Is Houdini any good?
by Kanard T. Williams · in Artist Corner · 07/20/2008 (7:10 pm) · 5 replies
Hello
I have been using Max at school for four years now. I am ready to graduate, and I plan to use Torque to make my own independent games.
I love Max but I cannot afford it. Up until now I have been able to use Max at school, but I will not have access to the labs at school anymore, and I want my own, legal, legit software that I can own myself.
I see now that Houdini is being featured on this website.....for 99 bucks!
I know that Houdini cannot compare to everything Max does. But I don't need everything Max does.
Here are my needs:
1. Good modeler
2. Ability to get animated characters into Torque
3. Ability to render short movies with special effects.
4. Ability to do facial rigs for animation
I know that sounds simple, but those are my major needs. I love modeling and I need a good modeling application.
Looking at the listed features, Houdini looks awesome, but I need to hear from the community about this. Thanks.
btw I do have some experience getting animated models into the Torque using 3ds Max, as I taught myself how to do that last year. I don't know C++ at all but I do have some experience playing around with Torque getting characters in there. So I am a newbie but not brand spanking new.
I have been using Max at school for four years now. I am ready to graduate, and I plan to use Torque to make my own independent games.
I love Max but I cannot afford it. Up until now I have been able to use Max at school, but I will not have access to the labs at school anymore, and I want my own, legal, legit software that I can own myself.
I see now that Houdini is being featured on this website.....for 99 bucks!
I know that Houdini cannot compare to everything Max does. But I don't need everything Max does.
Here are my needs:
1. Good modeler
2. Ability to get animated characters into Torque
3. Ability to render short movies with special effects.
4. Ability to do facial rigs for animation
I know that sounds simple, but those are my major needs. I love modeling and I need a good modeling application.
Looking at the listed features, Houdini looks awesome, but I need to hear from the community about this. Thanks.
btw I do have some experience getting animated models into the Torque using 3ds Max, as I taught myself how to do that last year. I don't know C++ at all but I do have some experience playing around with Torque getting characters in there. So I am a newbie but not brand spanking new.
#2
I'm no modeller so I can't really offer an expert opinion, but I was reasonably impressed with it over the bit of playing around I did.
Linky
07/21/2008 (4:03 am)
You can download a free non-gimped trial version of Houdini at the SideFX website, it just doesn't have the DTS exporter, has some limits and watermarks any renders. Ideal to try before you buy.I'm no modeller so I can't really offer an expert opinion, but I was reasonably impressed with it over the bit of playing around I did.
Linky
#3
You can also give Blender a try, totally free & will export to dts as well (iirc)
www.blender.org
cheers
Pieter
07/22/2008 (3:47 am)
Hi there,You can also give Blender a try, totally free & will export to dts as well (iirc)
www.blender.org
cheers
Pieter
#4
YOu can take models from MAX as an .FBX file and import these into Houdini for rigging and .DTS export - this is a pipeline I might pursue for future projects.
For a low budget alternative Blender is bang on as is the XSI MOD TOOL (free from softimage.com)
08/03/2008 (11:30 am)
Houdini is a completely different workflow to MAX - it is far more powerful and sadly much more complicated and less accessible than anything else on the market. It has a totally open ended approach via NODES - imagine MAX modifier stacks linked up on a visual graph. It has some phenominal tools but it is designed for high end CG work so has many features that we cannot and dont really need.YOu can take models from MAX as an .FBX file and import these into Houdini for rigging and .DTS export - this is a pipeline I might pursue for future projects.
For a low budget alternative Blender is bang on as is the XSI MOD TOOL (free from softimage.com)
#5
08/31/2009 (4:13 am)
Quote:You can download a free non-gimped trial version of Houdini at the SideFX website, it just doesn't have the DTS exporterHow ironic that this is what I need to test before buying it!
Torque Owner Nmuta Jones