altbighead Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 on the other end of that shotgun, with A52 gone, there are even fewer places for those 3 houdini freelancers now. Lets face it, the best thing that could happen is if all the Houdini artists just up and quit their stable jobs and flooded the freelance market, insisting various small shops to adopt Houdini if they want to hire out of this incredible skilled pool of applicants...do the world a favor and train someone up on Houdini. 26088[/snapback] it seems to me that the only way for new comer to get a houdini experience is to work for sidefx as an intern.Most of the opening for houdini are from big shops and you can feel the pressure of what they are expecting from the artist . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 on the other end of that shotgun, with A52 gone, there are even fewer places for those 3 houdini freelancers now. Lets face it, the best thing that could happen is if all the Houdini artists just up and quit their stable jobs and flooded the freelance market, insisting various small shops to adopt Houdini if they want to hire out of this incredible skilled pool of applicants...do the world a favor and train someone up on Houdini. 26088[/snapback] Garman? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivan Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 we've hired folks right out of college with literally zero production experience. I'd be willing to take such a risk again. Problem is me finding the new artists, and the students finding us (or any other small shop). Interning at SESI isn't the only way, but how would you know that? it seems to me that the only way for new comer to get a houdini experience is to work for sidefx as an intern.Most of the opening for houdini are from big shops and you can feel the pressure of what they are expecting from the artist . 26091[/snapback] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Isn't it better for a young artist learn software he's sure he will get a job with then spend mouths and $ to learn Maya or SoftImage to get to the arc of employees ready-to-hire-ready-to-dismiss? But how to learn it? Does someone should produce REALLY advanced materials on DVD? Does anyone should take care about it? With Gnomon DVDs and other stuffs - there is no Maya field which looks misterious for anybody. Houdini is in general black hole of mistery. Shop leaves Houdini because it's hard to find freelance artist for a oneshot job, young artists don't care about Houdini because it's hard to learn and hard to predict place of new job.... almost closed circle. Only one is suitable to answer these questions: SESI. But maybe this is not their problem. Its comfortably to work for a view big companies. cheers, SYmek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Only one is suitable to answer these questions: SESI. But maybe this is not their problem. Its comfortably to work for a view big companies.cheers, SYmek. 26100[/snapback] Unfortunately, after some time of exploring Houdini and browsing the forums on SESI's site and here, my conclusions are: 1. Houdini is the most wonderful software out there (and the most capable no matter the job, from feature film to motion graphics) and 2. SESI simply doesn't care for anything but big studios as a market. It's very strange, since it might need a few additions (FBX and other stuff for communicating with "normal" desktop software), but generally speaking it's flexibility and workflow are just tailored for the needs of the small studio. And the small studios are the ones which make a software popular, the ones which create a large user base and the ones where the future employees of big studios do their learning. Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mcronin Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 I think one of the best things SideFX could do, if they wanted to drum up interest, would be to hire a couple of really kickass artists to just crank out cool looking stuff to post around the net. Find a couple of killer character or effects artists, give them $40,000 a piece for 6 months of their time, lock them in a room with Houdini, and it'll probably be the best 80,000 dollars they ever spent. Look at Mirai. The software has been dead since like 1999 but just because a couple of really highly regarded artists made a bunch of cool stuff with it you still have people asking where they can get Mirai or praying for Izware's resurrection. That would get students interested. I think maybe Side FX was hoping that would just sort of happen with Apprentice, but all the Apprentice users are getting jobs and getting too busy to work on their own projects ;P I'd like to see SideFX get bigger, but I'm thinking maybe it's not what they want. They're probably in a good spot right now, growing slowly. Their client base is big enough to support their business in a seemingly confortable fashion, yet still small enough that they can maintain the level of support they're famous for. I mean sure A52 allegedly dumped them, but in the last week I've heard of 3 companies using Houdini, one of which I thought had dumped it a couple years ago, one of which I thought was trying to go all proprietary, and one comapny that came out of left field and was a complete shock to me. There deffinitely seems to be a lot more opportunity for Houdini operators out there now than there was even 18 months ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisux Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Unfortunately, after some time of exploring Houdini and browsing the forums on SESI's site and here, my conclusions are: 1. Houdini is the most wonderful software out there (and the most capable no matter the job, from feature film to motion graphics) and 2. SESI simply doesn't care for anything but big studios as a market. It's very strange, since it might need a few additions (FBX and other stuff for communicating with "normal" desktop software), but generally speaking it's flexibility and workflow are just tailored for the needs of the small studio.And the small studios are the ones which make a software popular, the ones which create a large user base and the ones where the future employees of big studios do their learning. Dragos 26103[/snapback] I am agree Dragos. I think that the problem is that SESI is a small company so they stay in their market, the big houses and