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Houdini vs. Maya


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Hi,

Actually I use Maya for my work. I do character modelling, texturing, rendering and never animation and no fx. Maya is a great tool and I'm satisfied with it. But I also look for more efficient solutions in the workflow. Recentley I learned about Houdini and tried a simple tutorial. I like the Houdini procedural structure and it reminds me working in Maya's hypershade but in more wide aspect. I also got some questions:

- In tutorial I was doing very simple geometry. Does the procedural nature of Houdini as effective for complex organic surfaces?

- Does it have subdivision surfaces or something like that?

- How fast is the workflow comparing to Maya?

- Does it have any equivalent of paintfx, fur? How do they model hairs, fur or plants in Houdini?

- I heard Houdini is more for programmers, than for artist. I'm an artist and I appreciate a beautiful picture as a result (not a nice script;)

Sorry for a long question list, but I have to decide should I spend time on testing Houdini or not?

Thank you.

PS Sorry for my possibly bad English.

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Hi Saugaro,

I answered your post lightly in the cgalk forums, but I'll continue here...

- In tutorial I was doing very simple geometry. Does the procedural nature of Houdini as effective for complex organic surfaces?

The procedural model does in no way inhibit organic modeling. There are great tools for it, in fact - paint/sculpt/comb brush tools (like Artisan) and Edit operations with allow all manners of deformations to be rolled up into one node. The Edit tools (and several others) has an amazing "soft" mode which allows edits with a soft falloff. So, in short - the procedural model only helps, even with organic modeling. You'll find yourself moving up the node tree and doing a lot of fixes upstream in organic modeling too. Things can get tricky if you start blasting away polygons upstream that are depended on downstream, but this just errors those operations (doesn't blow them away) and you can easily shoot back downstream and reselect the new polys for those operations.

- Does it have subdivision surfaces or something like that?

There is a subdivide operation to subdivide your models by a specified number of times and there are neat techniques to modeling on the cage and watching the subd surface update - (look at the Template flag). Houdini itself doesn't support subd surfaces as a primitive type - i.e. it doesnt represent the limit surface in the viewer. Mantra (the renderer) does support subd natively though. Houdini will pass it the cage and mantra will give you the limit (infinitely subdivided) surface.

- How fast is the workflow comparing to Maya?

In modeling?

The UV tools in Houdini are (IMHO) better than mayas and it would take mere minutes to get good UVs out of Houdini for fairly complex models, but the pure modeling process will vary depending on your task, I reckon. Maya is probably quicker for doing operations to multiple objects simulataneously. Modeling a hero piece of geometry is probably very similar.

- Does it have any equivalent of paintfx, fur? How do they model hairs, fur or plants in Houdini?

Nope. But you can set up fur rendering - look in the Rendering forum.

I hope this helps..

Jason.

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Well we've been using Houdini as a modelling package for organic models for many years and once you learn to use it the way it is intended you probably won't find a better tool. But as with everything it depends what you want to do with it. If you only work by sculpting with brush tools there are probably better options but if you want real control and precision and the ability to make procedural changes Houdini rocks. We build very complex organic models with thousands of components all meshing together with no visible intersctions, I wouldn't want to do that without some proceduralism to help, but if you just want to make a nice head model you can probably do it just as easily in Maya.

For simple fur you can just scatter some points onto a surface with one operator then comb the normals with another, copy a hair primitive to the points, add a width attribute and render with mantra. It's not all on one drop down menu but it's only 4 nodes..... :)

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The procedural model does in no way inhibit organic modeling. There are great tools for it, in fact - paint/sculpt/comb brush tools (like Artisan) and Edit operations with allow all manners of deformations to be rolled up into one node.

Yes, I know this. But then what the difference from modelling in maya? Using Edit instead of Transform (say,for moving vertices), makes network not so complex, but at the same time the advantage of proceduralism is partially lost.

There is a subdivide operation to subdivide your models by a specified number of times and there are neat techniques to modeling on the cage and watching the subd surface update - (look at the Template flag).

