from 
the dead and knock some heads togther. You appeciate the user experience 
of the MAC/ Iphone Jordi.  Houdini needs that kinda treatment and its 
not just about the icons its about the ease of use.


On 03/05/2018 18:17, Jordi Bares wrote:



And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist 
replacement for Softimage.


This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…

jb



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 Vimeo 
 Instagram 
 Twitter 


See our latest work _here_ 

The Penthouse,
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87-91 Newman Street
London
W1T 3EY
T +44 (0)20 7434 1182
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Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk 

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 
73 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3QQ.

VAT registration number: 198083762)
Please consider the environment before you print this email.
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alastair Hearsum]

Oh dear

On 02/05/2018 22:26, Jonathan Moore wrote:
Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts 
education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application 
like Houdini. 


--
Alastair Hearsum
Creative Director of 3d
GLASSWORKS
Facebook 
 Vimeo 
 Instagram 
 Twitter 


See our latest work _here_ 

The Penthouse,
5th Floor,
87-91 Newman Street
London
W1T 3EY
T +44 (0)20 7434 1182
glassworks.co.uk 

Glassworks Terms and Conditions of Sale can be found at glassworks.co.uk 

(Company registered in England with number 04759979. Registered office 
73 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3QQ.

VAT registration number: 198083762)
Please consider the environment before you print this email.
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and attachments are strictly privileged, private 
and confidential and are intended solely for the stated recipient(s). 
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do 
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intended recipient, be advised that you have received this e-mail in 
error and that any use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, or copying 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Olivier Jeannel]

is this better ?
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__discord.gg_WeSFNAR=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=exUWHOX5ZN30hhAiFWdVhdcuYDSFa31L66r9OPK34ls=TijrNwfEo70KySWqPgFY2D_auNmmSARhsKYRIDigbBk=

2018-05-09 16:35 GMT+02:00 Anto Matkovic <a...@matkovic.com>:

> About that 'node vs code', I think Matt Estela already gave answer, that
> with noises ''definitely worth using vops as a sketch pad for this kind of
> thing''. Story is, that building a custom deformation as somehow typical
> ICE task, also fits into "using as sketch pad'', where the core of job is
> not particular function, loop or like, instead it is more a set a recipes
> or combinations where I'm not completely, in advance, sure what I want.
> Long story short, here's code for thing like loops, everything else is
> VOP. Generally H VOPs are just fine, IMO.
>
> By the way there's practical  :) advantage of code - by textual nature,
> code is relative easy to transfer from something like Apprentice to full H
> (while I'm not sure how that practice fits into EULA). VOP or HDA have to
> be passed through the Orbolt, or another procedure authorized by Side FX...
>
>
> --
> *From:* Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
> *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=exUWHOX5ZN30hhAiFWdVhdcuYDSFa31L66r9OPK34ls=CfLZnJaIOw67Z1OrBeBSAMOQM7oUEk4fH422fyMim0Q=
> forum/#!forum/xsi_list <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 7, 2018 11:15 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
>
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.tokeru.com_cgwiki_index.php-3Ftitle-3DJoyOfVex=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=exUWHOX5ZN30hhAiFWdVhdcuYDSFa31L66r9OPK34ls=UtHJ6CNX4LvnflhH4mR4489PyQ7nMoLiXDICieBFyVs=
> <https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6iB4H67OtDu1LYz6krlc8-2FqBeLCXrELBQVbfMn71cNywwCM9MLKQNt6NvY2bdnUVgiRuzEw0g0OZUwVhB4KIDvkjTtq34l13Jmfjgwg01isCCK511SfOUct9zBCzgDFFRIK-2BUDCx5wHaLT6DK6a1Olms-2BMsad-2BGqcdkYa335ueP6fD8suWRUqtqRgZ7tXhWc-2FNsBD2u8-2BdxlEI4pPkkglD8E-2BmzdFasyE1SmdLITEE0hYM6h0Vld9GJI-2B-2Befgs3HdcGDScJv-2FVdkRx4Uuf-2FOd3W-2FKalZ9jO99-2BeAG8zyTk2XDvcoOGfs0XIquJ-2F6z26PWO4-2BiTvvjVXdPBr66js7AmmASTwplW-2FlZ1YNQ447RcYNy3n21f3SCD7rUYkeJIMApaLrhYsZs5agZ-2B4bLv6lAofh5Yc1-2BewoaPTQi941kFa17rbYb8-2FBC-2FTHx0EXNFk-2FTeR-2FVSKqOa7Nb3l-2BdX-2FZt0njFcUqQTPj7DVH1zfpWppeLwxdJdLw04CCHKy3EFTgs-2BaGbpt9jej5MzScQeXf9evAmMDWlPCzyzd-2F1WxKqVwR-2FnE-2FvXP6-2BdEvlN7e6AGho-2BgTzqsQnwFN63Mr0B33Ptpn-2FXBX4r-2BoBbvjOH3vofLQlRcPpXhSgwd0TaDezcZaEg9jjP4wklikWYU0ezYn9ZrYg5ms6yJsTuNIeL7IC7tnUPK1rm0vNQxMb9gTld5pjZiAU3-2FId8YDNsi8dSDiqepheEmzNPfdz9RBw2nEx4sh-2BzE-2FPol4n33OMXGS1Znbf4sLHLestUZWVEjfjl96rebyukfTs0cgMl2tcV56z2AsNgkij-2BvEWkyNbVRoQAhOUJULf2M6zjhYV9kj3H31Tjp08ANAwgDcl-2B8qWJHW6y0FlXMxWl7p6uzFq-2FHKCnlCIDNVOs-2FBYUcSMGv-2FSzYRzQNihcvZfQDVWK6x7gOA61fM6KjFKwd9qFbG8eUiTYUhW4D7bf6y-2BXU9BobpvKt6eEPRKbk0jsTXJmcI8GEYalqR_72czwIl2fCRkdCn-2FNi2SsWoiEyuGcOc7lpZVE4deBSNmyuvwffXkYYgwtHliTqQFfNXYSue1sJumzLaDcwwc9i5LOR5OKekIt-2BnuoahtmMR4NyPhavSzv22g8k-2BAvf4HzUd-2BGZPSEUY-2Fy-2BJOxBY5lpXxOTuufhX-2FR2KHVYMy0nGuD7WNmNmb6d4TeUmFYqJdsRH3bJodc13M5eCq8ehTWGtqChGLCs0SSK-2BGi6BRz98-3D>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Anto Matkovic]

About that 'node vs code', I think Matt Estela already gave answer, that with 
noises ''definitely worth using vops as a sketch pad for this kind of thing''. 
Story is, that building a custom deformation as somehow typical ICE task, also 
fits into "using as sketch pad'', where the core of job is not particular 
function, loop or like, instead it is more a set a recipes or combinations 
where I'm not completely, in advance, sure what I want.Long story short, here's 
code for thing like loops, everything else is VOP. Generally H VOPs are just 
fine, IMO.
By the way there's practical  :) advantage of code - by textual nature, code is 
relative easy to transfer from something like Apprentice to full H (while I'm 
not sure how that practice fits into EULA). VOP or HDA have to be passed 
through the Orbolt, or another procedure authorized by Side FX...

  From: Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
 To: Official Softimage Users Mailing List. 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=YIqeXd3dh9fQIt_x1hsMneRWUtXEmRvEc-u_w9dlRgY=Q_xoYJ6RJN3qql2S1C6A8Lzy_DvnKuKU1IOhytak1qI=
 <softimage@listproc.autodesk.com> 
 Sent: Monday, May 7, 2018 11:15 AM
 Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?
   

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[David Saber]

Hi Olivier, thanks for the tip! I'm new to Discord, is this a server 
invite link? It does nothing in my browser (I also have the Windows app 
installed). Thanks.

David


On 2018-05-09 13:01, Olivier Jeannel wrote:
> Eeeer actually there are a lot of guys working on H in Paris. Checkout 
> some french Houdini discord 
> https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6mg4oLGBuQENbeDkYXezg3m6vjHxJcC6rUMd8QE2Mtqz8La5pE2ZQ-2F6ie-2BZjGbIj6HlYFvPpZ3hyiAp7QrpJ3-2FIUnm-2FR2WqO69o1-2Beu9U0ZYgCS-2FlmnBU-2FpWHw-2Bp4WgyqfJdQxDH7yDGe2enGAJZdPV-2B0EFac-2FP-2FRJRG8EQo3xr6dUQ8PF6FtvgfpPVlicBqUjMb-2BHJvBLeJOo1Jiw12eUJbvrOZaeTPgNvmaqhlHvKvKKYKaEUnzo5djbi1Sfw1MbIYIbI6OrR5559iTyjAGDMS-2FSWiyZkpWygsGF01OfnEu6QLs5O5-2Bez81CsIK4iohQITtrdzqhhjIDU6LrliAravd55XtRBPJvXyXGqEqqkh0K4J-2BAkmKyZzHeggm1GMvF-2FbAacu0cOffHUa7Nn2qMY-3D_a6oQc7tnfcb0GKvoO27fPkrQ0ATQyF1SDBXJOg7-2FbuRofHdCBBmerVx9jqAeQ6NRRPtIUwUawTcYWZ-2FjxACpnSOVM0tBDBdI1P-2FfTYn1sAPEGTPxlnuhgA-2Bivdw484goPesDHcbhcRM1dYPDw1iGRqJoZ11NrPXBn1fPpR4oHaqCcJgDwwgWZQuzNg02Q3xG3eLNM6jjfGrItvNLZ1H-2F5j3vKOV58KskhCSBKK4uDVs-3D
>  
> 
>
> 2018-05-09 12:27 GMT+02:00 Jordi Bares  >:
>
> Same here, every time I move to a new package (Massive, Maya,
> Houdini, Modo, etc...) I feel crippled… my approach is to just do
> it… go for it on a real life project and with a bit of time and in
> the end is not that bad.
>
> But it is true that you will be using Houdini as if it was Maya or
> Softimage for a while (thinking in terms of object hierarchies for
> example) but after a while you get the trick of the application
> and how to really squeeze the most out of it which means do it the
> Houdini way. Not weird, just different.
>
> A good example is..
>
> 1) you can choose to import alembic files with the high res
> geometry in…
>
> or
>
> 2) import just a few points (one for each object transformation)
> and attach the geometry (dynamically) to those points…
>
>
> The first is direct and very much Softimage-like and “makes
> sense”. The second will look unnecessary for a period… but later
> you will come full circle and understand that the Houdini way has
> a lot of benefits, for example it will update _a lot_ faster, you
> will be able to update dynamically the resolution based on camera
> position, minimise IFD baking, what to load or not, etc… In the
> end both ways are going to give you the pixels you are after but
> one opens the door to a completely new world (2) and once you get
> into it you will be able to scale the projects to a point you have
> never been able to with (1).
>
> Jb
>
>
>> On 9 May 2018, at 10:55, Mirko Jankovic
>> > wrote:
>>
>> As you mentioned simple starting tutorials I figured as well that
>> one of the problems with people moving from Softimage to Houdini,
>> probably is similar to my probem as well.
>> You go from 10+ years of Softimage thinking oh I have some
>> experience I mean how hard can it be, dig into Houdini expecting
>> to create same level complex stuff right away.. and then hitting
>> a wall. But the truth is that Houdini dies have rather different
>> logic ,a bit bigger turn around and that should be starting
>> actually from boxes, spheres moving them and then evolving.. well
>> same way we learned SI or Maya when we started back then. At
>> least till logic is picked up and automated in muscle memory.
>> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Olivier Jeannel]

Eeeer actually there are a lot of guys working on H in Paris. Checkout some
french Houdini discord
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__discordapp.com_channels_236444656005545984_302095531768020992=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=xFhshljkmDrLEVz_LfI9tYNlZRfU0OVkta1zO-qQgPU=ybUA-A0VaxXYb_6akixcWPTlFhQoLfn6a1KLMeXZ3kY=

