Houdini workflow suggestion

[Dennis Sedov]

I went through a lot of on line tutorials and have been learning Houdini on and off for quite a while now. I've bought almost all available training videos (at least the ones I was interested in) and came to an interesting conclusion. I am a long time Maya user, and always wanted a little more openness and straightforwardness from Maya. It is quite a TD software, but most of the things you do are hacks to fight with how Maya works. Now learning Houdini I found myself with an idea that Houdini is a perfect software for my mindset. You imagine something - a finished product and a workflow and there you have it - all the nodes needed to accomplish the task are there. I found my self with a smile on my face with a perfect synergy with Houdini software after I finished watching most of the tutorials and trying things for myself.

After the smile faded and I became more and more familiar with Houdini I asked one small question. What keeps Houdini from being used as a general software by a lot of artists? What is in a Houdini workflow that keeps thousands of people from using it in a general sense of creating pretty pictures besides those complex FX stuff. After some though and analysis I came to a conclusion that there really are a few steps that SESI needs to do to attract even more people into using Houdini (especially during time of great instability in software industry in general).

In general artists are used to node based workflow. This is not something that might scare people away. Especially with so much learning materials now available, new shelf in Houdini that simplifies things, and so many workflow enhancements - learning and using Houdini is not scary now at all. I started digging more in this subject matter to see what areas of Houdini might be scaring "artists" from this beautiful software. Lets go step be step:

1. General scene set-up - fairly easy and beautifully orgonized

2. Lighting and Camera - really simple and not much different from other softwares

3. Rendering - EASY

4. UV layout - very streightforeward and beautiful. Might need some more UV unwrapping tools, but in general pointless (see the last point that I am going to make)

5. Assigning materials - very cool, especially with how beautiful groups work in Houdini + material node.

6. Shading - works pretty much the same as in XSI for example - very top notch + has a lot of useful predefined materials (even more then most softwares have) Probably needs some more general materials to make transfer from other packages more easy - like blinn, lambert, phong etc.

7. Animation - big power here with CHOPS. The good thing is that you might not even use chops if you don't want to. But rigging and so forth is very powerful.

8. Dynamics and simmulations - gonna skip this part - no software comes anywhere close to this.

9. Modeling. Now this IS the part that keeps artists away. When you open up houdini, follow some basic tutorials - you're pretty much set and can do most of the stuff - everything is easy and interface and workflow is much more artist friendly then versions before 9.0 But modeling..... yakes... Procedural modeling is beautiful - there is enough nodes to do almost anything. But just general modeling has a much weaker workflow then almost any other software on the market right now. To draw a little analogy, which is very weak but will explain my point. 3DS Max has a stack of operators. Now this is nowhere near what Houdini can do, but it has "operators" that do different things, and you can stack them on top of each other, just like in houdini. But there is one "operator" that does all that "artistic" and "general" modeling - "Edit Poly Tool". This one operator accomplishes all the modeling needs an artist might use to create geometry. Houdini on the other hand has a lot of seperate Ops that do the same thing, which puts down the workflow of creating complex models on the knees. When I think of creating a scene in Houdini and then render a pretty picture - last thing I want to do is model all the complex geometry in Houdini, but rather import it from another software that is more user friendly in general modeling in artistic sense (Maya or Modo i.e.) But imagine if Houdini had a single node (or several for different surface types) like Poly Edit - that would bring all the polygon editing tools to the viewport or to a right click menu. And you would just go an let the art flow from your brain. I imaging having Houdini be used for illustration, cinematic etc workflow pretty easy, as everything but the modeling is very straightforward and beautiful. I can't express enough how Houdini is beautiful. Just think of it SESI. And with the right advertisement campaign - you can bring TONS of artists on your side. Just explain them that Houdini can do everything the way they used to work plus it has much more under the hood - and that artists will never be limited again as they are with the software they're using. I bet right now, Maya, 3DSMax, XSI, Modo, Cinema 4D are now seeing Houdini as a competitor, because your areas of use don't intersect much. Those software companies are just giving their user base enough freedom to not make them switch to houdini. XSI has ICE, Cinema 4D has some sort of mograph module, Maya in general just very scriptable. And those users, even if they download Houdini Apprentice found themselves not being able to create "pretty pictures" and that's what they do on their free time and sometimes for living. Think about it SESI - and you will atract even more users, just by creating one node and explaining it to the public in the right way. After that user base will be growing like never before. People will be buying HD version and they will have more tools then by buying MODO or similar products. After the user base grows more studios will be switching to Houdini. And this is THE right moment to do this, especially when popularity and interest to Houdini is so high right now, you're just loosing the mass effect that could be created with your todays advertisement campaign.

