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Siggraph 2004 - Report


athomas

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For all you out there that can't be here, just a quick update from the UG last night.

New Houdini Escape now only $1995,- includes 3rd party render option, RScript and the HDK.

The new dynamics system was demo'ed will get into Houdini sometime next year, but let me tell ya it rocks, I mean it kicks some serious behind.

Definitely worth waiting for DOP's no more waiting for simulations to calculate, what was demonstrated (Cloth and RBD the first solvers, more on the way) was awesome, interactive fully integrated> Well I could just go on but wait for the SESI blurb or somebody more qualified for a detailed run down.

As for the rest, well lets just say SESI done it again, nice venue, great bar and were are not just talking beer and wine but the whole range of booze (yours truly still trying to recover) and all free and the party Tuesday is still to come.

Now for the Maya party, well lets just say it was rather dissapointing to only see one Houdini T-Shirt (your's truly :o ), but they did have drink vouchers.

Any ways gotta go, hope ya all can make it Tuesday night or the next time around.

andre

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The "The HDK is now free" line was a whole 'nother point, so I believe that its free for all license-holders. (Where is Mark Story??)

I wonder if this means HDK is free for Apprentice people too?

Amongst other things, they showed a really fast subsurface-scattering approximation using the new point-cloud textures feature in 7.0. Some really beautiful images there, thanks SESI and Mark Elendt.

Escape coming in at $1995 is awesome, and they also told us that everyone currently with Houdini Select licenses get upgraded for free! :D

What I always enjoy so much about Side Effects' user group meeting is the personal touch, often imparting some company wisdom- up front this time in form of Kim Davidsons speech on the future.

DOPs was great to see and it looks like they've gotten most of the way there already :) Very nice stuff indeed. One of the demos involved the RBD and Cloth solvers interacting without explicit knowledge of each other. This means a properly integrated solver can interact with all other solvers -and we saw the proof of that yesterday.

Thanks to the companies that gave great demos: Sony, Framestore, DNA, Digital Domain.

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Yeah, holy crap, it felt like I was at the party already! Sesi picks the nicest venues (thank you Sarah!).

They also showed some nice character tools. I HOPE they release some of their rigs, including the muscle stuff, which looked very cool.

I wonder if this means HDK is free for Apprentice people too?

Indeed it is! Sesi seems to be super excited about this.

Anyhoo, they also mentioned the flora tools, which they'll be demoing at the sesi booth.

Fun stuff.

:P

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The "The HDK is now free" line was a whole 'nother point, so I believe that its free for all license-holders. (Where is Mark Story??)

YeeeeeHaaaaa!!!!! :wub::P :P

A great big thanks goes to Mark Story for tirelessly pushing for that to happen. Thanks Mark! and Thanks SESI!

Amongst other things, they showed a really fast subsurface-scattering approximation using the new point-cloud textures feature in 7.0. Some really beautiful images there, thanks SESI and Mark Elendt.

Glad you liked it. That was my shader they were demoing with ;)

DOPs was great to see and it looks like they've gotten most of the way there already :) Very nice stuff indeed.

Wow... heady times.

Thanks for the reports guys.

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Hahahahahaaaaa haaa :cry2:

The best tutorials are examples and there are quite a few of those around. Well, if you attend the HDK courses, you get all the course materials. It would be good if SESI bundled these up with the distribution from now on because the HDK is a real challenge to learn without 'em.

Let me just pimp the SESI HDK course then; SESI actually take requests from the participators and code up the framework for many requests overnight. So if you have something you're trying to do, it could be solved very quickly. Its great that the HDK is free, allowing people to try it and generate useful questions for the HDK course.

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People, is it real to get videos with demonstration of new Houdini features?  :(

13122[/snapback]

I don't have any videos (since I'm not even there, lol!), but here's a sample of what they saw with respect to point clouds and subsurface scattering:

sss_demo.jpg

Each of those took a little over 2 minutes with ray traced shadows.

Loving them point clouds! :D

@Marc: It seems I can't attach images... or is it there and I'm just missing it?

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I don't have any videos (since I'm not even there, lol!), but here's a sample of what they saw with respect to point clouds and subsurface scattering:

sss_demo.jpg

Each of those took a little over 2 minutes with ray traced shadows.

Loving them point clouds! :D

@Marc: It seems I can't attach images... or is it there and I'm just missing it?

13127[/snapback]

Mario-

Is that based on the method outlined in last years RMan course notes from ILM and Pixar? Have you posted an example somewheres?

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Thanks Steven :)

Hey Mike,

No; this is a direct application of Jensen's original paper. The only thing missing is single scattering because I didn't have time to squeeze it in before siggraph (this shader was written in the two weeks just before the user meeting).

And for the same reasons, I haven't posted any other examples anywhere else -- it was all hush-hush stuff for siggie. But now the cat's out of the bag ;)

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New Houdini Escape now only $1995,- includes 3rd party render option, RScript and the HDK.

Correct, except that:

RScript isn't included with Hescape.

3rd party rendering - an extra option for HEscape

HDK - free, community supported product.

It does include modeling, rigging, animation, Digital Assets, shading, lighting & mantra support. Which is pretty good, IMO :)

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