2018-05-09 12:27 GMT+02:00 Jordi Bares :

> Same here, every time I move to a new package (Massive, Maya, Houdini,
> Modo, etc...) I feel crippled… my approach is to just do it… go for it on a
> real life project and with a bit of time and in the end is not that bad.
>
> But it is true that you will be using Houdini as if it was Maya or
> Softimage for a while (thinking in terms of object hierarchies for example)
> but after a while you get the trick of the application and how to really
> squeeze the most out of it which means do it the Houdini way. Not weird,
> just different.
>
> A good example is..
>
> 1) you can choose to import alembic files with the high res geometry in…
>
> or
>
> 2) import just a few points (one for each object transformation) and
> attach the geometry (dynamically) to those points…
>
>
> The first is direct and very much Softimage-like and “makes sense”. The
> second will look unnecessary for a period… but later you will come full
> circle and understand that the Houdini way has a lot of benefits, for
> example it will update _a lot_ faster, you will be able to update
> dynamically the resolution based on camera position, minimise IFD baking,
> what to load or not, etc… In the end both ways are going to give you the
> pixels you are after but one opens the door to a completely new world (2)
> and once you get into it you will be able to scale the projects to a point
> you have never been able to with (1).
>
> Jb
>
>
> On 9 May 2018, at 10:55, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
>
> As you mentioned simple starting tutorials I figured as well that one of
> the problems with people moving from Softimage to Houdini, probably is
> similar to my probem as well.
> You go from 10+ years of Softimage thinking oh I have some experience I
> mean how hard can it be, dig into Houdini expecting to create same level
> complex stuff right away.. and then hitting a wall. But the truth is that
> Houdini dies have rather different logic ,a bit bigger turn around and that
> should be starting actually from boxes, spheres moving them and then
> evolving.. well same way we learned SI or Maya when we started back then.
> At least till logic is picked up and automated in muscle memory.
> Wondering if anyone else thinks similar or it is just me doing it wrong
> way around  :)
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 11:32 AM David Saber  wrote:
>
>> Thanks a lot for the answers and testimonials , they'll come in handy.
>>
>> I still use XSI and more and more Maya. I would have gone at top speed
>> with Houdini if there was some jobs but here in France there is absolutely
>> NO Houdini jobs. I guess all Houdini jobs are in the UK right?
>>
>> So in my spare time I'm learning Houdini… just in case. There are many
>> things I like with Hou but globally the workflow is a bit alien to me.
>>
>> I purchased some of Rohan Dalvi's tutorials. The one I'm following now is
>> the rocket ship : 
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__urldefense.proofpoint=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=xFhshljkmDrLEVz_LfI9tYNlZRfU0OVkta1zO-qQgPU=dAOhi8KxBvViQCoA5CQTfJtAkDN1e3jvlTPHSqfF4gQ=.
>> com/v2/url?u=https-3A__vimeo.com_141986424=DwID-g=76Q6Tcqc-
>> t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVM
>> srMw7PFsA=wocXfs-0FToIcmkYvAMVju9h5If2iF4hNr38EyHFgsw=
>> utEfA5UTDe68AgzmsoSAgvZ3jT6MUCUkjyNQ2jQzeg8=
>> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Same here, every time I move to a new package (Massive, Maya, Houdini, Modo, 
etc...) I feel crippled… my approach is to just do it… go for it on a real life 
project and with a bit of time and in the end is not that bad.

But it is true that you will be using Houdini as if it was Maya or Softimage 
for a while (thinking in terms of object hierarchies for example) but after a 
while you get the trick of the application and how to really squeeze the most 
out of it which means do it the Houdini way. Not weird, just different.

A good example is.. 

1) you can choose to import alembic files with the high res geometry in…

or

2) import just a few points (one for each object transformation) and attach the 
geometry (dynamically) to those points… 


The first is direct and very much Softimage-like and “makes sense”. The second 
will look unnecessary for a period… but later you will come full circle and 
understand that the Houdini way has a lot of benefits, for example it will 
update _a lot_ faster, you will be able to update dynamically the resolution 
based on camera position, minimise IFD baking, what to load or not, etc… In the 
end both ways are going to give you the pixels you are after but one opens the 
door to a completely new world (2) and once you get into it you will be able to 
scale the projects to a point you have never been able to with (1).

Jb


> On 9 May 2018, at 10:55, Mirko Jankovic  wrote:
> 
> As you mentioned simple starting tutorials I figured as well that one of the 
> problems with people moving from Softimage to Houdini, probably is similar to 
> my probem as well.
> You go from 10+ years of Softimage thinking oh I have some experience I mean 
> how hard can it be, dig into Houdini expecting to create same level complex 
> stuff right away.. and then hitting a wall. But the truth is that Houdini 
> dies have rather different logic ,a bit bigger turn around and that should be 
> starting actually from boxes, spheres moving them and then evolving.. well 
> same way we learned SI or Maya when we started back then. At least till logic 
> is picked up and automated in muscle memory.
> Wondering if anyone else thinks similar or it is just me doing it wrong way 
> around  :)
> 
> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 11:32 AM David Saber  > wrote:
> Thanks a lot for the answers and testimonials , they'll come in handy.
> 
> I still use XSI and more and more Maya. I would have gone at top speed with 
> Houdini if there was some jobs but here in France there is absolutely NO 
> Houdini jobs. I guess all Houdini jobs are in the UK right?
> 
> So in my spare time I'm learning Houdini… just in case. There are many things 
> I like with Hou but globally the workflow is a bit alien to me.
> 
> I purchased some of Rohan Dalvi's tutorials. The one I'm following now is the 
> rocket ship : 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__vimeo.com_141986424=DwID-g=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=wocXfs-0FToIcmkYvAMVju9h5If2iF4hNr38EyHFgsw=utEfA5UTDe68AgzmsoSAgvZ3jT6MUCUkjyNQ2jQzeg8=
>  
> 
>  . I enjoy Rohan's videos, but I'm not so found of procedural modelling. To 
> create the rocket ship's 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Mirko Jankovic]

As you mentioned simple starting tutorials I figured as well that one of
the problems with people moving from Softimage to Houdini, probably is
similar to my probem as well.
You go from 10+ years of Softimage thinking oh I have some experience I
mean how hard can it be, dig into Houdini expecting to create same level
complex stuff right away.. and then hitting a wall. But the truth is that
Houdini dies have rather different logic ,a bit bigger turn around and that
should be starting actually from boxes, spheres moving them and then
evolving.. well same way we learned SI or Maya when we started back then.
At least till logic is picked up and automated in muscle memory.
Wondering if anyone else thinks similar or it is just me doing it wrong way
around  :)

On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 11:32 AM David Saber  wrote:

> Thanks a lot for the answers and testimonials , they'll come in handy.
>
> I still use XSI and more and more Maya. I would have gone at top speed
> with Houdini if there was some jobs but here in France there is absolutely
> NO Houdini jobs. I guess all Houdini jobs are in the UK right?
>
> So in my spare time I'm learning Houdini… just in case. There are many
> things I like with Hou but globally the workflow is a bit alien to me.
>
> I purchased some of Rohan Dalvi's tutorials. The one I'm following now is
> the rocket ship :
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__vimeo.com_141986424=DwID-g=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=wocXfs-0FToIcmkYvAMVju9h5If2iF4hNr38EyHFgsw=utEfA5UTDe68AgzmsoSAgvZ3jT6MUCUkjyNQ2jQzeg8=
> 
> . I enjoy Rohan's videos, but I'm not so found of procedural modelling. To
> create the rocket ship's door, a dozen nodes are needed… All working with
> some kind of curves (carve nodes) to draw the shape of the door, then
> delete nodes to cut out the volume. Like some kind of nurbs boolean
> workflow. Everything is done in the network editor and I don't find this
> workflow funny. So of course the beauty of this kind of work is that you
> can go back to the first node (in a tree so high it's scary) and if you
> modify it, all the subsequent nodes will evolve accordingly. And when the
> ship will be shape-animated everything will follow nicely. But the same
> could be achieved with non procedural modelling , not?
>
> The learning links posted here are all about procedural modelling and
> particles.
>
> I remember when I first learned Softimage 3D, I got on some CD the Chinny
> tutorials where he was modelling a scorpion, then rigging it, then
> animating it. Anyone remembers this? I must have kept this CD somewhere.
> This tut was simple, fun and quick to learn. It taught me where tools where
> and the general logic of the app. I would love to have the same kind of
> tutorial with Houdini: something simple at first, helping you to create and
> animate a character. I don't think modelling a character would rely that
> much on procedural modelling, and in Houdini, traditional modelling tools à
> la XSI are available. (But it seems no Houdini trainer is interested in
> showing them in action. Why not showing these tools? Are they "not complex
> enough"?) Then after the simple stuff, the tutorial would add some more
> complex things. I think it would be much more fun that way.
>
> And I think most 3d artist would enjoy working with a fun to use app while
> keeping its procedural and non linear power. If Houdini could evolve
> towards a better artist friendly mindset (like Soft 3d and XSI) , it could
> make a much needed breakthrough over Maya, Max, C4D, Modo, etc.
>
> Good day, David
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>


-- 
Mirko Jankovic

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[David Saber]

Thanks a lot for the answers and testimonials , they'll come in handy.

I still use XSI and more and more Maya. I would have gone at top speed 
with Houdini if there was some jobs but here in France there is 
absolutely NO Houdini jobs. I guess all Houdini jobs are in the UK right?

So in my spare time I'm learning Houdini... just in case. There are many 
things I like with Hou but globally the workflow is a bit alien to me.

I purchased some of Rohan Dalvi's tutorials. The one I'm following now 
is the rocket ship : 
https://u7507473.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=5SmYwFIJXHmC5X9wAP0G6mg4oLGBuQENbeDkYXezg3m6vjHxJcC6rUMd8QE2MtqzpxQkSLOfTq4HC3Po9JBIURa-2FX-2FWIowXDMjSqv5yAJboIGE0AGdSUXf0ZkjEb-2FKx94V830P4iRmg9L-2F1A7HyABD8TzT6Q3kGXitqh4AaCtwMyjX8n1PdOgcuKYPrdA2cGiOaDqyjiyRyTuYh7-2BbFlv7uU-2BajxXBsV9MX71u-2FFkUPotTJQUp1VDlfX7YWaFZ5ccFqygHcYaBUeN69-2BWCaVJoFAC0nH7GqSx9fskKLeSY5yvv2UY2BQxxJCh5yJrgoIbRxn4Nylrcyz2byjAJVacoGUwCxfoiXt8DuPDP1LbJWzWTTaanJMJocgVuulXvAr_a6oQc7tnfcb0GKvoO27fPkrQ0ATQyF1SDBXJOg7-2FbuQhrtkEyddpYbP1rg6T6kUGr4sT8ziAz3JgkrQTM7TSsOBq3e2trgbi-2BskkPh4NY7oHCp1f7L0xZ-2FVd3GaM-2BulnK3pVhgEAcr-2F-2FTgWbPAXYmY0lkECfeCrCmZmjNrAVuA2yKw93BLGAjDwINhJc61VC7VyBCjDnVGOAml2Oad7YbRQ-2FMgCvPoiXnn-2FlLKCxvRU-3D
 . I enjoy Rohan's 
videos, but I'm not so found of procedural modelling. To create the 
rocket ship's door, a dozen nodes are needed... All working with some 
kind of curves (carve nodes) to draw the shape of the door, then delete 
nodes to cut out the volume. Like some kind of nurbs boolean workflow. 
Everything is done in the network editor and I don't find this workflow 
funny.
So of course the beauty of this kind of work is that you can go back to 
the first node (in a tree so high it's scary) and if you modify it, all 
the subsequent nodes will evolve accordingly. And when the ship will be 
shape-animated everything will follow nicely. But the same could be 
achieved with non procedural modelling , not?

