Just as a not. The first time that i have heard of solaris was in 2016 at a event. It was mentiond as a light tool or something like that.

Strictly my personal opinion here, but also based on 25 years of observation: The reason Houdini is successful is because SideFX almost always focus on building a solid, robust, and powerful foundation for everything they do.

DOPs (Pyro etc) was hard/impossible to use when it first arrived but now as you say, it's dead simple to make beautiful pyro _plus_ you can dig as deep as you want once you grok the underpinnings.

Solaris, PDG and maybe the char tools will be the same, they have developed complete, robust and insanely powerful foundations, and over time those will have user-friendly overlays. PDG in 18.5 has made some large UX strides for example, as has Karma/USD compared to its initial release. There is a reason Karma is still Beta, and Mantra is still the default renderer in the viewport

Will that frustrate people while they wait for those friendly overlays? Of course, that's natural. However, if you're playing the long game, the rewards will be huge.

Frankly, it's the correct and IMO only way to approach the most powerful DCC app. Other apps will come out with new feature after new feature, but when you try to customize or dig deeper… you get stymied by the lack of a solid foundation, it often turns out to be a feature with no solid grounding. That's been very successful for some apps, and more power to them. I think there is room for all types of dev and software. I just prefer the Houdini approach where I can rip _everything_ apart when I need to for some cool new thing.

Full disclosure: I worked at SideFX but haven't since 2003 so this is based on observation not inside info.

Cheers,

Peter B

I could not agree more.

From what i have seen, SESI attack a problem multiple times before settling on a robust version that is optimized with each release.

I can see from keynote the animation tools in 18.5 are obviously just the beginning, and its a foundational release in terms of dealing with animation/rigs on a large scale and technical requirements.

To me it looks like 19 will have the a rigging context and animation ux upgrade, animators usually just want solid easy to pick handles, sliders, intuitive animation curves, selecting/moving keys etc. But making that first means nothing without a good foundation.

IMO animation and rigging is the only thing keeping a lot of studios using it. I hope SESI plan to bringing in character animators to beta and alpha test their stuff.

Very interesting times, cant wait to see what you guys cook up. And im looking forward to trying out 18.5…. 10 secs from finishing downloading.

Hi is only me or Houdini 18.5 is not in download page?

Looks like the H18.5 launch may be having some slight issues - some Users have been given access to the H18.5 Beta builds (either by mistake or intentionally) - and that's why some Users have a Daily Build download link and other Users do not (is what I'm guessing).

Lets give SideFX some more patience to sort things all out.

Daryl Dunlap
Looks like the H18.5 launch may be having some slight issues - some Users have been given access to the H18.5 Beta builds (either by mistake or intentionally) - and that's why some Users have a Daily Build download link and other Users do not (is what I'm guessing).

Lets give SideFX some more patience to sort things all out.

My licenses have updated but I don't have access to the downloads. Will check back in a while. Thanks for the heads up.

Looks like its release guys.

Launching now. Exciting…

Hey,any idea on when the steam version of houdini indie will be updated.I see the update in the sidefx website but not inside steam's list.Will it take time to get updated in steam?Thanks!

Hmmm. I keep getting an “Sqlite - SQL error while saving the cookie store: database is locked” error when trying to use the license manager. It is not being blocked by antivirus. I verified everything is whitelisted. Odd thing is that is retrieved the Karma Renderer license for 18.5 but nothing else.

Ideas?

p.s. Ran as administrator by the way. Also, it looks like I don't have write access to https://www.sidefx.com/license/sesinetd [www.sidefx.com] which is the source of the error according to the server information tab. I'm guessing that's a bug on SideFX side?

Tobias Steiner
Hmmm. I keep getting an “Sqlite - SQL error while saving the cookie store: database is locked” error when trying to use the license manager. It is not being blocked by antivirus. I verified everything is whitelisted. Odd thing is that is retrieved the Karma Renderer license for 18.5 but nothing else.

Ideas?

p.s. Ran as administrator by the way. Also, it looks like I don't have write access to https://www.sidefx.com/license/sesinetd [www.sidefx.com] which is the source of the error according to the server information tab. I'm guessing that's a bug on SideFX side?

Had the same. I logged out and cleared everything and then used local server instead of online and it updated using entitlements to 18.5 for everything.

@JalexM `https://www.sidefx.com/license/sesinetd [www.sidefx.com]` is if you want to use login-based licensing new to 18.5. This means you would not have the ability or need to install licenses to it. Instead you just checkout entitlements that are left on sidefx.com.

@TobiasSteiner This is a known issue which should not prevent you from logging in and using hkey as desired.

Yeah, I just had the same… seems to have updated the licenses though.

mattw
@JalexM `https://www.sidefx.com/license/sesinetd [www.sidefx.com]` is if you want to use login-based licensing new to 18.5. This means you would not have the ability or need to install licenses to it. Instead you just checkout entitlements that are left on sidefx.com.

Tried using it and it just crashed on one pc and didn't work on another.

@JalexM I would suggest emailing support@sidefx.com. Please make sure to provide a diagnostic and any other relevant information/files.

mattw
@JalexM I would suggest emailing support@sidefx.com. Please make sure to provide a diagnostic and any other relevant information/files.

Will do, i'm also getting alot of openCL issues on both of my computers.

does anyone know if Red Shift will play nice with this latest Houdini revision?
Currently using 18.0532 with Red Shift 3.0.

Also, do I need to retire license attached to Houdini 18.0532 in order to get Houdini 18.5 to work?

jatmraz
does anyone know if Red Shift will play nice with this latest Houdini revision?
Currently using 18.0532 with Red Shift 3.0.

Also, do I need to retire license attached to Houdini 18.0532 in order to get Houdini 18.5 to work?

Check Redshift's Houdini forum. They made it available this afternoon.
You'll need a Houdini 18.5 license for Houdini 18.5.

That Chrism, was just on the site…checked again and saw this

jatmraz
That Chrism, was just on the site…checked again and saw this

https://www.redshift3d.com/forums/viewthread/32053/ [www.redshift3d.com]