I tried this technique - very nice one. :)

The UV tools in Houdini are (IMHO) better than mayas and it would take mere minutes to get good UVs out of Houdini for fairly complex models, but the pure modeling process will vary depending on your task, I reckon.  Maya is probably quicker for doing operations to multiple objects simulataneously. Modeling a hero piece of geometry is probably very similar.

First of all I'm looking for an efficient way of modelling a realistic human head/body. Recentley I modelled a woman's head and then I was required to do changes to her face to get a set of women heads with different characteristics. That was quite a mess changing an already built model trying to make three different heads from one. So I'd like to see if Houdini could make my life eazier? :rolleyes:

Thank you for your answers. I appreciate this much. :)

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But as with everything it depends what you want to do with it. If you only work by sculpting with brush tools there are probably better options but if you want real control and precision and the ability to make procedural changes Houdini rocks.

In maya I mainly use subdives or polygon proxy. So, a lot of vertices/polys editing, moving, deleting, adding etc. is done. I can hardly imaging how it can be done by mere procedures.

We build very complex organic models with thousands of components all meshing together with no visible intersctions,

Is it possible for me to have a look at such models? I'm very curious about this.

I wouldn't want to do that without some proceduralism to help, but if you just want to make a nice head model you can probably do it just as easily in Maya.

That is what I need to decide for myself. :)

For simple fur you can just scatter some points onto a surface with one operator then comb the normals with another, copy a hair primitive to the points, add a width attribute and render with mantra. It's not all on one drop down menu but it's only 4 nodes.....  :)

4 nodes.. I like this. :) But how the result looks like?

Thank you.

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I tried this technique - very nice one. :)

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Also, look at the Display options - you can make your template mode be shaded mode and keep your regular geometry in wireframe mode. This lets you model on a the cage while viewing a shaded subd mesh. Very useful for ironing out pinches and creases you cant see in wireframe mode.

I think for a hero model like a head, I'd think that you'd end up with a pretty even contest with Maya.

And you're totally right that if you're modeling quickly, you may end up sacrificing some of the flexibility of your history, but since all your edits are so co-dependant you may have no use for it. Although what is interesting is you can try this: you probably will apply UVs after the head model is complete, right? Try going halfway up the chain and applying UVs somewhere in the middle or beginning where it makes sense. After all the operations (they all operate on attributes too), you might find that at the end of your chain you'll have semi-decent UV's to start UVing with.

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Hey saguaro,

You asked if houdini has paintfx or a way of doing trees plants.

Yes houdini does have a tool for doing trees and plants. If you want to know what this looks like then rent or buy time machine and watch the plants grow over time while his machine is starting up. Its been used in many places. Basically what you could do setup a tool that would place a plant at every point on your grid geometry and have the plant instanced or generated at that point and you could do it randomly. You could probably do this without any scripting with L-Systems and a polywire and some random expressions or such to get a different tree every time you placed one down on the grid. The result is better trees than what Maya can generate in PaintFX. Not to mention you could go back in and change every tree or plant or whatever. So there's your answer to that question. Yes this is more setup work than in maya and yes you would have more control variety and much better looking trees than you could get with maya to actually sell that shot. I just have a hard time seeing how maya's paintfx could be used for anything that needed to be actually convincing. They tend to look cartoonish and don't react to lighting situtations well not to mention it painted ontop of the frame. If you want to talk about convert PaintFX to Poly go ahead but the trees tend to look pretty bad when you do this. Houdini's solution is much better in my opinion. I would not use PaintFX for any real work because I don't tend to think its good enough.

Cheers,

Nate Nesler

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Hey saguaro

I agree with MatrixNAN about the paint fx of maya, its nothing near photoreal. if u look at "what dreams may come", theres a hero tree that was done with lsystems in houdini as MatrixNAN described, and in "time machine" where they have plants growing that can hold up on film.