The learning links posted here are all about procedural modelling and 
particles.

I remember when I first learned Softimage 3D, I got on some CD the 
Chinny tutorials where he was modelling a scorpion, then rigging it, 
then animating it. Anyone remembers this? I must have kept this CD 
somewhere. This tut was simple, fun and quick to learn. It taught me 
where tools where and the general logic of the app. I would love to have 
the same kind of tutorial with Houdini: something simple at first, 
helping you to create and animate a character. I don't think modelling a 
character would rely that much on procedural modelling, and in Houdini, 
traditional modelling tools à la XSI are available. (But it seems no 
Houdini trainer is interested in showing them in action. Why not showing 
these tools? Are they "not complex enough"?)
Then after the simple stuff, the tutorial would add some more complex 
things.
I think it would be much more fun that way.

And I think most 3d artist would enjoy working with a fun to use app 
while keeping its procedural and non linear power. If Houdini could 
evolve towards a better artist friendly mindset (like Soft 3d and XSI) , 
it could make a much needed breakthrough over Maya, Max, C4D, Modo, etc.

Good day,
David

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Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

For maths have a look at this...


https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ilectureonline.com_lectures_subject_MATH=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=P2lWc3gXIgUgpH-QTv0w91LoSk3IxcQhbgdWv1nzutU=pHu0M-PbEIREuNZcvta4mOdDNygd7cPudQnvi5ihd-E=

Start with Algebra to go through the steps of all things you know but probably 
are rusty, then move to linear algebra, that is pretty much all you need.


If you happen to be eager to move further, then go into calculus and 
differential eq. as some of the very cool stuff some Houdini artists do is 
because they know this… which happens to be a bit harder.

Enjoy
jb


> On 8 May 2018, at 22:17, Matt Morris  wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the recommendations Jon, much appreciated. I'll go through Jordi's 
> guides again and the cgwiki stuff, and then hopefully will feel like I know 
> enough of the basics to make the more in-depth tutorials worthwhile. A maths 
> refresher is a very good idea as well.
> 
> 
> On 8 May 2018 at 14:32, Jonathan Moore  > wrote:
> MAT's are the way forward for Mantra, but SHOP's is still better with many 
> 3rd party renderers such as Redshift and Arnold. Redshift works with the MATs 
> contexts but it's can get tricky with more complex projects. There are even 
> shops like Animal Logic that have stayed with SHOP's for the time being as 
> there are issues that affect their particular pipeline. On that basis I don't 
> consider it a bad thing to use this time to learn MATs but still use SHOPs in 
> production. It's highly likely that H17 will push the MATs workflow forward 
> in new directions, so getting a handle on it now will be time well spent.
> 
> In terms of up to date learning materials, all of the 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.appliedhoudini.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=P2lWc3gXIgUgpH-QTv0w91LoSk3IxcQhbgdWv1nzutU=4zPJezN8vvrUGD9YOrNder7kQ34YRj3j4jTyjfYFn_A=
>  
> 
>  stuff is bang on the money, and Steven Knipping is amongst the best in terms 
> of teaching the why as well as the how.  His prices are very reasonable 
> considering the quality of the training.
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rebelway.net_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=P2lWc3gXIgUgpH-QTv0w91LoSk3IxcQhbgdWv1nzutU=-X0qXtNRu-COXsU_x2cEgsyiWb-yvMEQVNsI1R1QXrA=
>  
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Morris]

Thanks for the recommendations Jon, much appreciated. I'll go through
Jordi's guides again and the cgwiki stuff, and then hopefully will feel
like I know enough of the basics to make the more in-depth tutorials
worthwhile. A maths refresher is a very good idea as well.


On 8 May 2018 at 14:32, Jonathan Moore  wrote:

> MAT's are the way forward for Mantra, but SHOP's is still better with many
> 3rd party renderers such as Redshift and Arnold. Redshift works with the
> MATs contexts but it's can get tricky with more complex projects. There are
> even shops like Animal Logic that have stayed with SHOP's for the time
> being as there are issues that affect their particular pipeline. On that
> basis I don't consider it a bad thing to use this time to learn MATs but
> still use SHOPs in production. It's highly likely that H17 will push the
> MATs workflow forward in new directions, so getting a handle on it now will
> be time well spent.
>
> In terms of up to date learning materials, all of the
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.appliedhoudini.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=3c8oH-MxSK7dl4YnG4Rluo7px31Aza9m7IWfWa-R_0M=5RCgxPM_V_kDNNWF9POYMy3RrKI3g1u_X7lBACXwo0o=
> 
> stuff is bang on the money, and Steven Knipping is amongst the best in
> terms of teaching the why as well as the how.  His prices are very
> reasonable considering the quality of the training.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rebelway.net_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=3c8oH-MxSK7dl4YnG4Rluo7px31Aza9m7IWfWa-R_0M=OxAzOLQnljJI773gWlOm1uL6Jrb4LtpAjyE6UxGSUgw=
> 
> is another very good option. It's more expensive than the Applied Houdini
> stuff as it's involves weekly mentoring and feedback. Having said it's
> expensive, they have a couple of reasonably priced foundation courses
> starting in June. Saber & Igor really know their onions and have been
> training professionally onsite for a number of years so I think the prices
> are reasonable for the calabre of the training.
>
> Adam Swaab has a range of training products on the market that're very
> reasonably priced but Adam's stuff is very much entry level.
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__helloluxx.com_product_houdini-2Djumpstart-2Dbundle-2Dadam-2Dswaab_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=3c8oH-MxSK7dl4YnG4Rluo7px31Aza9m7IWfWa-R_0M=2dgyJGjAVRKg_0h_eho2UZrEOlcd_2UWrWQ0DZiY76Q=
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Indeed there is so much good training nowadays it is amazing…

And yes, the AppliedHoudini is super good.
jb


> On 8 May 2018, at 14:32, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
> 
> MAT's are the way forward for Mantra, but SHOP's is still better with many 
> 3rd party renderers such as Redshift and Arnold. Redshift works with the MATs 
> contexts but it's can get tricky with more complex projects. There are even 
> shops like Animal Logic that have stayed with SHOP's for the time being as 
> there are issues that affect their particular pipeline. On that basis I don't 
> consider it a bad thing to use this time to learn MATs but still use SHOPs in 
> production. It's highly likely that H17 will push the MATs workflow forward 
> in new directions, so getting a handle on it now will be time well spent.
> 
> In terms of up to date learning materials, all of the 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.appliedhoudini.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=qGQfm1EY7iK_3m-R3uOpJqjAwpZARLsqGcU_5qQmQYA=Xh8uytwMkoPTHLXw7YsVi_IHrlojNbEaAk0YvTIr1FY=
>  
> 
>  stuff is bang on the money, and Steven Knipping is amongst the best in terms 
> of teaching the why as well as the how.  His prices are very reasonable 
> considering the quality of the training.
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rebelway.net_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=qGQfm1EY7iK_3m-R3uOpJqjAwpZARLsqGcU_5qQmQYA=BkaDdYWCvQ3An23uDjN6FF_WWl8mCU7hIvSteKajxM0=
>  
> 
>  is another very good option. It's more expensive than the Applied Houdini 
> stuff as it's involves weekly mentoring and feedback. Having said it's 
> expensive, they have a couple of reasonably priced foundation courses 
> starting in June. Saber & Igor really know their onions and have been 
> training professionally onsite for a number of years so I think the prices 
> are reasonable for the calabre of the training.
> 
> Adam Swaab has a range of training products on the market that're very 
> reasonably priced but Adam's stuff is very much entry level. 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__helloluxx.com_product_houdini-2Djumpstart-2Dbundle-2Dadam-2Dswaab_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=qGQfm1EY7iK_3m-R3uOpJqjAwpZARLsqGcU_5qQmQYA=WpSHDRAVdvkppuZ7-mBHR6vOb6L39anlAWFy-lgDZDI=
>  
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Pierre Schiller]

I'm so interested in getting to know a SI-HU crossover course.



On Tue, May 8, 2018, 08:32 Jonathan Moore  wrote:

> MAT's are the way forward for Mantra, but SHOP's is still better with many
> 3rd party renderers such as Redshift and Arnold. Redshift works with the
> MATs contexts but it's can get tricky with more complex projects. There are
> even shops like Animal Logic that have stayed with SHOP's for the time
> being as there are issues that affect their particular pipeline. On that
> basis I don't consider it a bad thing to use this time to learn MATs but
> still use SHOPs in production. It's highly likely that H17 will push the
> MATs workflow forward in new directions, so getting a handle on it now will
> be time well spent.
>
> In terms of up to date learning materials, all of the
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.appliedhoudini.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=sZuz9PC7Zz34osI4agioW68DdBGNyPhyc-yEP0sBeNA=bl0IjR8x_0MWV72gAMAbjVrnObsgxd2vI68A19QdLRo=
> 
> stuff is bang on the money, and Steven Knipping is amongst the best in
> terms of teaching the why as well as the how.  His prices are very
> reasonable considering the quality of the training.
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rebelway.net_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=sZuz9PC7Zz34osI4agioW68DdBGNyPhyc-yEP0sBeNA=MHYVPBOCrYG0eeePscDUywd5zKODIJ_21XzuQuAQf-I=
> 
> is another very good option. It's more expensive than the Applied Houdini
> stuff as it's involves weekly mentoring and feedback. Having said it's
> expensive, they have a couple of reasonably priced foundation courses
> starting in June. Saber & Igor really know their onions and have been
> training professionally onsite for a number of years so I think the prices
> are reasonable for the calabre of the training.
>
> Adam Swaab has a range of training products on the market that're very
> reasonably priced but Adam's stuff is very much entry level.
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__helloluxx.com_product_houdini-2Djumpstart-2Dbundle-2Dadam-2Dswaab_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=sZuz9PC7Zz34osI4agioW68DdBGNyPhyc-yEP0sBeNA=OUpGD5A1jT015zxGVD-KkU0JZ-UI5Mft5h1XaYbLyKQ=
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

MAT's are the way forward for Mantra, but SHOP's is still better with many
3rd party renderers such as Redshift and Arnold. Redshift works with the
MATs contexts but it's can get tricky with more complex projects. There are
even shops like Animal Logic that have stayed with SHOP's for the time
being as there are issues that affect their particular pipeline. On that
basis I don't consider it a bad thing to use this time to learn MATs but
still use SHOPs in production. It's highly likely that H17 will push the
MATs workflow forward in new directions, so getting a handle on it now will
be time well spent.

In terms of up to date learning materials, all of the
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.appliedhoudini.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=5SON44Wr5Z8tnF6FH8umbwxywValHT1-As3ePt4ZO0o=
 stuff is bang on the money, and Steven
Knipping is amongst the best in terms of teaching the why as well as the
how.  His prices are very reasonable considering the quality of the
training.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__rebelway.net_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=9txiFHl03cSx13X7K9GI-oe3tp4-X5VZjLaiiiZgu1o=
 is another very good option. It's more expensive than
the Applied Houdini stuff as it's involves weekly mentoring and feedback.
Having said it's expensive, they have a couple of reasonably priced
foundation courses starting in June. Saber & Igor really know their onions
and have been training professionally onsite for a number of years so I
think the prices are reasonable for the calabre of the training.