Guess that's all what I wanted to say =)

[rdg]

XSI has ICE, Cinema 4D has some sort of mograph module, Maya in general just very scriptable.

Not sure if I miss your point, but:

According to this [1] Side Effects kind of invented ICE, to me Houdini is the mograph and since I switched to Houdini I have a really hard time to find a reason to write scripts.

[1] http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com...&Itemid=316

[pagefan]

That's quite a long post. Could you give a synopsis, I am too busy learning maya to read it all.

One word about modeling in houdni though: yeah it sucks in speed compared to some other applications if you want to build characters i guess (though others here will tell me that i am dead wrong about it). Never tried myself. But i do know that when you do some architectural or design stuff with it, it can be better than many cad packages with data driven design or other fancy features. There are enough examples here on the forum, check the F18 hornet from Stu or the Iplayer of FrankFirsching.

[michael]

one of the biggest problems with modeling in Houdini is the impression that you have to be procedural...you don't (and very few people even try)...

with the addition of some better workflow tools in the viewport (and maybe the old model SOP) Houdini can be a very fast and powerful modeler...

[rob]

Maya """" Shudders"""" . Having used Maya a lot in production.I take great delight in showing Maya users just what can be done with Houdini. Just the very fact Houdini does not crash 5 times a day makes a great start coupled with the pathetic implementation of MR within Maya how can I go wrong showing Maya users quick displacement in several easy steps coupled with no brainer motion blur. When I get across that I am not a coder nor mel expert but can build complex tools with interfaces their jaws tend to drop ...

Rob

[Dennis Sedov]

Thanks all for taking time reading my post. However, I do agree it is easy to impress almost any other software users with what Houdini can do. Nevertheless - my point is in a little different direction. How to attract more users to Houdini, and how to make Houdini a more widely used software (not just for dynamics)? In few words, Houdini does everything great, but the general modeling.

[dbukovec]

hi Dennis!

I agree with You on this totally, i'm a maya user too since it appeared on IRIX.

I'm not a programmer/scripter type of guy.

Only area which bothers me is the shading part.

Altough much more powerful than maya, for everyday work Vops are cumbersome and a slow place to construct shading networks. I would prefer a mid layer between Shop and Vop, where much faster workflow in this area could be introduced with a faster shader view window.

[Dennis Sedov]

Won't really agree with you. You can do a "mid layer" once and for all by creating a library of higher level nodes. But modeling is a different thing - it is the way it is, and you can't just do a user friendly Maya or Modo type of modeling workflow in Houdini.

hi Dennis!

I agree with You on this totally, i'm a maya user too since it appeared on IRIX.

I'm not a programmer/scripter type of guy.

Only area which bothers me is the shading part.

Altough much more powerful than maya, for everyday work Vops are cumbersome and a slow place to construct shading networks. I would prefer a mid layer between Shop and Vop, where much faster workflow in this area could be introduced with a faster shader view window.

[rodpacker]

Hi Dennis,

just stumbled across this post and YES from what I have seen using Houdini I completely agree. But then again - and as it sounds like, this is where you are at - I am still learning the package and haven't really found many tuts on modeling in Houdini. There is some out there that show the power of procedural modeling and from what I see there it comes in VERY handy in cases of e.g. repetitions (might they be randomly slightly adjusted or what not) and as you mentioned makes it superior for e.g. Architectures (e.g. procedural cities and so on).

