Hey everyone,

Im pretty new to Houdini, im loving the journey. Also considering Ive been on max and maya previous. Heres the thing, Ive been doing some research and everyone raves about Houdinis particles and dynamics, but then dont have many great things to say about its modeling and animation (rigging, lighting, etc) in comparison to maya and max. Im obviously ignorant to this issue. If im looking to just get the “Basics” of modeling, animation, lighting, etc, and master the dynamics and particles, is this a good choice? Or should I learn to model and animate in maya or xsi or what ever and incorporate it with Houdini?

Some might ask what specifically I want to model and animate. As of now, space scenes (Space ships, comets, planets, etc) , City scenes, cars, buildings, bridges (I want to work on the destructive aspect of them) Im not too into character animation such as monsters or pixar stuff. But If in the future i decide to , I want to know if I should have learned modeling somewhere else, or will I be fine in Houdini?

Hello Lmayfield!
I'm not an houdini guru, but I'll tell you this…
I've been using Maya and Xsi for years now, and been learning Houdini in my spare times for a year and a half now…
Yeah modeling is different in Houdini, but in many ways it's actually better than in other packages. In my opinion, I would say that for the kind of things you want to do, it's the best actually. the procedural work flow will save you lot's of time building your spaceships, cities, cars. You should totally consider looking at “building a procedural city” turorial by cmivfx(www.cmivfx.com).
Also, one point you did not mention but which is really important, is the render engine. Houdini's mantra is one of the best choice to render environnement, and processor/memory hungry scenes like the ones you plan to build, not the mention the really good micro polygone displacement capabilities, which will allow you to add lots of details to your alien planets. And you got a solid L-system to build trees and plant, what else would you need?

Now, If I would have to mention downsides…
Again, in my own opinion, it would be more the organic modeling that can be a problem in Houdini(characters and stuff). It's not impossible to do it, and it's actually not that bad to do, can even have avantages to do it in Houdini(for procedural processes). But if you would want to do simple polygonal box modeling characters, it might not be the best choice(but not a bad one either).

I gotta stop this short, because I gotta go, but I'd say another thing that will probably make you sweat at first in houdini, is building custom shaders. It's more complicated(but more porwerful) than in the other packages. You still have a librairy of prebuild shaders which might be enough for a start.

But even with some downsides, to me, Houdini is far ahead than other 3d packages…

Hope this will help!

Thanks man you rock.

I have a follow up question. Lets say I have my buildings and space ships made. Its time to make things like robotic limbs, tentacles and basic non-ultra detailed monsters. What path would you take for that?

Thanks man you rock.

I have a follow up question. Lets say I have my buildings and space ships made. Its time to make things like robotic limbs, tentacles and basic non-ultra detailed monsters. What path would you take for that?

hey Lmayfield, I'm no pro either but i fully agree with jrgauthier based on what I've learned so far. I'd still stick with Houdini and if need be supplement with Silo for the organic modeling. I suggest you check out 3Dbuzz's free tuts and paid ones, awesome wealth of info.

Great. Thanks for the advice guys. I hope this post helps others that are in my shoes too. Thanks again.

I have a follow up question. Lets say I have my buildings and space ships made. Its time to make things like robotic limbs, tentacles and basic non-ultra detailed monsters. What path would you take for that?

I guess you could go with Houdini all the way. My only doubt would be about the basic non-ultra detailed monster,you gotta get used to the workflow, but still it can easily be done in houdini as well. Worst case you could use silo, I also heard of wing 3d, or blender out..
XSI also offers a Mod toolhttp://www.softimage.com/products/modtool/default.aspx [softimage.com] which gives you acces to good XSI modeling tools for free, with limitation of 64000 poly per object or something like that.

Anyways, those are suggestions, but you could easily stick with Houdini and learn modeling the procedural way, it can also benefit organic modeling as well sometimes. Yep! Houdini all the way

jrgauthier

I have a follow up question. Lets say I have my buildings and space ships made. Its time to make things like robotic limbs, tentacles and basic non-ultra detailed monsters. What path would you take for that?

I guess you could go with Houdini all the way. My only doubt would be about the basic non-ultra detailed monster,you gotta get used to the workflow, but still it can easily be done in houdini as well. Worst case you could use silo, I also heard of wing 3d, or blender out..
XSI also offers a Mod toolhttp://www.softimage.com/products/modtool/default.aspx [softimage.com] which gives you acces to good XSI modeling tools for free, with limitation of 64000 poly per object or something like that.

Anyways, those are suggestions, but you could easily stick with Houdini and learn modeling the procedural way, it can also benefit organic modeling as well sometimes. Yep! Houdini all the way

Oh wow. ok. So much good stuff here. I never even heard of those packages. It kinds sounds like I could be find with Houdini for modeling, but you guys suggested silo and the other one. Heck it seems like Silo is really cheap, ($150) thats a great deal. If I can get that too, and it would do a great job, should I just model in that? and work the rest in Houdini?

I guess I need to do know is, Between Silo and Houdini, what are the strengths of using both, so that I get the best workflow from both? (Example, Houdini enviorment/ Silo Organic, etc)

Follow up to that, would I just be over all better to use the XSI free one? Hope im not asking too many annoying questions, Im just learning about these side programs.

I definitely think that Silo is a fantastic organic modeler with nice UV tools and good to have in your arsenal, but keep in mind that you should decide on what is needed on a per project / shot basis rather than setting some rigid rules or guidelines.

On a side note, is Wings3D still being developed? I thought they stopped that… Silo on the other hand is really flourishing and for the price, it's a no brainer.

fede
I definitely think that Silo is a fantastic organic modeler with nice UV tools and good to have in your arsenal, but keep in mind that you should decide on what is needed on a per project / shot basis rather than setting some rigid rules or guidelines.