I think it all comes down to weather u have the time to create something truely realistic and exeptional and customizable (houdini) or if u just happy with slapping some thing together(maya paint fx)

I heard Houdini is more for programmers, than for artist. I'm an artist and I appreciate a beautiful picture as a result (not a nice script;)

Theres alot of talk that houdini is specifically for the programmers in mind and i think that in its earlier releases it was more technical, but thats nowdays, its got most of the modeling tools you'd find in most 3d packages, but its still maintained its customizable and open ended foundation. what u would have to do in maya through API or create custom shaders in Renderman can be done easily in houdini. so naturally its going to attract the more logical rather than artist to it.

its actually quiet scary but in the last couple releases of houdini, there has been alot of features added to aid the attraction of character animators and modellers - hence its clear that they are putting alot of effort to compete with other packages to aquire that market.

I think it all comes down to weather u have people who like to think out the box rather than the type who use premade solutions. i know that a comment like that could offend some people. :ph34r:

However if ur just into modelling and character animation, its all bout speed and customization but most importantly, u have to go for whats comfortable for you.

So give it a try, I did and now I'm hooked.

anyways

all the best

aracid :blink:

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In maya I mainly use subdives or polygon proxy. So, a lot of vertices/polys editing, moving, deleting, adding etc. is done. I can hardly imaging how it can be done by mere procedures.

Is it possible for me to have a look at such models? I'm very curious about this.

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It is possible, but a little difficult to describe in one email.

One project I have on the back burner at the moment is a completely procedural head made entirely in Houdini that would allow you to quickly mock up thousands of different types of face completely defined by parameters. But I have to finish my Digital Wigs project first....

Much like this ...

Di-O-Matic

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What Simon didn't mention is the many years that he has been building hundreds of thousands of bits and how he was able to save almost all of the procedural networks along the way. I know that some of the bits even originated in Prisms (circa 1987-1996 and before Houdini) and he used a simplistic converter from Prisms to Houdini to get some of it over. Sure we throw Simon a curve ball now and again...

It really is a very thought-out process at Side Effects when we change or depricate an operator. I know that I always think of several customers and how a change would impact them.

I got a question in mind: how would a houdini user model a human ear?  General ideas? Does the Houdini's proceduralism has any use in this case?

Absolutley! There are several approaches to modelling an ear but I would model what would be a prototypical ear. You have to keep the organic modelling around and that tends to be a bunch of pushing and pulling of points. So far no difference.

After I modelled the generic ear and textured it nicely, I would rip it apart in to the different bits and let's hope the model has nice edge loops defining the different ear parts. Next assign groups to the different bits then reassemble the ear procedurally and heirarchially out from the head attachment point based on connectivity. In this way, the ear lobe would be the last thing to stitch on to the ear. Using the ear lobe as an example, I could then model several ear lobes and morph between them, figure out a way to procedurally model the ear lobe or something else. Any changes to the base ear would affect the poly face where the lobe should attach to and use that to dynamically stitch the lobe to the ear. Same thing for all the other ear bits.

The one thing I find is that non-houdini users think that everything has to be procedural in Houdini. Nonsense. I model organically and only keep the network around to fork off new revisions and that is very handy. No need to save temp files at every major step. Jeese left that one behind oh 10 years ago. It is what you can do to the model after you are done with it. If it was modelled moderately well ( a rare treat these days ) then making a procedural prop is pretty simple. You can work with any model from anywhere.

I have done similar tasks building up different things but then I am somewhat insane and can make the most simple task complex, but real cool IMHO! :P Everyone has their own approach.

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It would be very interecting to have a look at the procedural head you are doing as well as on how the general network looks like.

I got a question in mind: how would a houdini user model a human ear?  ;) General ideas? Does the Houdini's proceduralism has any use in this case?

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I'm afraid you'll have to wait for that for a while, as I say it's on the back burner at the moment, I think it would confuse more than enlighten in it's present state. If I ever finish it i'll post it up on the new exchange for all.

As to the ear example, I think there are two approaches, the one which Old School outlined, where you make lots of morphable parts that are then bolted together. And then there is a more low level approach where you supply a few curves and dimension and build the whole thing from scratch via a network. Probably best to start with the morph target method, you can go prettty far with it and if you are new to Houdini it's the best place to start.

Ultimately you will probably always need a final edit and sculpt sop to tweak the result to fit exactly what you want but you can go a long way procedurally first and save yourself lots of time if multiple copies are what you are after.

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