kleer001 Posted April 14, 2006 Share Posted April 14, 2006 Hi all, I'm an FX animator, 3 years now here at a smallish <200 visual effects studio in the SF Bay Area. Our principle pipeline is to do everything in Maya and render it in Renderman. To this end there is a bevy of handrolled and off the shelf plugins and scripts, to move data around in Maya and to get particles to renderman. Rewind 10 years, back in College I had gotten my first view of Houdini by an brilliant and frantic prof of mine by the name of Steve Laveties (sp?). It was version 1.5 or 2 or something and it just seemed so awesome. He was brilliant and driven and Houdini seemed like the perfect tool for a genius. I played with it a little bit, but my studies and classes and vested interest in Softimage 3.7 (gag, choke, vomit) kept me off of what could have been awesome. I was hired right out of college and have been using Maya since '99. Back to the present. I've gone out and gotten the book "Magic of Houdini", I even went down to LA for the boot camp. I seriously think that Houdini would be an asset to our studio. It would allow us to do more effects faster, and that means quicker turn around for proof-of-concepts and cheaper and faster bids... but I'm having a hard time proving it. (not to metion a bunch of tough customers to sell it to who have, it appears, previously poor experiences with H) SideFX has already come to the studio twice in the last few years with no real success and the people that have previously championed for it have gone. So, have you or someone you know been instrumental in getting Houdini to your studio? Can someone give real world and specific examples of any effects or processes that are significantly easier/faster in H than Maya? If so, please please email me. thank you, Clear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Visual Cortex Lab Posted April 14, 2006 Share Posted April 14, 2006 Hi there, I was in your same position except I was "fighting" against XSI .(hence.. it was easier to win for my tasks).. After 10 years of using Softimage|3D and XSI .. and watching houdini by the other side... I decided to move definetly on Houdini.. no matter what (I'm from Italy.. nobody uses it). Last year i've been hired by the Studio I'm currently working.. and I "assigned myself" the task to introduce Houdini in the pipeline which was (is) basicaly based on XSI and Maya, and MentalRay. What I did to convince 'em?... pretty easy .. since for all the current works at the time where involved the needs to have some FX and some "large amount of geometry generation" tasks, which means grass, woods or environments plenty of tree and grasfields. the FX were pretty easy.. but at same time, I lost two days on XSI trying to archieve what was needed and finally I asked the producer to let me show him how in 18,5 seconds I was able to make same, if not better, effect with Houdini. and I did. It was a simple effect i must admit.. but XSI wasnt just able to give me the same easy way to change things.. (without crashing).. and then it did convinced him about the fact that Houdini was the tool to introduce since many others effect and things were coming in the future.. (and they are right now). I cant tell you 'what to show" since I dont know maya so much .. but one things I'm sure of... demonstrate the easy ability to change things no matter when or how.. and show him you get the result without loosing time... this is mainly what I think people should understand about Houdini compared to others softwares... and this is not related just to FX.. "non destructive" workflow gains productivity no matter what is the task, my opinion. to make story short (well.. its late now, its long already ) hopefully we'll make the license order soon.. for two Masters and one Select (or so) ... and I'm officialy on Houdini. right today.. I had the chance to, again, demonstrate the powerfull of the "non destructive" workflow and the "change what you want" capabilities by trying to setup a simple crowd animation which was scarying us for the feature film we're working on ... I did some tests (thanks Brian a lot )... and I did archivied enought flexibility and speed to makes my supervisor and the Animation TD... have no words.... the jaw felt on the table.. and the problem about such shoots were gone... we're going to do it with Houdini. oh... and most important... I'm definetly NOT a master with Houdini... I'm learning it while on the road.. I take "challenges" (hey.. i'll try it.. i'm sure houdini can do that easly) while they arrive.. and this also demonstrate that Houdini aint "that" hard to use for making things much better than with others softwares. now... at the end.. with the apprentice version and 3 months of tries... i've got enought work when licenses will arrive that i'll finish my work not before January maybe ... should I say that... 80% of the "good stuffs" that convinced my boss.. was made with just "copy/stamping" ? .. that's it. so go ahead.... think about your major requests on your productions... and think about what they could be done in houdini.. u'll find out that it'll be faster and more "changeable" than its' in Maya or Xsi.. and I thinks *this* will be important to show as well.. specially when deadline gets close.. and u need fast changes with no effort. hope all this wasted words.. will help a bit.. they did to me. my 0.02 cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitallysane Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 (not to metion a bunch of tough customers to sell it to who have, it appears, previously poor experiences with H) 26506[/snapback] Poor experiences meaning what, exactly? Dragos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafal123 Posted April 15, 2006 Share Posted April 15, 2006 hey kleer001, check these threads: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...3465&highlight= http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...3448&highlight= maybe it will little help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kleer001 Posted April 17, 2006 Author Share Posted April 17, 2006 Poor experieces meaning when I first took it to an executive here he almost foamed at the mouth, spitting out "I hate Houdini". He quickly calmed down and the end of the conversation left me with "We're open to being convinced, go ahead and give it a shot." I've also heard that an important person in programming here has had "poor" experiences with H too, but I haven't talked with him in person yet, but I assume he'll be a bit more level headed. And thanks y'all for the links to other threads. It seems like my problem is a solved one. Now I just need to get the evaluation licences back (maybe I'm paranoid but I get the feeling that someone in systems either hates me or doesn't want me to get H up and running here, meh) cheers, Clear ------- Poor experiences meaning what, exactly?Dragos 26517[/snapback] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted April 17, 2006 Share Posted April 17, 2006 Aaah. Steve LaVietes. When I first saw him, he looked like a mad scientist. He seems to be a nice guy from little that I know of him. I guess he's the first Houdini professor at scad? I heard a bit about him through Pat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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