Adam Swaab has a range of training products on the market that're very
reasonably priced but Adam's stuff is very much entry level.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__helloluxx.com_product_houdini-2Djumpstart-2Dbundle-2Dadam-2Dswaab_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=fqUiX6dyMCgQeF-WJA4SNjHVPaUTb3UVYQO9GW6-Ok8=
 is his
most basic stuff (the first few volumes are a little dated but it's still
useful content). The 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.learnsquared.com_courses_houdini-2Dparticles=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=sJJCuhOw9YXKhzwx7pTQcoWIsupgNSnHcLGCwTY-u4Y=
content is a more contemporary and notches up to fairly advaced content
(I've linked to his more advanced particles course, but he has foundation
content too). Unfortunately his most advanced course is already fully
booked, but it's worth keeping an eye on all the CGSociety courses as
they're run in a similar manner to the Rebelway stuff-
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.cgsociety.org_training_course_abstract-2Deffects-2Din-2Dhoudini=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=lgrJjb_3nmvQsCOEKfU3ZsFRSaQfmQcsGNUpucQZZJE=
 .

As much as there's a ton of great free training out there and SideFX have
been exemplary in the manner that they categorise and filter all this
training content on their website. The paid stuff I've linked to here is in
a different league to the typical Lynda and Pluralsight content. You'll
find more advanced subject matter at entagma.com but the good paid stuff is
better structured for the needs of typical production projects.

Having rubbised Pluralsigt, there's one course that's worth taking if pick
up one of those 3 months free offers that're floating around (by signing up
for a free Visual Studio account here: 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__my.visualstudio.com=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=JSC3OLMVoFC7CPdbS-DrxUJOFbROoIiG95UVMAGEdHY=
 )  -
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.pluralsight.com_courses_houdini-2Dpractical-2Dmath-2Dtips=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=H2_J6PP26gG9IAcDDxopeocHT4_nL27-Njv42K1_a9Y=t6-uQWNIw8vkWknYwJeIs2Kbh3gUM9L-NhrYRUdHM48=
 -. Even if
you already have a good handle on pertinent math subjects from working with
ICE, this course is great for learning how to apply that knowledge in
Houdini. And a refresher on pertinent vector, trig and algebra is never a
bad thing. :)



On 8 May 2018 at 10:35, Jordi Bares  wrote:

>
> On 8 May 2018, at 08:34, Matt Morris  wrote:
>
> I'd certainly be down for that too :)
>
> Hacked my way through Houdini for a volume job recently and while there's
> a wealth of information out there its sometimes 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 8 May 2018, at 08:34, Matt Morris  wrote:
> 
> I'd certainly be down for that too :)
> 
> Hacked my way through Houdini for a volume job recently and while there's a 
> wealth of information out there its sometimes difficult to know the optimal 
> way to achieve something, and find up to date solutions for the mat context 
> instead of shops for example. Ended up back in xsi for some particle 
> behaviours as there are so many compounds I miss for randomization etc.

"Optimal way" is an elusive thing.. I keep learning new approaches for things I 
learned and now are kind of lame… (for example the constant adding colours to 
apply effects and then rename them or worse, remove the color afterwards… I do 
it now via attributes and visualisers and it is a lot more elegant)

And yes, I am not using SHOPs anymore (unless I am using Arnold)… MATs is the 
way forward and quite exciting when you realise what is in front of you.

Anyway, it is something of an ever evolving task…

Jb


> 
> 
> 
> On 8 May 2018 at 08:25, Morten Bartholdy  > wrote:
> Thanks Jordi. Well, like I said – I will have to dive in to Houdini at some 
> point I guess :)
> 
> I would love a Soft2Houdini crash course :)
> 
> MB
> 
> Den 4. maj 2018 klokken 20:22 skrev Jordi Bares  >:
> 
> For the sake of sharing my experiences…
> 
> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  > wrote:
> 
> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
> 
> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them more 
> accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais Powertools 
> ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of better and 
> more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a degree in rocket 
> science to be able to wield said tools at all
> 
> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0 or 
> the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things are 
> simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things 
> without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for 
> example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
> 
> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has gone 
> in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires a fair 
> amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more than basic 
> math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
> 
> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in 
> softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can choose 
> between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
> 
> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry, vectors 
> and matrices.
> 
> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased 
> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
> 
> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed primitives 
> allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in combination with 
> Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are difficult of full of 
> moving parts.
> 
> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to 
> use.
> 
> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in Houdini 
> 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools… but it is 
> also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter what.
> 
> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff 
> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were made 
> available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a good 
> idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down to this 
> – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them on making 
> more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they try and 
> balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for 
> increasing it.
> 
> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long 
> time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so many 
> things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are not 
> possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain limitations. 
> Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making your live eraser 
> in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you are doing.
> 
> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier and 
> element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN FACT.
> 
> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for 
> practical use (the steep 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Matt Morris]

I'd certainly be down for that too :)

Hacked my way through Houdini for a volume job recently and while there's a
wealth of information out there its sometimes difficult to know the optimal
way to achieve something, and find up to date solutions for the mat context
instead of shops for example. Ended up back in xsi for some particle
behaviours as there are so many compounds I miss for randomization etc.



On 8 May 2018 at 08:25, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:

> Thanks Jordi. Well, like I said – I will have to dive in to Houdini at
> some point I guess :)
>
> I would love a Soft2Houdini crash course :)
>
> MB
>
> Den 4. maj 2018 klokken 20:22 skrev Jordi Bares :
>
> For the sake of sharing my experiences…
>
> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
>
> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>
> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them
> more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais
> Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of
> better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a
> degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
>
> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0
> or the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things
> are simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things
> without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for
> example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
>
> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has
> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires
> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more
> than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>
> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in
> softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can
> choose between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
>
> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry,
> vectors and matrices.
>
> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased
> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
>
> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed
> primitives allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in
> combination with Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are
> difficult of full of moving parts.
>
> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult
> to use.
>
> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in
> Houdini 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools…
> but it is also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter
> what.
>
> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff
> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were
> made available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a
> good idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down
> to this – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them
> on making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they
> try and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential
> for increasing it.
>
> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long
> time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so
> many things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are
> not possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain
> limitations. Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making
> your live eraser in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you
> are doing.
>
> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier
> and element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN
> FACT.
>
> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for
> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into
> it for real yet.
>
> May be that is what makes you feel it is complex…
>
> I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC
> which is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the
> users, so it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably
> many others, as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if
> it was made even easier to use :)
>
> Agreed, there are many things that should be a lot easier because you do
> them all the time (like path deform for example, or layering animation, or
> having a shape manager and others) but don’t be mistaken, it is not
> difficult at all until you need to dive in certain areas.
>
> And that would 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Morten Bartholdy]

Thanks Jordi. Well, like I said - I will have to dive in to Houdini at some 
point I guess :)

I would love a Soft2Houdini crash course :)


MB



> Den 4. maj 2018 klokken 20:22 skrev Jordi Bares :
> 
> 
> For the sake of sharing my experiences...
> 
> > On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
> > 
> > Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
> > 
> > It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them 
> > more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais 
> > Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of 
> > better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a 
> > degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
> > 
> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0 or 
> the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things are 
> simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things 
> without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for 
> example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
> > Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has 
> > gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires 
> > a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more 
> > than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
> > 
> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in 
> softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can choose 
> between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
> 
> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry, vectors 
> and matrices. 
> > I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased 
> > demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
> > 
> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed primitives 
> allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in combination with 
> Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are difficult of full of 
> moving parts.
> > but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to 
> > use.
> > 
> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in Houdini 
> 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools… but it is 
> also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter what.
> > Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff 
> > accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were 
> > made available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a 
> > good idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down 
> > to this – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them 
> > on making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they 
> > try and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential 
> > for increasing it.
> > 
> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long 
> time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so many 
> things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are not 
> possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain limitations. 
> Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making your live eraser 
> in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you are doing.
> 
> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier and 
> element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN FACT.
> > What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for 
> > practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into 
> > it for real yet.
> > 
> May be that is what makes you feel it is complex...
> > I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC which 
> > is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the users, 
> > so it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably many 
> > others, as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if it 
> > was made even easier to use :)
> > 
> Agreed, there are many things that should be a lot easier because you do them 
> all the time (like path deform for example, or layering animation, or having 
> a shape manager and others) but don’t be mistaken, it is not difficult at all 
> until you need to dive in certain areas.
> > And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly 
> > makes me short of breath to the point of needing to vomit, almost every day.
> > 
> Well, then I can guarantee you you will age slower.  ;-)
> 
> Peace and have a great weekend.
> jb
> 
> PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to SideFX 
> to organise a crash course in 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

>
> *I have seen two types of approaches, those confortable with programming
> go to VEX because it is so direct and compact… the others (like me) use
> regular SOPs and only dive to VEX when I want to avoid VOPs which are a bit
> too cumbersome for my own taste… VEX is so convenient…*


*Funny you found vex convenient and vops cumbersome :) I'm the opposite ;)*


Oliver, I don't think there's a right or wrong way when it comes to VEX and
VOPs. I've come across quite a few ex ICE folk who find VOP's a more
natural workflow. However if you did get a handle on VEX you'll find there
are many situation where VEX is simpler in terms of the effort involved.
The side benefit of VEX's efficiency is that it can provide more clarity as
most general VEX tasks only require a few lines of code.

I'm sure you saw the 'Joy of Vex' when Matt Estella first launched it a few
months back. A lot of artists in the Houdini community seem to have found
this series of short tutorials really useful for getting a foundation
knowledge of VEX. If nothing more, it provides insights into those times
where VEX may provide a path of least resistance, rather than seeing VEX as
a replacement to VOP's. Give it a try, Matt's certainly got a knack for
teaching this stuff in a natural, common sense manner.

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.tokeru.com_cgwiki_index.php-3Ftitle-3DJoyOfVex=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=q8JRk0EhoMonmWrlbCKPfb-6ziy_FK_Vmr8uP5lhG24=s8audWDcsRiM2G5wI_KQiBrGanS_nzzNDN1dgLgkFLg=




On 7 May 2018 at 08:48, Olivier Jeannel  wrote:

> Funny you found vex convenient and vops cumbersome :) I'm the opposite ;)
>
> 2018-05-06 19:28 GMT+02:00 Jordi Bares :
>
>>
>> On 5 May 2018, at 17:52, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Jordi,
>> PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to
>> SideFX to organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be
>> replicating one of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love
>> those tutorials… remember the carnivore plant?
>>
>> I would love to see these, thanks.
>>
>>
>> :-).  will chat with them
>>
>> I'm pretty comfortable in Houdini, and day to day stuff is all fine, in
>> fact I love so much about Houdini; but at the moment for me its as soon as
>> you hit the Vex stuff I stumble, but thats my shortcoming, and its getting
>> better, just have to knuckle down.
>>
>>
>> I have seen two types of approaches, those confortable with programming
>> go to VEX because it is so direct and compact… the others (like me) use
>> regular SOPs and only dive to VEX when I want to avoid VOPs which are a bit
>> too cumbersome for my own taste… VEX is so convenient…
>>
>> But as you say, it is a matter of just going for it…
>>
>> jb
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4 May 2018 at 19:22, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>>
>>> For the sake of sharing my experiences...
>>>
>>> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
>>>
>>> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>>>
>>> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them
>>> more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais
>>> Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of
>>> better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a
>>> degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
>>>
>>> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs
>>> 16.0 or the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex
>>> things are simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain
>>> things without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there
>>> (for example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
>>>
>>> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has
>>> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires
>>> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more
>>> than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>>>
>>> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do
>>> in softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can
>>> choose between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
>>>
>>> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry,
>>> vectors and matrices.
>>>
>>> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the
>>> increased demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
>>>
>>> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed
>>> primitives allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in
>>> combination with Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are
>>> difficult of full of moving parts.
>>>
>>> but I don't buy the premise that it also 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Olivier Jeannel]

Funny you found vex convenient and vops cumbersome :) I'm the opposite ;)

2018-05-06 19:28 GMT+02:00 Jordi Bares :

