Fay_Hiba Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 (edited) Hi, I was thinking about building a good portfolio. I know I'm posting this on a forum aiming toward houdini users but still! Feel free to advice me! Edited November 5, 2017 by Fay_Hiba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catchyid Posted November 13, 2016 Share Posted November 13, 2016 hey, i am doing exactly what you are doing so I will tell you my experience ...anyone is welcome to comment initially I've learnt blender then I realized it's somewhat limited, then I switched to Maya as I have heard about it long time ago, after using Maya for a year I realized it's also limited e.g.: (1) it's "impossible" to simulate good fire/explosion in Maya, their smoke/fire simulator is veeeeery slow, so in theory you could get good result but you have to wait for so long. As a result I bought FumeFX and it was amazing. However, particle integration with FumeFX in Maya is not that robust (I don't remember details, but 3D Max users have better Particle options for FumeFX in 3D Max) (2) Rigid body simulation is not good. I had to write my own native bullet/maya integration. For example, I would always see a mismatch between the physics and the displayed mesh and I had to maybe refresh to get it right! (3) As per solid object simulation in Maya, as of Maya 2015, there is non! You must by a plugin maybe DMM or pullitdown (4) Just to mention the good stuff: Maya already has bought a fluid simulator, I have not tested it, but it good be good. Also wires and cloth simulation are good in Maya However, Houdini already has: -built-in smoke/fire simulator pyro. I have tested quickly but the result is better than Maya -built-in Bullet integration (i.e. rigidbody simulation). As I mentioned before, in Maya I had to write my own integration -built-in tools to pre-fracture a geometry, trust me on this, this is very important! in Maya you have no solid/robust way to break a mesh into a smaller pieces, this is needed in any physical simulation\ -built-in solid/cloth/wire simulation (e.g. if you want make a tree wiggles before it gets broken) -built in models for clouds/ocean surface (other apps like Vue do stuff like that but you get it for free in Houdini), -easy to understand node structure which makes it easy to program/customize Houdini (okay, in Maya you still have nodes, but I find them rather difficult to understand) One last note, the only thing I find somewhat not mature enough in Houdini is their Rendering engine Mantra. It seems slow to MentalRay. Okay, I think I am talking tooo much! To summarize: Focus on Houdini, it has many built-in FX tools that will help you develop good results quickly. Most probably you will need to program to get better results (don't focus on Python now, there is VEX in Houdini that you might use too). I estimate that learning Houdini alone and getting good results might take you one year, so don't be disappointed. Develop two or three shots that show your skills. If you really have extra time and want to learn more stuff, I think it's best to learn Nuke (compositing S/W) or PFTrack(Tracking Software) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fay_Hiba Posted February 20, 2017 Author Share Posted February 20, 2017 (edited) This was so helpfull thank you so much catchyid! Good luck on your way toward learning Houdini! Edited February 20, 2017 by Fay_Hiba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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