Yes I do also agree that if you don't try to keep your network as small as possible and e.g. use the shelf without even looking at your network Houdini ca be used similar to other modeling packages and has even more helpful features. However whenever I do try to keep my network possibly simple by using the least nodes possible (referring to poly modeling) it does start to get quite confusing. Maybe this is because of coming from other packages though and Houdini is more useful doing initial NurbsModeling and later on conversion to Polies?! Not sure but again, I think a complete character modeling tutorial including the use of the sculpting tool published by SideFX would - I am sure - show me just how wrong I am . Maybe that's all we need, even though I could see a one in all tool like you proposed come in handy.

Re the modelling being the major influence on sale numbers I do disagree though. Most studios use different tools for different tasks already (e.g. Maya for modelling, XSI for rigging and animating) and therefore that argument wouldn't really count in my opinion.

The reasons I can see however are:

- overall Price (don't get me wrong I personally think Houdini is definitely worth it's money, especially in comparison with prices vs capability of other tools), BUT I think most studios/studiomanager have a quick

look, see the package price without really noticing different pricing options and close the webpage straight away. Maybe the real thing just needs to be communicated more intense?

- changing a strong reputation usually takes ages. What I mean by that is that Houdini has had one of being VERY VERY powerful, BUT complex to learn and use. I think SideFX is doing a great job fighting

this with the tutorials they publish for free in combination with their apprentice licensing. It still will take time to convince more then busy industry professionals that might have had a go at Houdini 8 or earlier

ending in frustration to give the package another chance. It isn't easy to get somebody to risk highly valued free time.

Now before we get another "Hey dude, can you write me a summary I am too lazy to read" comment I will stop for now

anyways these are my five cents

[symek]

- overall Price (don't get me wrong I personally think Houdini is definitely worth it's money, especially in comparison with prices vs capability of other tools), BUT I think most studios/studiomanager have a quick

look, see the package price without really noticing different pricing options and close the webpage straight away. Maybe the real thing just needs to be communicated more intense?

I don't think this is true. People spend 200K$ for tool like Flame that does actually the same what any of compositing desktop packages, because they know, it's worth it. If studio's manager doesn't see excellence of price/quality relation Houdini has to offers, he simply doesn't understand its business. Personally I think at least some of them see it perfectly, but stumble on the only sensible obstacle: narrow user base.

Moreover, an average studio not only needs Houdini user, it needs Houdini Master, to get from Houdini what it can serve. And there are not many of them ( and there won't be IMHO).

[Hazoc]

What keeps Houdini from being used as a general software by a lot of artists?

The fact that one needs to understand how 3d graphics really work. This means some concepts of code and math. Seriously, how many minutes can you work on something in Houdini without a need to write an expression or do some vop net ? This is what opens all those crazy possibilities between different contexts and operators but is far from what artists like to do. One enhanced EditSOP won't make the difference.

[rohandalvi]

I fully agree that Houdini should improve in the modeling department. It's the only area that keeps me from fully shifting to houdini. I still do most of my basic modeling in either Max or something like Silo. Frankly because basic modeling jobs like modeling a product or a car or a character is too cumbersome in Houdini.

I personally dont think it would be a bad idea to have something like an EDIT POLY SOP in Houdini . A single Sop which takes care of most your modeling needs when you dont need to be procedural. Or enhance the poly modeling toolset by adding A Bridge Sop for polygons. A connect Sop like max, even extrude face along curve. ( I dont kow if you can do that in Houdini, if you can , please let me know how.)

If the poly modeling toolset can be improved enough to challenge Max or Maya, there would definitely be a lot more people shifting to Houdini, besides the ones who use it for particles and dynamics.

besides that I have one more suggestion. A faster GI solution with multiple bounces( Like Vray) Mantra is great but the GI solution using the VEX gi Light is really slow and doesnt do bounces at all. PBR is good but again is much more slower than Mental Ray or Vray. Just a faster GI solution would help me get results a lot faster for simpler scenes or projects.

I think these two things could really help in make houdini much more acceptable to the average 3d user.

Just my opinion

with regards

Rohan Dalvi