>
> On 5 May 2018, at 17:52, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
>
> Hi Jordi,
> PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to
> SideFX to organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be
> replicating one of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love
> those tutorials… remember the carnivore plant?
>
> I would love to see these, thanks.
>
>
> :-).  will chat with them
>
> I'm pretty comfortable in Houdini, and day to day stuff is all fine, in
> fact I love so much about Houdini; but at the moment for me its as soon as
> you hit the Vex stuff I stumble, but thats my shortcoming, and its getting
> better, just have to knuckle down.
>
>
> I have seen two types of approaches, those confortable with programming go
> to VEX because it is so direct and compact… the others (like me) use
> regular SOPs and only dive to VEX when I want to avoid VOPs which are a bit
> too cumbersome for my own taste… VEX is so convenient…
>
> But as you say, it is a matter of just going for it…
>
> jb
>
>
>
> On 4 May 2018 at 19:22, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>> For the sake of sharing my experiences...
>>
>> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
>>
>> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>>
>> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them
>> more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais
>> Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of
>> better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a
>> degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
>>
>> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs
>> 16.0 or the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex
>> things are simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain
>> things without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there
>> (for example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
>>
>> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has
>> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires
>> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more
>> than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>>
>> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do
>> in softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can
>> choose between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
>>
>> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry,
>> vectors and matrices.
>>
>> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased
>> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
>>
>> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed
>> primitives allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in
>> combination with Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are
>> difficult of full of moving parts.
>>
>> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult
>> to use.
>>
>> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in
>> Houdini 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools…
>> but it is also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter
>> what.
>>
>> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff
>> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were
>> made available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a
>> good idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down
>> to this – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them
>> on making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they
>> try and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential
>> for increasing it.
>>
>> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me
>> long time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again)
>> so many things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage)
>> are not possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain
>> limitations. Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making
>> your live eraser in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you
>> are doing.
>>
>> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier
>> and element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN
>> FACT.
>>
>> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for
>> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into
>> it for real yet.
>>
>> May be that is what makes you feel it is complex...
>>
>> I will for 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 5 May 2018, at 17:52, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
> 
> Hi Jordi,
> PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to SideFX 
> to organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be replicating 
> one of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love those tutorials… 
> remember the carnivore plant?
> 
> I would love to see these, thanks.

:-).  will chat with them

> I'm pretty comfortable in Houdini, and day to day stuff is all fine, in fact 
> I love so much about Houdini; but at the moment for me its as soon as you hit 
> the Vex stuff I stumble, but thats my shortcoming, and its getting better, 
> just have to knuckle down.
> 

I have seen two types of approaches, those confortable with programming go to 
VEX because it is so direct and compact… the others (like me) use regular SOPs 
and only dive to VEX when I want to avoid VOPs which are a bit too cumbersome 
for my own taste… VEX is so convenient…

But as you say, it is a matter of just going for it…

jb

> 
> 
> On 4 May 2018 at 19:22, Jordi Bares  > wrote:
> For the sake of sharing my experiences...
> 
>> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy > > wrote:
>> 
>> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>> 
>> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them more 
>> accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais Powertools 
>> ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of better and 
>> more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a degree in 
>> rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
>> 
> 
> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0 or 
> the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things are 
> simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things 
> without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for 
> example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
>> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has 
>> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires 
>> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more than 
>> basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>> 
> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in 
> softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can choose 
> between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
> 
> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry, vectors 
> and matrices. 
>> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased 
>> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
>> 
> 
> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed primitives 
> allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in combination with 
> Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are difficult of full of 
> moving parts.
>> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to 
>> use.
>> 
> 
> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in Houdini 
> 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools… but it is 
> also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter what.
>> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff 
>> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were made 
>> available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a good 
>> idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down to this 
>> – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them on 
>> making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they try 
>> and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for 
>> increasing it.
>> 
> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long 
> time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so many 
> things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are not 
> possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain limitations. 
> Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making your live eraser 
> in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you are doing.
> 
> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier and 
> element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN FACT.
>> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for 
>> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into 
>> it for real yet.
>> 
> 
> May be that is what makes you feel it is complex...
>> I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC which 
>> is really 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Laurence Dodd]

Hi Jordi,
PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to SideFX
to organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be
replicating one of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love
those tutorials… remember the carnivore plant?

I would love to see these, thanks.

I'm pretty comfortable in Houdini, and day to day stuff is all fine, in
fact I love so much about Houdini; but at the moment for me its as soon as
you hit the Vex stuff I stumble, but thats my shortcoming, and its getting
better, just have to knuckle down.



On 4 May 2018 at 19:22, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> For the sake of sharing my experiences...
>
> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
>
> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>
> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them
> more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais
> Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of
> better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a
> degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all
>
> Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0
> or the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things
> are simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things
> without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for
> example custom controls with DOPs records and others)
>
> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has
> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires
> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more
> than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>
> The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in
> softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can
> choose between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
>
> Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry,
> vectors and matrices.
>
> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased
> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
>
> I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed
> primitives allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in
> combination with Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are
> difficult of full of moving parts.
>
> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult
> to use.
>
> I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in
> Houdini 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools…
> but it is also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter
> what.
>
> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff
> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were
> made available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a
> good idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down
> to this – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them
> on making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they
> try and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential
> for increasing it.
>
> With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long
> time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so
> many things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are
> not possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain
> limitations. Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making
> your live eraser in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you
> are doing.
>
> But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier
> and element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN
> FACT.
>
> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for
> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into
> it for real yet.
>
> May be that is what makes you feel it is complex...
>
> I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC
> which is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the
> users, so it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably
> many others, as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if
> it was made even easier to use :)
>
> Agreed, there are many things that should be a lot easier because you do
> them all the time (like path deform for example, or layering animation, or
> having a shape manager and others) but don’t be mistaken, it is not
> difficult at all until you need to dive in certain areas.
>
> And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly
> makes me 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

For the sake of sharing my experiences...

> On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:
> 
> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
> 
> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them more 
> accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais Powertools 
> ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of better and 
> more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a degree in rocket 
> science to be able to wield said tools at all
> 
Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0 or 
the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things are 
simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things without 
loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for example custom 
controls with DOPs records and others)
> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has gone 
> in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires a fair 
> amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more than basic 
> math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
> 
The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in 
softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can choose 
between learning simple expressions or learning to program.

Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry, vectors 
and matrices. 
> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased 
> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools,
> 
I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed primitives 
allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in combination with Material 
Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are difficult of full of moving parts.
> but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to 
> use.
> 
I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in Houdini 16 
and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools… but it is also 
true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter what.
> Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff 
> accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were made 
> available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a good 
> idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down to this 
> – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them on making 
> more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they try and 
> balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for 
> increasing it.
> 
With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long time 
ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so many things 
there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are not possible in 
Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain limitations. Exactly the same 
than ICE, you don’t have many tools making your live eraser in terms of 
workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you are doing.

But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier and 
element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN FACT.
> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for 
> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into 
> it for real yet.
> 
May be that is what makes you feel it is complex...
> I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC which 
> is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the users, so 
> it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably many others, 
> as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if it was made 
> even easier to use :)
> 
Agreed, there are many things that should be a lot easier because you do them 
all the time (like path deform for example, or layering animation, or having a 
shape manager and others) but don’t be mistaken, it is not difficult at all 
until you need to dive in certain areas.
> And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly 
> makes me short of breath to the point of needing to vomit, almost every day.
> 
Well, then I can guarantee you you will age slower.  ;-)

Peace and have a great weekend.
jb

PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to SideFX to 
organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be replicating one 
of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love those tutorials… 
remember the carnivore plant?

> Just my two kr (the coin we use here)
> 
> Have a nice weekend all – Morten
> 
> Den 3. maj 2018 klokken 19:17 skrev Jordi Bares :
> 
> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement 
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

To interject once more. I love Houdini, I love it's power and flexibility.
And I find VEX & VOPs more logical and efficient than ICE.

But when I speak of Houdini not being a 'generalist' replacement for
Softimage, I'd describe why, via the following catch all proposition.

*Houdini makes complex tasks relatively easy, but equally in makes simple
tasks relatively complex.*

3ds Max and Cinema 4d are nowhere near as powerful and flexible as Houdini,
Maya or Softimage, but they succeed in making the majority of typical
tasks, intuitive and artist friendly for the audiences they each cater to.
Softimage was the last of it's kind. A DCC that functioned equally well at
making complex tasks relatively easy and and the majority of tasks
intuitive and truly artist friendly.

On 4 May 2018 at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy  wrote:

> Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.
>
> It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them
> more accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais
> Powertools ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of
> better and more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a
> degree in rocket science to be able to wield said tools at all.
>
> Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has
> gone in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires
> a fair amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more
> than basic math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.
>
> I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased
> demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools, but I don't
> buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to use. Good
> UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff accessible
> to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were made
> available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a good
> idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down to
> this – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them on
> making more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they try
> and balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for
> increasing it.
>
> What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for
> practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into
> it for real yet. I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only
> major 3D DCC which is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools
> available to the users, so it will very likely inherit the world, but for
> me, and probably many others, as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do
> so much faster if it was made even easier to use :)
>
> And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly
> makes me short of breath to the point of needing to vomit, almost every day.
>
> Just my two kr (the coin we use here)
>
> Have a nice weekend all – Morten
>
> Den 3. maj 2018 klokken 19:17 skrev Jordi Bares :
>
> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist
> replacement for Softimage.
>
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>
> jb
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Morten Bartholdy]

Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here.

It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them more 
accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais Powertools 
;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of better and 
more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a degree in rocket 
science to be able to wield said tools at all.

Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has gone 
in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires a fair 
amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more than basic 
math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done.

I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased 
demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools, but I don't buy 
the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to use. Good UI devs 
could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff accessible to the least 
technical artist in the room if ressources were made available, ie the 
management and dev team leads concur it would be a good idea. I am going out on 
a limb and guessing it might often come down to this - spend ressources on 
making the tool more accessible or spend them on making more and better 
tools... In reality I think in all fairness they try and balance it while 
keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for increasing it.

What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for 
practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into it 
for real yet. I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D 
DCC which is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the 
users, so it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably many 
others, as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if it was 
made even easier to use :)

And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly makes 
me short of breath to the point of needing to vomit, almost every day.

Just my two kr (the coin we use here)


Have a nice weekend all - Morten







> Den 3. maj 2018 klokken 19:17 skrev Jordi Bares :
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement 
> > for Softimage.
> 
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind… 
> 
> jb
> 
> --
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> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

>
> Sounds like a good idea.. have you been around Chancery Lane pubs?? Fancy
> meeting??? It is really cool area


I used to work just round the corner in Smithfields so I know the area
reasonably well. But not likely to be in London over the next couple of
weeks (live and work in Northamptonshire these days). But I'll definitely
give you a ping a few weeks in advance next time I'm likely to be in
London. There's a HUG (Houdini user group) in London that one of the chaps
on the Discord organises. Maybe that would work?


