Houdini as organic character tool

[Ben Lumumba]

Greetings everybody

I just started 3d buzz online Houdini Apprentice class and would like to know about Houdini as character tool.

From web,forums,studios and artciles I know that Houdini is definitely the most powerfull 3d package on planet.

Many speak about fantastic VFX, modeling,composing,image editing...

all integrating and inteactive...

Does it mean for charcater,too?

But I didn't experiance something about chracter animation

some 5-10 years ago,Jurassic Park age,Soft Image rulled in that area

Than A/W merging brought MAYA,rulls for tha last 5 years(and due to SI was developing XSI and a little bit fell behind)

We have now Motion Builder from Kaydara (gonna take online class,,too)

But,still I 'm curious about Houdini.

It still remains "nirvana" for me

Any characater animators out there?

I mean using Houdini

Or people friom DD studio frm this list,maybe

_________________

Best regards,

[anakin78z]

Hey Ben,

The character pipeline at DD is an established Maya pipeline. C.O.R.E. pictures, I think, has actually done some character animation in Houdini. I think the reason you don't see too much of it right now, is that Houdini has mainly been an effects package, and only recently have the character and modeling tools really begun to shine. Now you have all these fx guys who know absolutely nothing about modeling and animating, so it's a bit slow going in that department . With apprentice out, and more people getting interested, I think that it's only a short matter or time before we start seeing some serious character work being done in houdini. I'm trying my hand at it right now, for the apprentice challenge (http://odforce.net/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=22&t=823&st=20), and as far as I can tell the tools are really good, and the new integrated html pages really make it easy to get going.

Cheers,

Jens

[thekenny]

You can do it.

You can do it all.

Just takes some time.

Trust me.

-k

[thekenny]

FYI

That was for a Television pilot.

Modeled in Houdini, rigged for lipsync.

-k

[Ben Lumumba]

Hi,

Great images,couldn't say what was modeled with/how

Exactly what I want,animals,creatures,or disney-like character

BTW,what I really considere:architecture of Houdini,the way how it as constructed far different from other packages...workflow,interactivity

Does it mean that Houdini"s strenght is translateable for chracter animation?

So everything what is is VFX can be compared with its character features?

To combine networks,different OP's,everything accessable form any other

part,fully interactive

Some packages are great for characeter,some for VFX and lack some other features.

But the way how that whole program is designed,underlaying structure, makes it stronger or weaker for production

in last 6-12 months I got some experiance with most PLE pack and some

other

I devide it on two kind of :

The other and Houdini ot Houdini and the rest

I don't worship Houdini but IT IS very different than any other package

Just another way,another paradigm

So that 's my thoughtsion about Houdini

[thekenny]

The pic was a one level subdivision surface. Modeled from scratch, with photo references. I have the original model as well. Other wise it started as a box poly model. All done in Houdini 5.5. I went a bit over board on the modeling detail. But the thing is supposed to be a reject from one of those coin operated vending machines (hence the dent in the head). So it was supposed to be one color plastic. I didn't want to flatten it so I did all the detail modeling inside. Slap a plastic shader on it and a few displacement shaders and bingo bango you have the model.

I'll see if I did up some pre-subD wireframes

-k