Anybody out there using Houdini for their 3D work? Your opinion counts!!

[Alon_a]

What I know is that Houdini is great for very specialized applications, mostly having to do with sophisticated simulations. It’s much more programming-oriented than artist-oriented, and my experience with it (admittedly a very short one) has been that it’s very difficult to get used to. If you really know you need its special features, go for it, but otherwise… it’s very expensive, and I am not sure the service is so much better than that of other vendors.

Having a lively community to support you is, in my mind, at least as important as the company’s official support – probably more important. I don’t know that Houdini has much of that, honestly. Take a look at forums where such work is presented and discussed – Houdini shows up very rarely if at all. You’ll probably find it a bit more in VFX forums, so if that’s your goal I may be off the mark.

You didn’t mention Softimage|XSI, and I honestly believe it’s a serious mistake not to give it a try. It has absolutely top notch features and workflow. The Foundation version, which contains most of said features, is offered for a ridiculous price. I’ve used some of the other apps (MAX, Maya, some C4d) and feel a lot more comfortable in XSI. You’ll get most of you’re questions answered quickly at XSIbase.

TrueSpace, as far as I know, is purely a modeling solution. If you’re looking for a dedicated modeling application, take a look at Luxology. Modo beats Lightwave in every way almost by definition – it’s largely the same team of people who made a fresh start with a much more modern architecure.

Just my $.02, of course.

AA

[Mylenium]

[alon_a] “TrueSpace, as far as I know, is purely a modeling solution. If you’re looking for a dedicated modeling application, take a look at Luxology. Modo beats Lightwave in every way almost by definition – it’s largely the same team of people who made a fresh start with a much more modern architecure.”

No, Truespace also does rendering (including advanced stuff like Radiosity). I can second your opinion on modo, though it’s a mere polygonal/ SDS modeler, which makes it sometimes hard to solve certain dilemmas when animating later on in another program. Anyway, back on topic.

If I were in Michaels place, I’d forget about Houdini. Yes, it’s very powerful but also very complex and difficult to handle. It’s a very TD-friendly app (because you can really automate everything to the lowest level), but definitely not one for artists. The overall concept of using “operators” even for a simple extrusion for geometry manipulation for instance cna be good on long term projects for changing things later on, but makes it slow to get going if you are in a hurry (because you always need to figure out how to optimally combine operators first).

Maya is similarly complex and if you need to get going fast, it’s also not easy to get into things. I’ve used it for years and the main reason we let go off it is that it was so hard to finish a project in time (as I’m a one man show on the 3D end) on tight deadlines. A lot of the time in Maya is spent organising things like renaming nodes etc. I also have serious doubts about its future now that Autodesk has aquired Alias (logic dictates that some day a new combined product will come out and it might well be that it is more of a MAX-child, effectively eliminating Maya)

XSI is very powerful, but personally I never have gotten much into it when I was playing with the demo versions over the years. It just feels so redundant and inefficient in many places. It’s also quite possible you won’t be able to accomodate all your needs with foundation since it doesn’t even allow network rendering as far as I know, so you’d have to go Advanced or Extreme.

Almost inevitably this brings us to C4D and it really looks like the way to go. I’ve used it for years (though we are also not current on it) and it always got the job done. I mainly used it for animation/ rendering and did all the modeling in Lightwave but I guess with the new tools and improved interactivity speeds one could completely switch over to it without worrying. In addition to that you simply cannot beat AE integration.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Michael Munkittrick]

Thanks for the input. Thus far I have kind of likened Houdini as the Inferno of the 3D world; super powerful in the right hands and nearly useless in wrong hands. That being said, the list of professional level credits that Houdini boasts invites a lot of curiosity and exudes strength.

As far as XSI goes, I forgot to mention that I used it at one time as well, but the interface simply felt alien and I never got much farther involved after Avid assimilated them. I have heard that it’s a great application form a lot of people, but every time I see it in operation I get that “deer in the headlights” thing.