On 4 May 2018 at 09:30, Jordi Bares  wrote:

>
> On 3 May 2018, at 18:24, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
>
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>
>
> A conversation best partnered with pint's of ale to fuel the conversation
> at some point. :)
>
>
> Sounds like a good idea.. have you been around Chancery Lane pubs?? Fancy
> meeting??? It is really cool area
>
> jb
>
>
> On 3 May 2018 at 18:17, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist
>> replacement for Softimage.
>>
>>
>> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>>
>> jb
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with
>> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>  --
> Softimage Mailing List.
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> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Alex Doss]

ex-soft? quite a foot on the chest man... lol

On 4 May 2018 at 14:03, Fabricio Chamon  wrote:

> Houdini conversation with ex-soft people in a pub...sounds like a cool
> place to be. =)
>
> I’m London atm (and for the next week), if anybody is keen for a beer or
> two...let me know
>
> Cheers
>
> Em sex, 4 de mai de 2018 às 09:30, Jordi Bares 
> escreveu:
>
>> On 3 May 2018, at 18:24, Jonathan Moore 
>> wrote:
>>
>> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>>
>>
>> A conversation best partnered with pint's of ale to fuel the conversation
>> at some point. :)
>>
>>
>> Sounds like a good idea.. have you been around Chancery Lane pubs?? Fancy
>> meeting??? It is really cool area
>>
>> jb
>>
>>
>> On 3 May 2018 at 18:17, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist
>>> replacement for Softimage.
>>>
>>>
>>> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>>>
>>> jb
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Softimage Mailing List.
>>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with
>>> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>  --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with
>> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
>> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
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> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Fabricio Chamon]

Houdini conversation with ex-soft people in a pub...sounds like a cool
place to be. =)

I’m London atm (and for the next week), if anybody is keen for a beer or
two...let me know

Cheers

Em sex, 4 de mai de 2018 às 09:30, Jordi Bares 
escreveu:

> On 3 May 2018, at 18:24, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
>
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>
>
> A conversation best partnered with pint's of ale to fuel the conversation
> at some point. :)
>
>
> Sounds like a good idea.. have you been around Chancery Lane pubs?? Fancy
> meeting??? It is really cool area
>
> jb
>
>
> On 3 May 2018 at 18:17, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist
>> replacement for Softimage.
>>
>>
>> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>>
>> jb
>>
>>
>> --
>> Softimage Mailing List.
>> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with
>> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>  --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with
> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
>
> --
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> On 3 May 2018, at 18:24, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
> 
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind… 
> 
> A conversation best partnered with pint's of ale to fuel the conversation at 
> some point. :)

Sounds like a good idea.. have you been around Chancery Lane pubs?? Fancy 
meeting??? It is really cool area

jb

> 
> On 3 May 2018 at 18:17, Jordi Bares  > wrote:
> 
> 
>> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement 
>> for Softimage.
> 
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind… 
> 
> jb
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>  with "unsubscribe" in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
>  --
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>  with "unsubscribe" in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

>
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…


A conversation best partnered with pint's of ale to fuel the conversation
at some point. :)

On 3 May 2018 at 18:17, Jordi Bares  wrote:

>
>
> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist
> replacement for Softimage.
>
>
> This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind…
>
> jb
>
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement 
> for Softimage.

This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind… 

jb

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

Why is this turning into an argument Jordi.

I said something in jest about hourly rates, which I then reiterated was in
jest, you brought VFXTD veterans of 20 yrs in to the equation.

Everything I've written in this thread goes back to the original post about
Houdini being used as a generalist tool.

I very much keep on top of what you guys are up at Framestore and have even
commented on your output on this list (the Paddington M campaign at Xmas).

We obviously have very different views with regard to Houdini as a
generalist replacement for Softimage and those different views have come up
on more than one occasion on this list. But there is no doubt that at this
current time, the manner in which Framestore are using Houdini as a
generalist toolset is a minority use case. Ever since Softimage was EOL'ed
certain voices have been predicting that Houdini would become it's natural
replacement but we're a fair way down the line from when you published your
excellent transition guide. A mammoth effort by anybodies standards. And by
my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement for
Softimage.

Sure Houdini is more popular that it's ever been, mainly because of the
wisdom and foresight of the Apprentice and Indie initiatives. And Houdini's
made significant inroads into gaming and motion design pipelines. But even
in motion design the most successful, famed and popular proponents of using
Houdini for mograph - ManvsMachine and Aixponza; still rely on C4D for the
majority of their output.

And finally ref Jake Rice - this is who I'm talking about:

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__jakericedesigns.com_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=YkPGtEtcoS54wGeD88AU-mteieYytvLQKnH89Q2bQ6Y=QGvF3kUOFrwIkryrtkQt7-uAJwHTkc5FOQA8Bi0LY8M=


On 3 May 2018 at 17:10, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> below
>
> On 3 May 2018, at 15:27, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
>
> You and I are members of the same private Houdini Discord server and one
> of the smartest individuals on that server only graduated a year or so ago
> (Jake Rice), and he studied motion graphics not VFX.
>
>
> This Jake Rice??
>  
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_jake-2Drice-2D97ba25129_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=YkPGtEtcoS54wGeD88AU-mteieYytvLQKnH89Q2bQ6Y=frF1xBsjL_ZqXnjvEcGD5dYbOZKmixkAsnZJTF5VJlY=
> 
>
> The core of the broadcast and advertising market is very different to the
> VFX market (I understand you service this segment at Framestore),
>
>
> Mmm… in what sense? Framestore is quite big and has quite a few
> departments tackling all aspects of post-production… I think the only thing
> we don’t do is architectural visualisation.
>
> Click on the departments drop down
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.framestore.com_work=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=YkPGtEtcoS54wGeD88AU-mteieYytvLQKnH89Q2bQ6Y=NpOqtN1MQLlrPEKZE_DQvHyOTbry-X_8dJJIET4NHKc=
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

below

> On 3 May 2018, at 15:27, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
> 
> You and I are members of the same private Houdini Discord server and one of 
> the smartest individuals on that server only graduated a year or so ago (Jake 
> Rice), and he studied motion graphics not VFX.

This Jake Rice??
 
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_jake-2Drice-2D97ba25129_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=W_y3vP1m2g6guCicf4usZGNNqZLo2_khDJvEMp2ALwE=93jiUIJYbzRzGpxKMsyy8I6gCE5SbW6opcZH-Y2sK7Y=

> The core of the broadcast and advertising market is very different to the VFX 
> market (I understand you service this segment at Framestore),

Mmm… in what sense? Framestore is quite big and has quite a few departments 
tackling all aspects of post-production… I think the only thing we don’t do is 
architectural visualisation.

Click on the departments drop down
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.framestore.com_work=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=W_y3vP1m2g6guCicf4usZGNNqZLo2_khDJvEMp2ALwE=kgcbNTfSzgVmWiM-j_Dd2itmPr49rtWXq_c46leKSEA=


> I'm happy that SideFX have made Houdini more accessible to uses outside of 
> typical VFX pipelines. The work of Luiz Kruel on the real-time shelf over the 
> last 18 months has been outstanding, and I expect similar efforts with motion 
> design over the next 18 months. But that doesn't mean that my architectural 
> client should stop basing the core of the pipeline around Max or that my 
> advertising clients should move from C4D for the core of their 3d output. For 
> all Houdini's power it's fundamentally an operating system for 3d. And for 
> generalist 3d output, Houdini use means that the proverbial wheel has to be 
> reinvented on a daily basis if pipelines aren't staffed by expert TD 'tool 
> makers' (as happens on typical FX pipelines). Budgets are smaller, turnaround 
> times are equally smaller, but client expectations are just as high. This 
> means that more focused tools such as Max and C4D often fit the bill better. 
> But that doesn't stop Houdini being a perfect facilitator for those occasions 
> when Max and C4D comes up short.
> 
> My clients use Maya to a lesser extent but there are other 3d segments where 
> Maya is a better workhorse than Houdini. 

Nobody said there is no space for anything else, simply that I doubt the rates 
for senior Houdini artists will go down as their expertise is essential, 
specially those that have been around for a while, are creative and resourceful 
and technically apt.

jb

> 
> None of this means I'm any less of a Houdini champion, it simply means that 
> I'm not a Houdini evangelist. They're two very different things.
> 
> Equally, my tuppence worth for today. ;)
> 
> On 3 May 2018 at 14:17, Jordi Bares  > wrote:
> Is it realistic assuming anyone at all (except someone with a brain the size 
> of a watermelon ;-) can come out of a 2 year course and command Houdini in 
> any meaningful way? I don’t think so… let alone their art, C4D and Houdini.
> 
> In terms of market realities and "in-house teams able to compete”, I am not 
> sure of that either… we are in times of both, commoditisation and 
> consolidation, with big companies attracting the very finest talent to the 
> finest projects and many agencies, production, broadcasters and others moving 
> into the VFX arena in the hope of a slice of the money they now spend outside 
> which ultimately will fulfil the simplest projects as scale is truly 
> challenging and therefore expensive.
> 
> Those guys that are worth their salt will have ambitions to work with the 
> best, and they will leave to get better project, better money and more 
> fulfilling careers.
> 
> My 2 cents of today
> jb
> 
> PS. BTW, Sky has closed their VFX unit.
> 
> 
> 
>> On 2 May 2018, at 22:26, Jonathan Moore > > wrote:
>> 
>> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years 
>> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going to 
>> be the total opposite.
>> 
>> We're already seeing a leveling of the playing field with junior & 
>> middleweight motion designers. A few years back a technical artist with both 
>> C4D and Houdini skills was able to command a good 25-50% premium. These days 
>> it's an expectation of any technical artist hire (that their skills cover 
>> both C4D and Houdini, and for an hourly rate equivalent to that paid to a 
>> purely C4D technical artist a few years back). But that's as much a case of 
>> Houdini education breaking free of FX focused Universities such as 
>> Bournemouth (UK). These days Houdini is included as part of the mix in some 
>> graphic and fine arts based courses such as those on offer via the various 
>> UAL 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

Yet again Jordi, I think we're comparing apples with watermelon's.

You and I are members of the same private Houdini Discord server and one of
the smartest individuals on that server only graduated a year or so ago
(Jake Rice), and he studied motion graphics not VFX.

The core of the broadcast and advertising market is very different to the
VFX market (I understand you service this segment at Framestore), in much
the same way that FMX is a very different showcase to NAB; it's one of the
reasons that C4D and Houdini service very different needs as much as they
have commonalities in other areas. And when I speak of SKY and the BBC, I'm
talking about the needs of day to day broadcast graphics for news and
sport, not small scale VFX to compete with the larger shops such as SKY's
failed attempts at Osterley (some very close friends lost their jobs it
that fiasco).

I work with Grey Worldwide and Publicis Groupe helping them with their
internal production facilities and in a completely different creative
segment with Atkins, a worldwide architectural practice, who now spend
nearly 70% of their visualisation budget on real-time and VR. In all three
cases Houdini is part of the production pipeline, but the nature of Houdini
use in those pipelines is very different to the stuff you do at Framestore.

I'm happy that SideFX have made Houdini more accessible to uses outside of
typical VFX pipelines. The work of Luiz Kruel on the real-time shelf over
the last 18 months has been outstanding, and I expect similar efforts with
motion design over the next 18 months. But that doesn't mean that my
architectural client should stop basing the core of the pipeline around Max
or that my advertising clients should move from C4D for the core of their
3d output. For all Houdini's power it's fundamentally an operating system
for 3d. And for generalist 3d output, Houdini use means that the proverbial
wheel has to be reinvented on a daily basis if pipelines aren't staffed by
expert TD 'tool makers' (as happens on typical FX pipelines). Budgets are
smaller, turnaround times are equally smaller, but client expectations are
just as high. This means that more focused tools such as Max and C4D often
fit the bill better. But that doesn't stop Houdini being a perfect
facilitator for those occasions when Max and C4D comes up short.

My clients use Maya to a lesser extent but there are other 3d segments
where Maya is a better workhorse than Houdini.

None of this means I'm any less of a Houdini champion, it simply means that
I'm not a Houdini evangelist. They're two very different things.