they can't support other markets like the middle/small studios. And yes, I think that with three addons Houdini will fit perfectly in any medium/small environment: -Support for some common interchange formats like FBX, update the lwo support, add 3ds support, etc -A usefull collection of shaders ready to be used. -Some improvemnts in Halo to have a complete composition package seamless integrated with the 3D, the dream for many small studios. About what stdios make and app popular, I disagree with you. I think that the small studios makes the users base, the big ones make an app very popular because thay are the ones that everybody knows. Look at the Maya marketing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sibarrick Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 I think one of the best things SideFX could do, if they wanted to drum up interest, would be to hire a couple of really kickass artists to just crank out cool looking stuff to post around the net. Find a couple of killer character or effects artists, give them $40,000 a piece for 6 months of their time, lock them in a room with Houdini, and it'll probably be the best 80,000 dollars they ever spent. 26141[/snapback] I've been saying that to them for years but they don't want to invest that much in it. Crazy I think. They were definetely hoping that Apprentice users would do it for them, but you need experienced Houdini artists to really show what it can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 this strange situation with A52 is similar to that found here: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...&highlight=maya Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewuk Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 hello all just wanted to reply to the various comments being posted to this site regarding the article of A52 switchiing to maya etc. I am Andy Hall the guy who supposedly drove out houdini from A52, firstly this isnt the case. We still use houdini at A52 but also are now strongly incorportating maya in the pipeline. The person who commented regarding this is my background.....is correct as i was a animation supervisor at DD for 5 years. Oh and i wasnt sacked from there......and didnt take any artists from DD. As we are persuing more character based work the resources that maya offer, allow that process to be more easily executed. In regards to the XP thing.......we run both XP and linux and allows the artists to go with what they have more comfort with. I hope this answers your remarks........ Andrew Hall p.s. thank you jason for the kind comments..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 "As we are persuing more character based work the resources that maya offer, allow that process to be more easily executed. " heh heh heh....I hear that...it's all about time and money - use whatever gets the job done glad to have you around Andrew...hope to hear more from you and A52 in the future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 The article states pretty clear: Today, after years of using Side Effects Software's Houdini as their main tool for creating CGI work, A52 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewuk Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 The article states pretty clear: and then various stuff about Maya and its superiority, which might or might not be true, objectively speaking. This could be argued ad infinitum. It's not "We still use houdini at A52 but also are now strongly incorportating maya in the pipeline" I don't think I'm able to say what A52 should do, and I didn't. But I voiced my wonder at the aggressive way in which they are ready to do bad publicity for Houdini. It doesn't seem fair to me. And yes, it does look like an Autodesk marketing article to me, which makes it even more unfair. Dragos 26258[/snapback] im not responsible for how the article is represented in the media, I was asked about maya's intergration into A52 and the use of mental ray in that pipeline. How they spin that is out of my control........ But for whats it worth from my background......being character animation, maya is the strongest toolset with its fair share of failures, and as a talent pool its much more accessable. i worked at DD for over 5 years and know what houdini can do......and also know how few houdini artists are available in the marketplace. Hence why the strong intergration of maya. Andy H Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted April 3, 2006 Author Share Posted April 3, 2006 im not responsible for how the article is represented in the media, I was asked about maya's intergration into A52 and the use of mental ray in that pipeline. How they spin that is out of my control........ now I hate those shit heads from cgsociety.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 yep....it's tought to keep a cool head when marketing is involved...I tend to just think that it's all 100% lies...then rely on comparing to info from other sources to mine for some facts... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symek Posted April 3, 2006 Share Posted April 3, 2006 Does anybody should send d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted April 3, 2006 Author Share Posted April 3, 2006 Does anybody should send d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edward Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 There was another post on this in the mailing list: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...=20&revdate=off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MADjestic Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 yeah, good idea, I'm in, who's next? 26267[/snapback] I would definetly like to second that. What are we supposed to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted April 4, 2006 Share Posted April 4, 2006 These things happen all the time. I really think the single useful thing would be more aggressive marketing from SESI. It's not the first time Alias & Autodesk publish "independent" articles which are basically full of lies. This is the way they do their marketing it seems. Same goes for Softimage. But SESI is very helpful here, by being very quiet about productions using Houdini, about the animators from CORE using Houdini and finding it more powerful and fun than Maya and so on. Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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