Truespace is actually one of the tools that I was looking at a few years ago for simple logo twists and extruded text and so on, but it has grown up quite a bit from what I can tell. It’s rendering toolset is still woefully under the bar as far as I’m concerned and the lack of an external render engine or plugins make it even more difficult to choose. The price is right and the product has good support, but it’s just too questionable.

And Luxo is absolutely incredible from the demo work on their site. It does remind me a lot of Lightwave but with the sophistication of Maya, and I’d be all over it, but there is no one within 100 miles of our office who could be called in to work on projects that require more manpower, thus it remains unusable for us at present.

So, Cinema 4D and Maya seem to be the front runners, but 3D Studio Max is only off the mark slightly. C4D’s After Effects integration is very, very cool and the fact that there are a huge host of people who claim to have jumped the ship with 3D Studio it must be a hell of a tool. Maya is a perennial favorite for a lot of Hollywood’s elite, but the learning curve with Maya is such that I would spend most of my waking hours learning it. It has a huge user base and a lot of ways to get support if needed, but to tell you the truth when they were annexed by the 3D Studio team I began to see the funnel effect.

So, now you can see why I have so much trouble choosing. I am convinced of a solution and then talk myself out of believing what I just ingested. I thank you again.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Michael Munkittrick]

Your thoughts are deeply appreciated. My thoughts echo a lot of your points, especially those pertaining to Houdini as a long term project tool. Maya is mind-boggling and awe inspiring, but it’s also a complex tool with infinite possibilities. Great if you’ve got time and EEEK if you don’t.

Cinema 4D seems to be the most inspiring route due to all of the people who have mentioned it, but the one thing that I hear most is its integration with After Effects. Were that symbiosis removed, would CD4 still be as strong a contender in the line-up? Would its modeling tools stand up to those in Maya and Lightwave? Is there anything that I don’t see on their website that you could say to sell me on them?

I am going to need to evolve quite quickly in my market or else I’m going to get mowed under, but making the wrong 3D application choice would be just as detrimental. Anything else that crosses your mind, please share it as I need all the help that I can get.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Mylenium]

[Michael Munkittrick] “Cinema 4D seems to be the most inspiring route due to all of the people who have mentioned it, but the one thing that I hear most is its integration with After Effects. Were that symbiosis removed, would CD4 still be as strong a contender in the line-up? Would its modeling tools stand up to those in Maya and Lightwave? Is there anything that I don’t see on their website that you could say to sell me on them?”

No, if there wasn’t support for AE (and Motion on the Mac version) it wouldn’t change much. The modeling tools hold up quite well. In the past modeling in C4D simply wasn’t as efficient because it lacked edge modeling, n-gons and fast interactive feedback, but all of this has been remedied. In addition to that you now get a pretty solid advanced boolean tool. I think C4D has still to go some way in terms of doing character animation, but a lot of the other stuff is pretty solid and even beats highend programs such as Maya.

The new Hair module is a beauty to behold and simple to use, Thinking Particles has been very powerful from the getgo, for fancy abstract background animation you could get XFrog (which in the C4D version is much more usable than as standalone or in Maya IMO), Sketch and Toon is very well implemented and beats many other Toon Shaders, the renderer is very fast and of good quality even in the basic version (though these days it will be hard to live without Advanced Render) and you can practically animate everything and anything as you could in Maya or XSI, but for half the price. One thing I always found most appealing is the way it behaves with imported vector logos for further treatment, something that is a major pain in many other programs. In some way I deeply regret not having stuck with it and forming a deeper relation, especially now that we have dropped out of Maya, but I’m sure we will come back to it at some point. Needless to say that it’s “Made in Germany” which in contrast to other programs also has the side effect of decent German manuals and customer support, but of course that’s not relevant for you ;o).

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Rich Rubasch]

I’m in the same boat Mike…don’t get 3D soon and I’m gonna get mowed over. I have a question for you. Are you planning to man the 3D ship yourself or hire someone? Because I think I recall you just moved into a larger production company and I wonder if your workload will enable you to really get your head around the software while you also handle compositing, design and editing responsibilities…oh and management of your company.

