Understandably so, but it wouldn't harm Houdini if Side Effects were to take some timepluMmet wrote:it's just about the lowest possible thing on my list.
I think proceduralism isn't really at issue here. Not AFAIC at least. To me what's missing from Houdini are some basic workflow elements that could easily be improved upon (for instance modeling), which would make it more feasible for the artist to "stay" in Houdini for most of his/her tasks. People might believe "generalist" software is dead, but we all want it anyway...McNistor wrote:The assumption (if I read you correctly) that only TDs and not artists are able to work in a fully procedural env. holds as much water as gerbil's bladder.
I saw people on CGtalk cheering about new workflow changes/improvements in Houdini. I can't know what exactly are they referring to when saying "workflow" but proceduralism in Houdini is its core philosophy and if that's a problem you need to look elsewhere: I could see Houdini dead before going the non-procedural route.
Since when did it become hard to understand that the more stuff there is between you and your vision the harder it is to get out.SamHowell wrote:Since when did artists and TD's become completely separate things? That really is sad.
Just to let you know (couldn't resist...pluMmet wrote:
How many "knobs" do I need to twist to move 1 thing.. group of things?
I should not have to use a Rube Goldberg device in order to animate!
), in Houdini, if you want to have a plain cycle extrapolation on single animated parameter, once you activate it as 'motion effect', Houdini admirably creates, guess me what... NEW NODE, one node for each parameter (channel or what...). Imagine this on around 100-200 parameters for character. No comment.... They're obviously not necessarily two separate things. There's a spectrum and one can reside at one extremity or another but there's a lot more in between therefore it is there most people are standing on.SamHowell wrote:Since when did artists and TD's become completely separate things?[...]
It's true, Houdini lacks in certain areas that we refer to as "artistic" but one could use whatever they're currently using (XSI in our case) for a few more yrs (and not only) for modeling and whatnot and slowly adopt Houdini for anything else until it catches up in those weak areas. It will need at least a few full versions and while no promises have been made (I'm not talking for SideFX or anything) I can say that I trust Houdini devs. to continue to listen to, exchange info with their user-base and most of the time actually do something. Unlike you know who.Hirazi Blue wrote:[...]To me what's missing from Houdini are some basic workflow elements that could easily be improved upon (for instance modeling)[...]
There are a few things that don't benefit from or are even downright impossible to do with nodes, it's true. If you think you know what those are, drop by and tell them and they'll listen. If your arguments are valid (deemed as so by the devs. and the established user-base) you'll see changeMathaeus wrote:[...]
Are you sure about that..McNistor wrote:They're obviously not necessarily two separate things. There's a spectrum and one can reside at one extremity or another but there's a lot more in between therefore it is there most people are standing on.SamHowell wrote:Since when did artists and TD's become completely separate things?[...]
Pooby wrote:TD's have no artistic talent whatsoever. They can't even draw (except the ones that do have artistic talent) and artists do not think technically at all, They can't even do basic arithmetic (I'm not including the ones that can think technically)
Don't know how it sells, but just this one is what I personally looking for - for things like, let's call it 'advanced motion graphic' - self building houses and such, procedurally animated crap. Exactly in this animated 'surface operator' level, Houdini seems to be, how to say, not that much 'houdinized', also still stronger than anything else. While just simulation networks, well they are 'houdinized' far out of my personal level of good taste. There's free implementation of Bullet engine, as set of Houdini SOP nodes, I've heard fairly easier to use than built in thing. I think H sans has some sort of 'static' particles, for instancing and similar tasks. At the end, I can live with Mantra nodes, as already I have a bit of Renderman hacking skills, earned through 3delight times. But, don't know how many freelancers will enjoy in having to put the 'transform space' node, every time they want to remap point position to texture, and so on and so on in Mantra shader network.Hirazi Blue wrote:The most fascinating to me is that Side Effects still sells "Houdini" (stripped of all the particle and dynamics stuff, which you get when you buy "Houdini FX"), while most of the "shortcomings" of the product would be most evident in this simplified package and one would think that people who are not looking for particles and dynamics would look elsewhere. After some experience with the Apprentice edition, I'd for instance take my modeling to some other product.
So does anyone know if Houdini sans FX sells well?
sometime around Houdini 15, not before.