Equally, my tuppence worth for today. ;)

On 3 May 2018 at 14:17, Jordi Bares  wrote:

> Is it realistic assuming anyone at all (except someone with a brain the
> size of a watermelon ;-) can come out of a 2 year course and command
> Houdini in any meaningful way? I don’t think so… let alone their art, C4D
> and Houdini.
>
> In terms of market realities and "in-house teams able to compete”, I am
> not sure of that either… we are in times of both, commoditisation and
> consolidation, with big companies attracting the very finest talent to the
> finest projects and many agencies, production, broadcasters and others
> moving into the VFX arena in the hope of a slice of the money they now
> spend outside which ultimately will fulfil the simplest projects as scale
> is truly challenging and therefore expensive.
>
> Those guys that are worth their salt will have ambitions to work with the
> best, and they will leave to get better project, better money and more
> fulfilling careers.
>
> My 2 cents of today
> jb
>
> PS. BTW, Sky has closed their VFX unit.
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2018, at 22:26, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
>
> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years
>> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going
>> to be the total opposite.
>
>
> We're already seeing a leveling of the playing field with junior &
> middleweight motion designers. A few years back a technical artist with
> both C4D and Houdini skills was able to command a good 25-50% premium.
> These days it's an expectation of any technical artist hire (that their
> skills cover both C4D and Houdini, and for an hourly rate equivalent to
> that paid to a purely C4D technical artist a few years back). But that's as
> much a case of Houdini education breaking free of FX focused Universities
> such as Bournemouth (UK). These days Houdini is included as part of the mix
> in some graphic and fine arts based courses such as those on offer via the
> various UAL institutions (University of the Arts London). Many young
> freelancers touting their trade to motion design shops don't see scripting
> or programming as a barrier to creative expression; in many cases, they see
> it as a useful catalyst.
>
> I was only joshing when I spoke about reduced hourly rates, but behind the
> sarcasm was a reality of technical 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Olivier Jeannel]

For the motion work I believe Houdini is far superior to C4D. Last C4D user
I talked to told me the normals aren't exposed in Maxxon's software...

2018-05-03 15:17 GMT+02:00 Jordi Bares :

> Is it realistic assuming anyone at all (except someone with a brain the
> size of a watermelon ;-) can come out of a 2 year course and command
> Houdini in any meaningful way? I don’t think so… let alone their art, C4D
> and Houdini.
>
> In terms of market realities and "in-house teams able to compete”, I am
> not sure of that either… we are in times of both, commoditisation and
> consolidation, with big companies attracting the very finest talent to the
> finest projects and many agencies, production, broadcasters and others
> moving into the VFX arena in the hope of a slice of the money they now
> spend outside which ultimately will fulfil the simplest projects as scale
> is truly challenging and therefore expensive.
>
> Those guys that are worth their salt will have ambitions to work with the
> best, and they will leave to get better project, better money and more
> fulfilling careers.
>
> My 2 cents of today
> jb
>
> PS. BTW, Sky has closed their VFX unit.
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2018, at 22:26, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
>
> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years
>> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going
>> to be the total opposite.
>
>
> We're already seeing a leveling of the playing field with junior &
> middleweight motion designers. A few years back a technical artist with
> both C4D and Houdini skills was able to command a good 25-50% premium.
> These days it's an expectation of any technical artist hire (that their
> skills cover both C4D and Houdini, and for an hourly rate equivalent to
> that paid to a purely C4D technical artist a few years back). But that's as
> much a case of Houdini education breaking free of FX focused Universities
> such as Bournemouth (UK). These days Houdini is included as part of the mix
> in some graphic and fine arts based courses such as those on offer via the
> various UAL institutions (University of the Arts London). Many young
> freelancers touting their trade to motion design shops don't see scripting
> or programming as a barrier to creative expression; in many cases, they see
> it as a useful catalyst.
>
> I was only joshing when I spoke about reduced hourly rates, but behind the
> sarcasm was a reality of technical skills in the creative marketplace. As
> Houdini becomes more accessible to generalists, the worth of specialists is
> diluted. It's just the nature of things. I'm not talking FXTD's with 20
> years of experience here, but in-house creative teams at e.g the likes of
> Sky or the BBC, will be able to complete projects themselves, without
> having to rely on expensive freelance specialists. Generalist isn't a dirty
> word in these environments, for some businesses, good quality generalists
> are worth much more than specialists (not that they have the budgets to pay
> them more). SideFX's efforts has made Houdini more accessible to
> generalists to a certain degree, but the reality is that Houdin at the very
> least requires a programmatic mindset and ideally decent scripting skills.
>
> Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts
> education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application like
> Houdini.
>
> Softimage was unique in it's ability to offer both technical and non
> technical artists uncompromised capabilities for creative expression. I'm
> not certain that another single DCC will come along that offers such
> uncompromised abilities to both audiences. And whilst that doesn't impact
> larger pipelines too much, I'm conscious that a fair number of people on
> this list run independent creative businesses (with 10 or less employees).
> In the past a single DCC such as Softimage was all that was needed to be
> competitive. These days I don't think a single DCC exists to cater to the
> generalist needs of these types of businesses. It's more a case of working
> out which pair of DCC's covers you best for the market your targeting. For
> some that decision will be based purely on native capabilities, for others
> plugin requirements/availability will be a core consideration too.
>
> On 2 May 2018 at 20:42, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
>
>> As soon as I started looking at Maya, it just made me sad, but when I
>> delved into Houdini i felt quite at home and it always feels like they are
>> pushing it forward.
>> Also re Maya I never had that "ooh thats a good feature", but with
>> Houdini its all the time, I just need to up my coding skills.
>>
>> On 2 May 2018 at 19:23, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The
>>> engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a
>>> totally different mindset for 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Is it realistic assuming anyone at all (except someone with a brain the size of 
a watermelon ;-) can come out of a 2 year course and command Houdini in any 
meaningful way? I don’t think so… let alone their art, C4D and Houdini.

In terms of market realities and "in-house teams able to compete”, I am not 
sure of that either… we are in times of both, commoditisation and 
consolidation, with big companies attracting the very finest talent to the 
finest projects and many agencies, production, broadcasters and others moving 
into the VFX arena in the hope of a slice of the money they now spend outside 
which ultimately will fulfil the simplest projects as scale is truly 
challenging and therefore expensive.

Those guys that are worth their salt will have ambitions to work with the best, 
and they will leave to get better project, better money and more fulfilling 
careers.

My 2 cents of today
jb

PS. BTW, Sky has closed their VFX unit.



> On 2 May 2018, at 22:26, Jonathan Moore  wrote:
> 
> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years 
> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going to 
> be the total opposite.
> 
> We're already seeing a leveling of the playing field with junior & 
> middleweight motion designers. A few years back a technical artist with both 
> C4D and Houdini skills was able to command a good 25-50% premium. These days 
> it's an expectation of any technical artist hire (that their skills cover 
> both C4D and Houdini, and for an hourly rate equivalent to that paid to a 
> purely C4D technical artist a few years back). But that's as much a case of 
> Houdini education breaking free of FX focused Universities such as 
> Bournemouth (UK). These days Houdini is included as part of the mix in some 
> graphic and fine arts based courses such as those on offer via the various 
> UAL institutions (University of the Arts London). Many young freelancers 
> touting their trade to motion design shops don't see scripting or programming 
> as a barrier to creative expression; in many cases, they see it as a useful 
> catalyst. 
> 
> I was only joshing when I spoke about reduced hourly rates, but behind the 
> sarcasm was a reality of technical skills in the creative marketplace. As 
> Houdini becomes more accessible to generalists, the worth of specialists is 
> diluted. It's just the nature of things. I'm not talking FXTD's with 20 years 
> of experience here, but in-house creative teams at e.g the likes of Sky or 
> the BBC, will be able to complete projects themselves, without having to rely 
> on expensive freelance specialists. Generalist isn't a dirty word in these 
> environments, for some businesses, good quality generalists are worth much 
> more than specialists (not that they have the budgets to pay them more). 
> SideFX's efforts has made Houdini more accessible to generalists to a certain 
> degree, but the reality is that Houdin at the very least requires a 
> programmatic mindset and ideally decent scripting skills. 
> 
> Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts 
> education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application like 
> Houdini. 
> 
> Softimage was unique in it's ability to offer both technical and non 
> technical artists uncompromised capabilities for creative expression. I'm not 
> certain that another single DCC will come along that offers such 
> uncompromised abilities to both audiences. And whilst that doesn't impact 
> larger pipelines too much, I'm conscious that a fair number of people on this 
> list run independent creative businesses (with 10 or less employees). In the 
> past a single DCC such as Softimage was all that was needed to be 
> competitive. These days I don't think a single DCC exists to cater to the 
> generalist needs of these types of businesses. It's more a case of working 
> out which pair of DCC's covers you best for the market your targeting. For 
> some that decision will be based purely on native capabilities, for others 
> plugin requirements/availability will be a core consideration too.
> 
> On 2 May 2018 at 20:42, Laurence Dodd  > wrote:
> As soon as I started looking at Maya, it just made me sad, but when I delved 
> into Houdini i felt quite at home and it always feels like they are pushing 
> it forward.
> Also re Maya I never had that "ooh thats a good feature", but with Houdini 
> its all the time, I just need to up my coding skills.
> 
> On 2 May 2018 at 19:23, Jordi Bares  > wrote:
>> 
>> I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The 
>> engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a 
>> totally different mindset for solving the same end goals. I think Houdini 
>> fills an ICE void, but the rounded user experience of Softimage is so much 
>> harder to fill.
> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

>
> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years
> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going
> to be the total opposite.


We're already seeing a leveling of the playing field with junior &
middleweight motion designers. A few years back a technical artist with
both C4D and Houdini skills was able to command a good 25-50% premium.
These days it's an expectation of any technical artist hire (that their
skills cover both C4D and Houdini, and for an hourly rate equivalent to
that paid to a purely C4D technical artist a few years back). But that's as
much a case of Houdini education breaking free of FX focused Universities
such as Bournemouth (UK). These days Houdini is included as part of the mix
in some graphic and fine arts based courses such as those on offer via the
various UAL institutions (University of the Arts London). Many young
freelancers touting their trade to motion design shops don't see scripting
or programming as a barrier to creative expression; in many cases, they see
it as a useful catalyst.

I was only joshing when I spoke about reduced hourly rates, but behind the
sarcasm was a reality of technical skills in the creative marketplace. As
Houdini becomes more accessible to generalists, the worth of specialists is
diluted. It's just the nature of things. I'm not talking FXTD's with 20
years of experience here, but in-house creative teams at e.g the likes of
Sky or the BBC, will be able to complete projects themselves, without
having to rely on expensive freelance specialists. Generalist isn't a dirty
word in these environments, for some businesses, good quality generalists
are worth much more than specialists (not that they have the budgets to pay
them more). SideFX's efforts has made Houdini more accessible to
generalists to a certain degree, but the reality is that Houdin at the very
least requires a programmatic mindset and ideally decent scripting skills.

Those at the tail end of their career, that came from a pure fine arts
education are at a definite disadvantage with a technical application like
Houdini.

Softimage was unique in it's ability to offer both technical and non
technical artists uncompromised capabilities for creative expression. I'm
not certain that another single DCC will come along that offers such
uncompromised abilities to both audiences. And whilst that doesn't impact
larger pipelines too much, I'm conscious that a fair number of people on
this list run independent creative businesses (with 10 or less employees).
In the past a single DCC such as Softimage was all that was needed to be
competitive. These days I don't think a single DCC exists to cater to the
generalist needs of these types of businesses. It's more a case of working
out which pair of DCC's covers you best for the market your targeting. For
some that decision will be based purely on native capabilities, for others
plugin requirements/availability will be a core consideration too.