So what’s your strategy after you get the package you want?

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media

[Alon_a]

The point about network rendering is well taken, but to be fair let’s remember that, conversely, XSI Foundation provides several things for which you need to pay quite a bit of extra in C4D. XSI FND has a complete and highly sophisticated particle system, soft/rigid body dynamics, cloth, character animation tools, mental ray rendering (certainly on par with C4D’s Advanced Rendering), toon shaders and probably more.

But of course, it all boils down to whatever one feels comfortable with. C4D is a great app and many people are creating amazing stuff with it. It’s best to try for some time and decide, that’s really the bottom line.

I also agree with your other post about integration with AE not being the major strength of C4D it is sometimes made up to be. There are plug-ins for XSI that provide similar functionality, it’s not such a big deal.

BTW I was indeed wrong about TrueSpace – I did not follow its progress recently. Looks interesting, I just downloaded the demo version…

– AA

[Michael Munkittrick]

Hey Rich, how goes it? I have no intention of becoming a 3D guru, but I need to understand the workflow and process quite a bit more before I can feel like I’m comfortable handing off my projects to freelancers. My grandfather used to tell me that if you can’t do the work yourself you’ll be SOL when the people that you depend on drop the ball. I have some experience with a few 3D packages as I mentioned, but I simply want to get the most bang for the buck, and seeing as how learning 3D couldn’t necessarily hurt, I figured I’d get something with some longevity, versatile features and most importantly, one that integrates in to the studio with as little headache a possible.

I’m extremely fortunate to have my wife as my business partner as well as at a time management person, so the juggling act would not entail any addition workload as far as I can see. And yes, I did just move into a new “box” but along with that overhead comes the necessity to expand my options for revenue. My belief is that options make the process a streamlined in the client’s eyes. The more services I offer the greater chance for additional work from existing clients as well as new ones that typically go elsewhere to have their 3D work completed. Frankly, I don’t anticipate remaking “Toy Story”, but I need to have the tools available in case I have a client who does.

And finally, I was just wondering whether you’re writing my biography or my life’s story, because man, you recall my thoughts faster than I do. I have so many things on my plate that I am beginning to fell like I’m in a fishbowl. My new studio is a mess due to some unknown signal interference that finds its way into my editing systems. My new lighting line, which took FAR more money to get rolling than I had ever anticipated, put a tremendous strain on my time, budget and sanity. Not to mention the fact that the manufacturer (who’s based in China, go figure) stole my design plans and thought that they could sell them to people in other parts of the world without me finding out about it. To put it mildly, I’m nearing the city limits of Xanax, and I just whipped passed Ritalin town. However, I love the work and I can’t find anything else to do with the few minutes of free time that I have each day, so why not just let the chips fall where they may.

I appreciate your post and I’ll share my thoughts after I have had a few days with the various demo versions.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Jeff Dobrow]

Hey there Michael,

Gonna give you my 2 cents on all this as well,
Houdini, too complex for the casual post environment. Definately for more of a demanding pipeline.
Truespace?….Didn’t even know they still made it,…so no comment.
Maya?….Great app, uses Mental Ray for rendering, very nice….again, learning curve.
XSI?….Another great app, uses MR for rendering,….learning curve.
Lightwave…..no recent experience to comment on.
MAX….What I use, great app, MR for rendering and with MAX2AE it integrates with AE far tighter than C4D. Again, learning curve though.
C4D, no MR. But good looking renderer nonetheless. Decent AE integration, and the reason it has become such a mainstay of the mograph community is its ease of use. A layman can learn C4D much quicker than any of the above apps.

My 2 cents.

[Michael Munkittrick]

Great info. Yep, Truespace is apparently in version 7 now, but it’s still not at the level of some of the other apps according to current users. Everything else you said here ties in pretty closely to what I’m hearing from folks. Houdini seems like it wouldn’t add much to the bottom line but would require a lot of time to get prepped to use it effectively.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA