In response to the OP questions, I moved to using Houdini fulltime two years ago so have had a good look at the market in London. By the way, thanks for that Maya transition course Graham, it really showed me the way forward :D
Not many companies are switching completely to Houdini that I know of, but many mograph companies have spotted the potential and added it to their arsenal to use it along side C4D. (MVSM, FutureDeluxe, Territory, Found, Analog, etc ) . This is a market softimage never managed get hold of, which really was a shame. In fact, it's very interesting to see how the C4D / mograph community (entagma, etc) have recognised the limitations of their current toolset and have started adopting Houdini. Ask them, they are all learning it, or wanting to. The trend has been set and there is demand for more creative Houdini artists, so there is big momentum in this area. Sometimes I ask myself if I would have learned Houdini if xsi was still alive or alive-ish and the likely answer would have been no, life was too comfortable, so kudos to this guys. You then have the more obvious FX route, that will offer you opportunities you never dreamed of when using xsi. The demand on this field is greater than ever and the demand is simply crazy. You will be able to work in film (dneg, ilm, framestore, Cinesite, MPC, etc), which personally I am finding a lot more dynamic than I was expecting. This year will probably be the busiest ever for FX people in London with movies like transformers, and pacific Rim 2. If commercials/TV is your thing, than there is plenty of demand there as well for good FX TDs. Companies like TheMill, framestore, MPC, ETC, Milk, Glassworks use it actively on their pipelines. Maya has lost some ground in some areas, lighting and rendering being probably the most notorious one. Film companies are now using Clarisse, Katana and a bit of Houdini as their main lighting tool. However the stronghold they have in rigging and animation is just solid and not going anywhere any time soon.This companies are heavily invested on their rigging frameworks and so are their users. They have been perfecting this workflows for decades so can't see this changing anytime soon doesn't matter what sidefx does. It's probably as unlikely as Houdini artists converting to Maya because of bifrost... Now, software can die as we know it, so there really is no safe bet. However Houdini has a much bigger market than xsi ever did, so that's probably a good sign. Also the pace of the development is very agile, which makes you think they guys really care about this software and know how to look after it. The investment in marketing, new website and forum are also good signs for me. Best of luck, and enjoy your transition. On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 at 18:10, Graham Bell <[email protected]> wrote: See for yourself... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cYNWzQWeHU&spfreload=10 And you will find hundreds of examples that showcase how good Zbrush is on the hard surface modelling. - I’m still not completely convinced tbh. It’s great what people do, but for automotive you wouldn’t really do that. We couldn’t work like that and it’s actually easier to retopo from the CAD anyway. True, Retopo has been improved a lot with the addition of the new tools but UV work in Maya was broken last time we used it… ...that was 6 months ago so there wasn’t a lot to celebrate on my corner. I may be missing something… what I have seen so far is small improvements over old toolsets but I would love to see advanced bevelling, complex boleans and in Maya that prove me wrong. - I would say the improvements have been significant, but might depend on the benchmark they’re marked against. NEX was implemented, then build upon, then old legacy removed. Broken is a strong word and not 100% true, but I agree UVs still need work, but the nips and tucks they’ve done have been good. Feedback from Maya users was generally positive. I haven’t fully looked at Maya 2017 yet, but comments haven’t been great. IMHO I am afraid Modo is on a league on its own on all things modelling. - I would agree a lot with that, but my comparison was against more general usage. And for all of Modo’s power, personally I don’t see more widespread adoption. I always here of this mass migration away from Max/Maya, but I’ve yet to see it. The Foundry have to press a lot harder here. I think many just seem to default to Maya or Max. Different context, AD has made sure we have to choose. For the studios using Softimage the burden is unavoidable and the costs are now with H16 not too dissimilar so I can see a good scenario unfolding. For those using Maya I am not sure, I am inclined to think it would probably depend on the work they do vs the costs to produce that work, that will be the trigger. Said that, the costs of freelancers, training and adaptation are different so as long as there is talent available, this things in on. - I agree in terms of Soft users and studios, your hand was forced. For others, the factors you mention do have a baring and the biggest influence. We use mainly Max, which I Ioathe, but it gets the job done and does what we ask of it for what we do. In our context, Houdini unfortunately offers us little or nothing. I’d gladly take Fabric as a tools framework though. *From:* [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>] *On Behalf Of *Jordi Bares *Sent:* 19 February 2017 15:08 *To:* Official Softimage Users Mailing List. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/xsi_list < [email protected]> *Subject:* Re: Opinion gathering On 19 Feb 2017, at 13:40, Graham Bell <[email protected]> wrote: I think the problem Houdini has is penetrating the more ‘traditional’ modelling, UV, and animation workflows. Maya/Max still dominate here. C4D and Modo are trying hard but the former still seem to rule the roost. This is already happening, Modelling tends to happen in Zbrush, UV tends to happen in UVlayout and you may only use Maya to do basic modelling and basic UV stuff.. although imperfect, that is easy to do in Houdini with today’s toolset, let alone H16 toolset. Rigging and Animation are the two parts of this pipeline Maya has a stronghold, but IMHO it is only a matter of time to see a shift in that area too. Is there a swing towards Houdini in this area? Or is it still an augmented option in a Maya/Max/Modo pipeline. That would be the interesting thing for me. I have been long advocating to use Houdini as the backbone of the pipeline to avoid software fragmentation and the enourmous amount of glue, support, plugins, hidden costs that such approach brings… Just list the number of applications you would use if you didn’t have Softimage by your side. Zbrush, Topogun, UVlayout, Marvelous Designer, Mari, Photoshop, Maya for Rig and Animation, Maya for Cloth sims, Arnold, Massive, Real flow… the list is insane!!! I use this other approach; Zbrush, Mari, Photoshop, Marvelous Designer and finally, Houdini for everything else. Less glue, less going back and forth... Plus let’s face it… an animator needs only very few tools and normally have the easiest transition in any pipeline to new packages. I can train an animator to do his job in Houdini in barely a day and in a week is pretty much as productive with Houdini as he is with Maya (and I have tested this in the past) I had hoped to make the recent Houdini event but client deadlines intervened. I echo Andy’s comments though about the number of Soft users. For me Houdini is a no-brainer when looking for an ICE replacement, perhaps with some Fabric thrown in there for good measure. Have a look at the screencast they did.. you will see why the excitement. Interesting times ahead. jb ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to [email protected] with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm. ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to [email protected] with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
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