Forgive me for asking, cause im so new. Like what situations would I need to go back and forth?

I guess every one has their own workflow, so if I'm more comfortable crating organic or not objs in Silo i'd do that then import into houdini and do what I have to from there. If not then jus go right ahead in Houdini.

So what I'm trying to say is, don't lock off options from the start, look at the project and then decide your best route to take.

Houdini's Lighting and Rendering in Mantra Rocks here ! :wink:

Regarding modelling, it depends on your use of the model. If you are building something and you know it won't be subject to change then use whatever modeller you are most comfortable with.
If however you know the model will change, or more importantly, that you may re-use the model, then use Houdini to do procedural modelling.

The two images are of models done entirely in Houdini, but in much earlier versions of houdini. The salmon was done in H5 but a former student, the robot was done in an even earlier version. So both .hip files are at least 10 years old.
Two points to make;
1. the files did actually open and are useful
2. since the models are done procedurally I can edit the models.

ps. no you can't have the files, they don't belong to me.

probbins
Regarding modelling, it depends on your use of the model. If you are building something and you know it won't be subject to change then use whatever modeller you are most comfortable with.
If however you know the model will change, or more importantly, that you may re-use the model, then use Houdini to do procedural modelling.

The two images are of models done entirely in Houdini, but in much earlier versions of houdini. The salmon was done in H5 but a former student, the robot was done in an even earlier version. So both .hip files are at least 10 years old.
Two points to make;
1. the files did actually open and are useful
2. since the models are done procedurally I can edit the models.

ps. no you can't have the files, they don't belong to me.

Ok, i think Im getting it. Im curious about one thing. On your second point you said you cant edit models. So lets say I create a building procedurally, but I wanna have something impact with it, and it crumbles. Does point 2 mean that I cant do that since its procedurals?

Here is the Newb of Newb Questions….(forgive me everyone) Ive been trying to figure out what a procedural process looks like. How the heck do I find out. Ive gotten some digital tutors stuff, and still looking. I know of a City procedural tutorial out, but cant afford it right this sec. How can I best learn about procedurals on my own? Any links or resources?

Thanks for everyones awesome advice

I would split my work in two. This is pretty ordinary. I don't know a single production studio that uses one tool for everything.
It's what you call a pipeline/workflow thing.

Solution:

1. Silo for polygonal and sub-d modeling. Many studios use Silo as well, so it's not like it's a cheap replacement for any other app.
The thing with Silo is what makes it good: it is a modeler. You don't animate or render in Silo by default. You model, export to Houdini as .obj, and off you go to rigging, animation etc. and yes Houdini does these things very well.
Silo also has very nice UV tools and basic sculpting tools.

2. Modo. Modo is a superb polygonal/sub-d modeler. It is far more complicated to learn than Silo, but it is more of a complete package, and I don't think you need that when you have Houdini.

My 2 cents.

Personally I use Lightwave 9.6 with some plugins for all modeling, then I use Modo for UV work, because it has the best features in that area, no need to argue about that, then when the mesh is modeled and UV's are laid out and painted, I import the whole enchilada to Houdini to do more “advanced” stuff…

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I use Vue xStream for environment production. So, there is no way you can put all those features into one application and expect it to be best of breed in all areas.

Lmayfield

probbins
Regarding modelling, it depends on your use of the model. If you are building something and you know it won't be subject to change then use whatever modeller you are most comfortable with.
If however you know the model will change, or more importantly, that you may re-use the model, then use Houdini to do procedural modelling.

The two images are of models done entirely in Houdini, but in much earlier versions of houdini. The salmon was done in H5 but a former student, the robot was done in an even earlier version. So both .hip files are at least 10 years old.
Two points to make;
1. the files did actually open and are useful
2. since the models are done procedurally I can edit the models.

ps. no you can't have the files, they don't belong to me.

Ok, i think Im getting it. Im curious about one thing. On your second point you said you cant edit models. So lets say I create a building procedurally, but I wanna have something impact with it, and it crumbles. Does point 2 mean that I cant do that since its procedurals?

Here is the Newb of Newb Questions….(forgive me everyone) Ive been trying to figure out what a procedural process looks like. How the heck do I find out. Ive gotten some digital tutors stuff, and still looking. I know of a City procedural tutorial out, but cant afford it right this sec. How can I best learn about procedurals on my own? Any links or resources?

Thanks for everyones awesome advice

You'll need to read my points a bit more carefully, I have said you CAN edit the models.

A procedural workflow is not something magically, it is a collection of nodes each one of which has a particular task that it does.
When modeling there are steps(procedures) that you do as you progressively develop the model.
If you are box modeling, you define your starting geometry(a box), then you do a series of polyextrudes, perhaps polysplits and polybevel; then you may wish to add new attributes to your points and uv the resulting model and add a material.
Each one of these operations is represented by a particular node in Sops (Surface Operations).
You can think of the network of nodes as a construction history, but it's not necessarily a linear process, since you can branch off from anywhere in your network and leverage existing steps. So you could think of it as a non-destructive, non-linear editor as well.
Procedural workflow is at the heart of the advantage of Houdini and it's the first thing I urge my students to concentrate on grasping as soon as possible. Primarily because once you get it your approach to developing anything changes quite a bit. You'll find it encourages you to play.

Just to say the same about procedurality in other words;

Instead of building a model, you build a process (that builds a model).

The process is defined with a node tree, and you can modify the process at any point. E.g. you can build a varying process that builds you a multitude of differing objects - with same rules but different seed data. It's great!

eetu.

And to put it simple:
Houdini isn't the best “first time” modeler.
It's not “My First Sony” if you get my drift.

The nodal system architecture in Houdini is IMHO better suited for more advanced tasks than polygonal modeling.