Houdini 10 Blasts Off!!

#1 Already own V10:)

#2 I have spent some time learning XSI. How do you guys feel this compares in capability in so far as modeling? I am a big fan of rotoscopes and XSI has a great workflow for using them.

#3 @Joshua,

I am not that knowledgeable really on either one, to really give you a good opinion. I will say that I used Houdini and the XSI Mod tool, but finally opted for Houdini.

My main reason was the partnership with GG which I hope continues, which allows commercial use.

#4 Wait, so the apprentice version of Houdini allows commercial production as long as it is coupled with torque?

#5 || Post removed to avoid licensing confusion. ||

#6 This is from Side Effects site (Point 2 of the Houdini HD EULA):

Quote:
Non-commercial uses are those that don't involve paid work (i.e. compensation) or work for commercial purposes. You are permitted to use this software for learning, creating content for demo reels, participating in animation contests, game asset creation, and entering the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theatre. You are not permitted to profit from work done with the Houdini Apprentice HD Edition, with the sole exception being assets used for game creation with the Torque Game Engines or used in content packs for the Torque Game Engines as covered under the terms of the Torque Game Engine INDIE End User License Agreement.

It seems to me that you can use assets exported from Houdini in Torque games or Content packs, even if you intend to sell them as long as you have an indie licence for the engine.

Link to complete EULA.

Bye,
Jacopo

#7 I disagree about the EULA restrictions 'eb' has pointed to and agree with Jocopo....

SideFX's licensing structure for Houdini Apprentice allows for it to be used for Torque Game Engine content packs and game production; even the cinematic tools...AS LONG AS IT'S USED WITH TORQUE! Now, you could NOT produce an "Asprin Commercial" for Television with the cinematic tools and be in compliance with the EULA.

Use Houdini for Torque! it's okay....even for 'cutScenes', 'intros', etc...as long as it's for a content pack or game product. Now, don't go using it for an UnrealTournament production...LOL, that engine ain't covered in the EULA...FTW!

Only GG[Derek B., etal] had the foresight to see the potential of the production tool Houdini and got a fairly exclusive EULA linking Torque and Houdini Apprentice.

#8 @Rex I agree. The ELUA EB pointed out is the one from Apprentice itself.

The key is you HAVE TO BUY the $99 Apprentice, not the free version. They are different and if not mistaken have different file formats as well.

#9 @Eb

If you go to the Sidefx forums and search you will see where the question has been asked an answered yes. When they say at GG when your game goes mainstream, they are talking about when you pass that 100K or whatever it is income, then you must move to the full version, just like GGs lic.

Straight from Sidefx Marketing:

www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&...

#10 Of course, Randy, a basic Houdini Apprentice license is required to comply with the EULA....the 'free' demo was never purported to support the Torque ROP. SideFX has adopted the GG 'Indy' pricing tier; if you are 'commercially' successful enough to top 250,000 in revenue, you will need to upgrade your 'apprentice' license to the 'Escape' tier...

The format 'difference' is the NonCommercial denotation by appending of the .HIP file. This is the Apprentice 'native' nonCommercial format. It is readable by the commercial versions of the program, as well as Apprentice reading .HIP files but NOT SAVEABLE as .HIP...if you try to save a .HIP file in Apprentice, it automagically converts it to the NonCommercial .HIP file type.

#11

Quote:Now, you could NOT produce an "Asprin Commercial" for Television with the cinematic tools and be in compliance with the EULA.

What do these people have against aspirin?

#12 I was pointed to the clause in the EULA that allows commercial use specifically for Torque game engine related assets.

Sorry for the half-assed info post.

Edit: oh ..and some of you have pointed that out as well. thx.
Not sure if I need to read through things better or if the EULA authors need a better understanding of sentence structures within English.
"You can NOT do this, this, this and this. But you can do those things I just said you can't do, as long as it's done with 'this'."
..sounds like something an English professor would give an "F".

Edit#2: best of luck on the release

#13 @eb: No problem. Understanding EULAs is difficult at times...

Regarding Houdini 10, is it worth the upgrade from 9.5 for someone, like me, who is only a hobbist and a complete beginner as a 3D modeler?
Looking at the countdown from SideFX site it seems that most of the changes are in the rendering tools.
Did they made any significant change to the modeling tools?

Thanks,
Jacopo

#14 New modeling tools in H10...
-Knife Tool – Interactively slice up you model.
-Edge Loop Cut – reduce clicks significantly for box up modeling
-Grow and Shrink Selection
-Delete Key changes – works more intuitively with points and edges
-Boolean supports multiple objects – faster workflow
-Freeze Tool – Makes it easy to clean up transforms for a model
-Extract tool can create a new object made up of multiple object-merges

If you are on a Mac then this release has been optimized for the way opengl works on that platform.

#15 Thanks for the info, Robert.

I'm downloading the free editon to try it, but I will probably upgrade.
I think that your support for the indies community is a good reason to show some support back (even if it was the only reason).

#16 @EB,
its not english they speak, its "legalese", a kind of dialect of english that you are not supposed to understand, unless you are a lawyer, (those creatures that where not allowed on Noah's ark, but due to the EULA of the shipwright they got into the bows), but if you dont understand it, they nail you, saying, "but its english"??
go figure
try make any sense of this, as an example