betty Posted July 27, 2002 Share Posted July 27, 2002 For those that went to SIGGRAPH would you be kind enough to share your thoughts on the reception that Houdini 5.5 recieved?! How did it measure up to other developments in competing packages? etc, etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 27, 2002 Share Posted July 27, 2002 ok, I may be somewhat biased . But in my opinion, the apprentice cd was the talk of the show. Over the three days I had numerous people come up to me and specifically ask for the cd, and none of them were prior houdini users. Also, a few of our customers told us that 'they' were all talking about houdini and houdini apprentice. And as you all know, if 'they' are talking about you, then you've done well . I would also like to hear from people that weren't in the think of things all the time. Maybe I got the wrong impression..... Marc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted July 27, 2002 Share Posted July 27, 2002 Hmm... for some reason, what you just said doesn't fully click in my brain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 27, 2002 Share Posted July 27, 2002 Do you find it odd that people actually want to talk about houdini? Don't worry, so do I. Heres just one example of the enthusiasm displayed. One of the days I was at the HP booth and these two guys came running up to me (literally, running). One of them had a maya shirt on. And he said "Here you guys are, we've been looking for you the whole day!" (This was around noon). So I gave them a cd and showed them 5.5 and they were really really excited. The maya shirt guy got really worked up when I told him we had a built in compositor. He asked his friend "exactly what the hell do alias think they're doing, everyone else now has a built in compositor except them." So, we had quite a few converts.... Marc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted July 27, 2002 Share Posted July 27, 2002 Yay! Awesome! If they are reading this this forum, I'd like to say, "Welcome!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plan9 Posted July 29, 2002 Share Posted July 29, 2002 I talked to quite a few people working in the game industry, they were inquiring about houdini's modeling and animation capabilities...but deffinately a good portion of the inquries came from students, schools, and individuals. houdini playing a bigger roll in game creation?! with the "easier to use" toolset, i dont see why not. (theres different pricings of houdini for companies to choose from) The most negative vibe i got from the crowd was of disbelief when i ran through the idea of procedural modeling/animation, in which case the person never heard of houdini... (kick to the curb!!!) COPs VOPs modeling and animation were the main things people were interested in. conclusion....i think the mailing list and odforce will see some traffic within the next few months. As Marc said, H5.5 was recieved REALLY well mike C. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted July 29, 2002 Share Posted July 29, 2002 Sorry.. Just have to open my mouth and chime in my opinion again... Considering that I use both Houdini (primary) and Maya; recently, it's been getting much much more difficult for me to use any other package other than Houdini because the openness, the non-linear, and the non-destructive workflow are somethings that I can't live without when it comes to doing any CG works. So, it's very pleasing to hear that H5.5 is very well received at Siggie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betty Posted July 29, 2002 Author Share Posted July 29, 2002 Hi all Great to hear such positive feedback!! O.K. now the reason i was asking was because - * the pricing issue - Houdini is by far more expensive than the others. while everybody knows how expandable Houdini is, how useful is this expandability, for large studios it's vital but for smaller firms maybe not so. the so called one button solution is sometimes more than enough. ie Hair in XSI, simple to use, there are a few sliders to play around with and you have a compositor for more tweaking for a final look. this also goes for the renderer, not everybody wants/needs renderman or vex type programming. this is one place that VOPS will hopefully fix up. again using an XSI example - the toon shader, ready to go, a few sliders and a good result very quickly. now compare that to the toon shader in Houdini, if you are a programmer i'm sure you can do something with it, if not - well it turn into an event. * cloth - there is none ( though i am guessin POPS can do this, some people from larger studios or expertise could answer this ) * the perception of an effects package - some survey in the latest 3D WORLD went through all the major packages and the conclusion for Houdini was......best for effects. i forget which studio it was, but one guy was saying how when they first started ( this could have been PRISMS ) it was 80% SESI and 20% Maya and how that's basically gone completely the other way now!!! Perception is so important. Anyway, i hope things do change after v5.5 comes. I personally think VOPS are amazing and offer so much more than what other packages offer, it will be interesting to see how the general user reacts. So far from all accounts, even though it is only a few, it sounds very promising!! Looking forward to v5.5, Final message to SESI - DON"T rush it!!! Iron out those bugs!!!! Betty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 29, 2002 Share Posted July 29, 2002 This is the same topic that's going on in the mailing list now. But since I'm not allowed to post there, and can say what I like here , here we go : * the pricing issue - Houdini is by far more expensive than the others. If we're talking about Maya and Soft here, then I beg to differ. With Maya, by the time you've bought a renderer (MI, PRman etc.), plus MTOR, plus a compositor (shake), plus plus plus... Then you've definitely reached at least the price of a base Houdini. XSI is similar although it comes with a few licenses of MI and a built in compositor... I'm not even going to mention MAX and its veritable horde of plugins.... Houdini comes with a site license of Mantra, a compositor, the best particles and one hell of a procedural workflow. So its all well and good to look at the base price and say, "well yeah, but look Houdini is obviously so much more expensive".. but it definitely has no bearing on reality. * cloth - there is none Fair enough... and if you're exclusively doing cloth animations, then by all means buy one of the others. But I doubt you are. I too really want cloth though... sigh.... * the perception of an effects package And the sooner we change that the better. I was showing my horse guy at the show, and there were a huge number of people who couldn't believe that it had been made in Houdini. Then when I showed them the original box that it was modeled from and stepped through it pretty much til the final result (barring a few broken polysplits ), most of the jaws hit the floor. Houdini rules at anything you give it. And its up to the people who like to use it to change the opinions of the huddled masses. eh well...not long til Houdini6 Marc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betty Posted July 29, 2002 Author Share Posted July 29, 2002 Marc Yeah, i agree with what you say. I guess i'm more looking at Houdini for your smaller shops and freelance user and if Houdini is painting itself into a corner for bigger places with a team of programmers and big budgets while i think something like XSI can be great for a one-person team. I suppose this goes back to the ease-of-use argument...blah, blah, blah And yes of course i as well am really looking forward to seeing cloth. Tomorrow i will make an attempt at working some hair - it will be interesting to see how this goes. The perception has always been and still is "effects....use Houdini", let's see what happens over the next year. This forum has done heaps to show different aspects of Houdini and i'm sure will continue to do so. So much to look forward to!!! Betty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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