Hi,

I am making some music and starting to work with 3D animations to make videos for my music, nothing very sophisticated but at least enough to make some nice videos for my songs.

The thing is that I pretend to make short animations that I would later put together using some video cut software and these animations should include primarily scenery with nature, buildings and some custom designed characters.

Do you think I could achieve this with just using Houdini and maybe a third party render engine? (Video post-processing would be of course on another software, maybe Adobe after effects, Luma Fusion…) or should I use a second software (Blender, Maya…) to design and animate my characters and environments and then use Houdini just for the physics and effects?

I'm ready to invest some money for this project but unfortunately I'm not rich so I thought maybe Houdini (indie) is a tool powerful enough to at least do most of the part and then just choose a third party renderer like V-Ray or similar and at the end the video post-processing software to cut the scenes and put the music together with the animations.

What do you think?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi Kessel,
houdini even has a build in compositing software. And no need for a third party renderer as houdini comes with mantra (and soon in H18 with another one).
You can do nice stuff with houdini without too much knowledge. But to do what you want to do, will require a lot of learning in any software.
And yes houdini indie is a very cool offer.
And you can start learing with apprentice that is for free. Just have a go!

greetings

Olaf

kessel
these animations should include primarily scenery with nature, buildings and some custom designed characters.

before you spend any money/time it would be best to break down all the tasks in the above list and research each of them - tons on YouTube to help - depending on what you want your final result to be this is can be a huge amount of work.
It might also help to think about using a game engine like Unreal - you can build assets/tools in Houdini and then use them in Unreal/Unity - this might help getting something a bit faster depending on how much time you want to spend learning how to model/texture/rig/animate/light/render.

Olaf Finkbeiner
Hi Kessel,
houdini even has a build in compositing software. And no need for a third party renderer as houdini comes with mantra (and soon in H18 with another one).
You can do nice stuff with houdini without too much knowledge. But to do what you want to do, will require a lot of learning in any software.
And yes houdini indie is a very cool offer.
And you can start learing with apprentice that is for free. Just have a go!

greetings

Olaf

Hi Olaf,

thanks a lot for the info. I'm already using the apprentice version for learning and started doing some beginner tutorials and I'm glad to see how relatively easy is to make some animations and special effects with Houdini compared to other programs I've used in the past.

At least when it comes to emulate some physics but not quite sure about animating a human character, I guess I'll see it when I get more into Houdini and it would be great if the results with this software and its renderers are good enough for me as I'm not planning to any money with my work, it's more like a very important hobby for me, some kind of personal goal I have in mind since years.

goldfarb

kessel
these animations should include primarily scenery with nature, buildings and some custom designed characters.

before you spend any money/time it would be best to break down all the tasks in the above list and research each of them - tons on YouTube to help - depending on what you want your final result to be this is can be a huge amount of work.
It might also help to think about using a game engine like Unreal - you can build assets/tools in Houdini and then use them in Unreal/Unity - this might help getting something a bit faster depending on how much time you want to spend learning how to model/texture/rig/animate/light/render.

I've checked a little bit on that subject, I actually thought Maya would be the best choice for me as I want to make character animations but its price is really too expensive - as many CG resources and learning schools seem to be - that's when I started looking for alternatives and found Houdini to be the best so far, having not only a free apprentice version but also different versions with different prices and features for different types of customers.

Thanks for the advice with the game engine, that could be indeed a great help. I already have some experience with 3d modeling but it was for an architecture studio so I mainly worked with modeling, textures and lights, never really did an animation further than letting a camera go through the inside of a building.

I think I'll be mostly modeling buildings and characters and adding some effects with Houdini as well, but for the nature environments some help from a game engine or plugin would be very welcome.

kessel
I actually thought Maya would be the best choice for me as I want to make character animations but its price is really too expensive

FYI there's an Indie version of Maya that Autodesk is testing out. Same price as Houdini. If you want to do character rigging that's probably your best bet.

thanks, but unfortunately the indie versions of Maya / 3ds max aren't available in my country yet I'll keep an eye on that anyways just in case it becomes available some day

The most important question, IMO, that should be asked, probably, firstly by you, addressed to yourself, is why would you want to get into 3d if your passion is to music. To save money? The saying goes “if hiring a professional seems expensive, wait till you deal with an amateur”. Im this case, if it's not clear, the amateur would be you, for a long time…
I'd personally focus on my passion, as that's where I would most likely succeed, professionally. My advice to you is to focus on your music and delegate other parts (like video clips creation) of this industry to the appropriate professionals.

Not particularly constructive Pickled. I always say that I don't want other people's limitations dictate what I want to pursue. I come from a music background as well, yet here I am a decade later making a living as a VFX professional.

I think that if Kessel has interests beyond music, why shouldn't he be allowed, even encouraged to pursue those interest?

Perhaps a more helpful tip would be that Houdini is a bit like diving into the deep end of the pool…not a great idea for someone who doesn't have a whole lot of swimming experience. My gateway drug was AfterEffects and VideoCoPilot's Element 3D. It's a great way to explore working with CG while not yet committing to a full blown DCC (much less the complex one that is Houdini).

So yeah Kessel, you're broke and you want to start dabbling in CG….I say rent yourself Adobe AfterEffects and purchase Element 3D and get to work…those music videos aren't going to make themselves!

@Midphase I'm not after encouraging or dissuading anyone, I just wanted to make sure the right questions were asked,mostly by the OP. I wish someone would have slapped me over the head a while ago regarding these matters. Of course, if the OP is serious about 3d and video production, he/she will not be discouraged by an user merely posing a question.

Yeah Midphase, that’s exactly what I was going to answer. I have more than just one passion and I started making music and drawing already as a child. Unfortunately I couldn’t start a career in any of my most beloved professions and there are many reasons why I could not do that.

So now both of them music and computer graphics are some kind of hobbies to me, but I don’t like to call them hobbies because for me they’re more important than that. If I choose to make my own animations it’s because creating is my real passion, sometimes I create using sounds some other times using images. I’m not completely new to CG either, I don’t know if I mentioned it before but I studied architecture for a while and worked parallel at an architecture studio doing renderings with 3Ds Max and vray, I’ve worked with some video editing tools as well. The basics for editing video aren’t unknown to me but the pictures I have in mind for my music aren’t things I can recreate without the help of a 3D Software like maya, 3Ds Max, Houdini or Blender to name a few examples.

I know some people might be so lucky to have that option to dedicate their life to their biggest passion and let others do additional jobs, I’m not in that position and for the moment I enjoy doing both things by myself. What I mean is that some things might work well for some people but that doesn’t mean that will also work for everyone and I want to learn and spend some time creating with cg software, I’m not planning to make money with my creations so why should I pay a professional for something like that xD

@kessel Here's a fact: the more time you put into something, the better you'll get at it. Considering the present company, I don't think I need to expand on its implications. I just wanted to make sure you considered said implications, which seems that you did. So good for you, now start a project and post issues with your particular problems. This community is much more likely to succeed in helping you on specific Houdini technical issues, than on general life and career advices.

@pickled: yeah, I already considered those implications and don’t need to go into detail about career decisions or possibilities. I actually want to go into details when the technical questions about Houdini arise, which I’m sure is something that’s going to happen at some point and I hope to have some constructive discussions here with you all. See you soon