On 2 May 2018 at 20:42, Laurence Dodd  wrote:

> As soon as I started looking at Maya, it just made me sad, but when I
> delved into Houdini i felt quite at home and it always feels like they are
> pushing it forward.
> Also re Maya I never had that "ooh thats a good feature", but with Houdini
> its all the time, I just need to up my coding skills.
>
> On 2 May 2018 at 19:23, Jordi Bares  wrote:
>
>>
>> I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The
>> engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a
>> totally different mindset for solving the same end goals. I think Houdini
>> fills an ICE void, but the rounded user experience of Softimage is so much
>> harder to fill.
>>
>>
>> I agree the elegant “no-frills" workflow in Softimage is not going to be
>> replicated anytime soon but there have been some truly remarkable efforts
>> to get closer while keeping Houdini true to its procedural roots (which
>> obviously is the right thing to do)
>>
>> Plus I think there are parts of the Houdini community that don't want to
>> see the user experience to become more artist friendly. If Houdini is
>> easier to drive, they might see their hourly rates drop! ;)
>>
>>
>> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years
>> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going
>> to be the total opposite.
>>
>> My 2 cents
>> jb
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2 May 2018 at 17:07, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
>>
>>> Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for
>>> the last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going
>>> to spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini
>>> is still very much shoved into the vfx box.
>>> I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope
>>> people start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something,
>>> eek.
>>>
>>> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Laurence Dodd]

As soon as I started looking at Maya, it just made me sad, but when I
delved into Houdini i felt quite at home and it always feels like they are
pushing it forward.
Also re Maya I never had that "ooh thats a good feature", but with Houdini
its all the time, I just need to up my coding skills.

On 2 May 2018 at 19:23, Jordi Bares  wrote:

>
> I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The
> engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a
> totally different mindset for solving the same end goals. I think Houdini
> fills an ICE void, but the rounded user experience of Softimage is so much
> harder to fill.
>
>
> I agree the elegant “no-frills" workflow in Softimage is not going to be
> replicated anytime soon but there have been some truly remarkable efforts
> to get closer while keeping Houdini true to its procedural roots (which
> obviously is the right thing to do)
>
> Plus I think there are parts of the Houdini community that don't want to
> see the user experience to become more artist friendly. If Houdini is
> easier to drive, they might see their hourly rates drop! ;)
>
>
> Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years
> experience Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going
> to be the total opposite.
>
> My 2 cents
> jb
>
>
>
> On 2 May 2018 at 17:07, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
>
>> Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for
>> the last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going
>> to spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini
>> is still very much shoved into the vfx box.
>> I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope
>> people start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something,
>> eek.
>>
>> Laurence
>>
>> On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber  wrote:
>>
>>> Hello
>>>
>>> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not
>>> only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging,
>>> animation, lighting a scene, etc?
>>>
>>> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
>>>
>>> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
>>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
>>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Laurence Dodd
>> Porkpie Animation
>> E: laure...@porkpie.tv
>> W: www.porkpie.tv
>> 

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

> 
> I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The 
> engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a 
> totally different mindset for solving the same end goals. I think Houdini 
> fills an ICE void, but the rounded user experience of Softimage is so much 
> harder to fill.

I agree the elegant “no-frills" workflow in Softimage is not going to be 
replicated anytime soon but there have been some truly remarkable efforts to 
get closer while keeping Houdini true to its procedural roots (which obviously 
is the right thing to do)

> Plus I think there are parts of the Houdini community that don't want to see 
> the user experience to become more artist friendly. If Houdini is easier to 
> drive, they might see their hourly rates drop! ;)

Unless there is a major breakthrough in education I doubt a 20 years experience 
Houdini FXTD will have his rates go down… if anything is going to be the total 
opposite.

My 2 cents
jb

> 
> 
> On 2 May 2018 at 17:07, Laurence Dodd  > wrote:
> Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for the 
> last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going to 
> spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini is 
> still very much shoved into the vfx box.
> I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope people 
> start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something, eek.
> 
> Laurence
> 
> On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber  > wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not only 
> simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging, animation, 
> lighting a scene, etc?
> 
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
> 
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> David
> 
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>  with “unsubscribe” in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Laurence Dodd
> Porkpie Animation
> 
> E: laure...@porkpie.tv 
> W: www.porkpie.tv 
> 
> M: 07570 702 576
> T: 01273 278 382
>  
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>  with "unsubscribe" in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
>  --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>  with "unsubscribe" in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.

--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Tekano Bob]

Fairly certain that Axis Animation are primarily houdini for entire pipeline
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.axisanimation.com_all-2Djobs_houdini-2Dgeneralist_=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=i61pj0tqiX2m3lmGrVy8iTC3RRVPD0G_Jmw1sObYb2o=E5CX5q8GNAwsejF6hIK8AofIG1hMt1OiKtaeL-1yKcg=


On Wed, May 2, 2018, 11:56 AM David Saber  wrote:

> Hello
>
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not
> only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging,
> animation, lighting a scene, etc?
>
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
>
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
>
> Thanks
>
> David
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>
--
Softimage Mailing List.
To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with 
"unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[phil harbath]

if it had a good auto-rigger like gear, shape animation tools, and an easy to 
use animation mixer I’d be all over it.

From: Jordi Bares 
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2018 2:08 PM
To: Official Softimage Users Mailing 
List.https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=K1_9MoENThJ5BRg8OlhiZyPxBd7nLUHPvfR1zVruF18=wHyLmudK3rTzrpKtLy4rKYV45if7vwJODbB7l0WJLA8=
 
Subject: Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

If anything I can guarantee you the general vibe has changed from Houdini=FX to 
Houdini=Anything you want except rigging because it is hard to find riggers

Ultimately is up to you, if you aim towards a particular area you will get 
there… simple as that.

jb


  On 2 May 2018, at 17:07, Laurence Dodd <laure...@porkpie.tv> wrote:

  Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for the 
last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going to spend 
my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini is still very 
much shoved into the vfx box. 
  I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope people 
start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something, eek.

  Laurence

  On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber <davidsa...@sfr.fr> wrote:

Hello

I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not 
only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging, animation, 
lighting a scene, etc?

Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?

And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?

Thanks

David

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  Porkpie Animation


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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

If anything I can guarantee you the general vibe has changed from Houdini=FX to 
Houdini=Anything you want except rigging because it is hard to find riggers

Ultimately is up to you, if you aim towards a particular area you will get 
there… simple as that.

jb


> On 2 May 2018, at 17:07, Laurence Dodd  wrote:
> 
> Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for the 
> last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going to 
> spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini is 
> still very much shoved into the vfx box.
> I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope people 
> start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something, eek.
> 
> Laurence
> 
> On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber  > wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not only 
> simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging, animation, 
> lighting a scene, etc?
> 
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
> 
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> David
> 
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com 
>  with “unsubscribe” in the 
> subject, and reply to confirm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Laurence Dodd
> Porkpie Animation
> E: laure...@porkpie.tv 
> W: www.porkpie.tv 
> 
> M: 07570 702 576
> T: 01273 278 382
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> "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jonathan Moore]

Houdini is increasingly being used by Motion Design shops too. Prime
examples being ManvsMachine and Aixsponza (there are many, many more).

Outside of FX, I think Houdini is most often partnered with another DCC in
the major shops. For motion design, the partner is more likely to be C4D,
but shop's that output non FX based entertainment and advertising content
will most often partner Houdini with Maya or 3ds Max (Max is probably most
commonly partnered with Houdini in gaming and VR). There are of course
exceptions to those generalisations but I think it's a fair breakdown of
the major segments.

I personally don't ever see Houdini filling the Softimage void. The
engineering that powers the Houdini user experience very often requires a
totally different mindset for solving the same end goals. I think Houdini
fills an ICE void, but the rounded user experience of Softimage is so much
harder to fill.

I've come to believe that every DCC evolves the way they do in large part
due to the echo chamber of their core user communities. The vast majority
of Houdini users are FX TD's and they reflect back to SideFX, mirrored
viewpoints of Houdini engineers. This core influence is hard to break, just
look at how Maya, Max, C4D, Modo & Lightwave have 'evolved' over the last
15-20 years. They have all stayed core to their DNA, with iterative changes
and little in the way of revolutionary leaps. And Houdini is no different.
It's DNA can be traced all the way back to PRISMS, much like it's approach
to proceduralism.

Plus I think there are parts of the Houdini community that don't want to
see the user experience to become more artist friendly. If Houdini is
easier to drive, they might see their hourly rates drop! ;)


On 2 May 2018 at 17:07, Laurence Dodd  wrote:

> Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for
> the last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going
> to spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini
> is still very much shoved into the vfx box.
> I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope
> people start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something,
> eek.
>
> Laurence
>
> On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber  wrote:
>
>> Hello
>>
>> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not
>> only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging,
>> animation, lighting a scene, etc?
>>
>> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
>>
>> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> David
>>
>> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
>> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
>> subject, and reply to confirm.
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Laurence Dodd
> Porkpie Animation
> E: laure...@porkpie.tv
> W: www.porkpie.tv
> 
> M: 07570 702 576
> T: 01273 278 382
>
> --
> Softimage Mailing List.
> To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com
> with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Laurence Dodd]

Its something I've been wondering too. I have been learning Houdini for the
last year or more, and I really like it, but I am concerned I'm going to
spend my working days doing vfx sims, which isn't my favourite. Houdini is
still very much shoved into the vfx box.
I dread the thought of being forced into Maya, stick with it and hope
people start using it more generally, or start looking at C4D or something,
eek.

Laurence

On 2 May 2018 at 11:56, David Saber  wrote:

> Hello
>
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not
> only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging,
> animation, lighting a scene, etc?
>
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
>
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
>
> Thanks
>
> David
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>



-- 

Laurence Dodd
Porkpie Animation
E: laure...@porkpie.tv
W: www.porkpie.tv
M: 07570 702 576
T: 01273 278 382
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Meng-Yang Lu]

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__jamesowen.co_=DwIBaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=M0nD7HRq7nw2AYE7oY_cyEfjkPSwAawUb6Vak2_7HUw=kbm4xoz8Qz2xSQiXrpelhl8TxCxcW_12t3uPa_xIqG0=

Maybe like this?  It's more motion graphics than straight up smoke
machine.  But the application of the tool is pretty fun here.

-Lu
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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Jordi Bares]

Many do although rigging+animation is not so common… yet. ;-)

Framestore Commercials (where I am based) has a lot of Houdini and pretty much 
all the FX, lighting and rendering backbone is Houdini.

jb

> On 2 May 2018, at 11:56, David Saber  wrote:
> 
> Hello
> 
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not only 
> simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging, animation, 
> lighting a scene, etc?
> 
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
> 
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> David
> 
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to 
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the subject, 
> and reply to confirm.
> 
> 

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Re: Houdini : non VFX jobs?

[Graham D. Clark]

Companies have tried this
I think CORE used it in most areas years ago
Ask sidefx, they showed me quite a few projects all houdini when I've
visited

Graham D Clark
phone: why-I-stereo
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imdb.me_grahamdclark=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=Ew_z8fA2eyXE4cdALaMpi1IPofZ3dpR9uz5Ek4cQ-Go=k9tW2Q1po8o5ySkwrpvPSGZLV5DrFAAaVORlT7RLHqg=
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_grahamclark=DwIFaQ=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA=Ew_z8fA2eyXE4cdALaMpi1IPofZ3dpR9uz5Ek4cQ-Go=vrRNzqyGi-QVboGh0SqnHpgf2Zyisq65DoG-1YnWCLw=


On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 6:56 AM David Saber  wrote:

> Hello
>
> I'd like to know if Houdini is somewhere used as a generalist tool: not
> only simulations and FX but also modelling , texturing, , rigging,
> animation, lighting a scene, etc?
>
> Is there a company that uses Houdini this way?
>
> And if no, do you think a company will use Houdini this way someday?
>
> Thanks
>
> David
>
> -- Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to
> softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with “unsubscribe” in the
> subject, and reply to confirm.
>
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