2006 Houdini Roadshow

[benwatt]

Sorry for the late reply, didn't have internet access beyond that on my phone until now, was flying back up from London today - back now though, and ready to post

Last night's Houdini Roadshow event was great - they started off with Craig Zerouni showing off some neat features in version 8.1, apparently the same stuff they showed at Siggraph. I really didn't know how cool the AutoRig, and Muscle stuff really is - very impressive, going to have to play with that The asset management stuff looked pretty neat too.

After Craig was done, we had a brief talk by Framestore CFC (where the roadshow was being held in London) about some advert work they've just finished - lots of animals, looked great.

Then we had C.O.R.E. giving us a talk - they made the whole of 'The Wild' with Houdini, loads of interesting snippets of how that all came to be, really nice to see everything done in Houdini - quite a rare thing at the moment, although SideFX did stress that they're pushing Houdini to be a product capable of servicing every part of the pipeline.

Apparently the animators were a little sceptical at first, but settled in very quickly to using Houdini. C.O.R.E. seem to have a rather special arrangement with SideFX, there was quite a lot of talk about the additions made to Houdini at their request.

For the grand finale, Side Effects took the 'stage' again and it was time to give a sneak peak of Houdini 9 - oohhhh yeah Now, they didn't say anything about us having to keep this to ourselves, but obviously if you're going to one of the other roadshows and want this to be brand new information to you, stop reading now

As London was the first stop in the roadshow, we were the first to hear about Houdini 9 (this wasn't talked about at Siggraph).

So, new stuff in Houdini 9:

• New UI- and boy does it look nice. Houdini's interface has looked pretty dated for along time, but the new UI brings Houdini well into the 21st century, it looks really smooth. They want to make Houdini a lot more usable both to long term and new users of Houdini, and this is but one part of that. The new buttons, and menus look much more understandable - great stuff. It's early days, but it looks like they're interface artists have been busy, one of the comments made was that they've learnt their lesson - R & D staff are no longer allowed to design the icons!
• Goodbye hscript - If you liked hscript, well - you're REALLY going to like what they've replace it with. The new scripting game comes in the form of HOM (Houdini Object Model) and good old Python. The example they gave showed one task that in hscript would take 14 lines, can be done in HOM with four. Not everything is going to cut down so nicely like that, but it's still a great step forward - Python's becoming a very popular option ( *cough* come on Maya, give us some MEL/Python action *cough* ), and it's nice to see it integrated into Houdini.
  
• Fluids - the last piece in the dynamics puzzle comes with Houdini's new fluid simulation. The demos they gave were great, very realistic - can't wait to get my hands on it. With Maya 8.5(ish) looking like it's very much focused on new fluid simulations, it should be interesting seeing how these compare - certainly Houdini's is shaping up very well so far - they even demonstrated interactions with smoke using this new setup.

So yeah, really exciting times for Houdini - I came away really eager to get tore into Houdini 9, Side Effects have a hell of a lot in store for it - lets hope we won't have to wait too long for it.

If you're trying to decide if you should go to one of the other roadshows, believe me - you should go

[robert.magee]

Thanks for the great feedback on the roadshow. I have posted a "spoilers" thread on odforce with a confirmation of the three topics talked about in the post here on 3D Buzz.

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=4609

Robert Magee
Product Marketing Manager
Side Effects Software Inc.

[benwatt]

Thanks for the great feedback on the roadshow. I have posted a "spoilers" thread on odforce with a confirmation of the three topics talked about in the post here on 3D Buzz.

http://forums.odforce.net/index.php?showtopic=4609

Robert Magee
Product Marketing Manager
Side Effects Software Inc.

Thanks Robert, good to get the Side Effects line on the new features

[arctor]

cool...

I'm sure Ken could have talked about C.O.R.E.'s use of Houdini for hours...many of the character tools/features that were introduced in houdini 6,7 and 8 were things that we asked for or had a hand in....and SESI's support is, hands down, the best in the industry.

what is really going to kick ass is fluid solver interaction with the RBD, cloth and wire solvers...

[benwatt]

cool...

I'm sure Ken could have talked about C.O.R.E.'s use of Houdini for hours...many of the character tools/features that were introduced in houdini 6,7 and 8 were things that we asked for or had a hand in....and SESI's support is, hands down, the best in the industry.

what is really going to kick ass is fluid solver interaction with the RBD, cloth and wire solvers...

Yeah, I daresay he could've gone on longer, he seemed to have plenty to tell us - all very interesting stuff. Even the laptop they were doing the presentations on dying half way through didn't stop him!

You C.O.R.E. guys sure do have some nice Houdini toys to play with

[sum][one]

cool...

I'm sure Ken could have talked about C.O.R.E.'s use of Houdini for hours...many of the character tools/features that were introduced in houdini 6,7 and 8 were things that we asked for or had a hand in....and SESI's support is, hands down, the best in the industry.

what is really going to kick ass is fluid solver interaction with the RBD, cloth and wire solvers...

... and I *really* like to ear much more from c.o.r.e. cause what I've saw there... was simply awesome!.. great event .. great people.. great drinking and talking with 'em.. thanks sesi for giving us the opportunity to be there

hope to see many of you guys soon again!! (who said I'm looking to get back to london .... to work? )

cheers

[Moose]

Thanks for the reviews, Ben and Robert. This all sounds very exciting!

It seems that SESI are very much gunning for a new crowd (the type who refuses to so much as even look at H because they cant get past the UI) - which is good to hear. Perhaps with more paid-up users they hope to be able to afford to lower the price of Master a little and make it even more attractive - then again, with integrated fluids added (and in the legendary "Houdini way" no doubt), Master more than ever will surely be worth it's price.

As for the new UI - I actually quite like it the way it is now. I guess it's a case of once you get used to something it's hard to see past that. But I'll put my faith in SESI that they know best (and I'm sure they do too).

Cant wait!

[hammcbride]

sweet to hear some of the new features. looking forward to see some of the fluid stuff

and yeah, the autorig and muscle stuff was cool to see, when i got to see them demo it at SIGGAPH.

[6dollarman]

I went to the Toronto leg of the roadshow.
It was very impressive.
The more I learn about Houdini the more I realize how little I know about Houdini. It has so many great features.
All I need now is the Houdini Fundamentals course and an Alpha release.
I'm really looking forward to learning Houdini. I am armed with a copy of
of Cunningham's book and some free time this winter.

...6dollarman