I'm one of those folks who uses OSX in my day job, and was wondering, as that Houdini has it's roots in UNIX development, when and if a port would be forthcoming to OSX? Anyone in the know, please reply. Thanks in advance.

I think it's the same story as most other 3D apps…if enough people ask for it SESI will most likely do it….
however…I think it would take a very great many people asking for it - the port wouldn't be simple and mac still has crappy OGL - which is super important for running Houdini …
personally I wouldn't want the developers at SESI spending any time on it - which would take time away from the currently supported platforms - but that's just me…

arctor
I think it's the same story as most other 3D apps…if enough people ask for it SESI will most likely do it….
however…I think it would take a very great many people asking for it - the port wouldn't be simple and mac still has crappy OGL - which is super important for running Houdini …
personally I wouldn't want the developers at SESI spending any time on it - which would take time away from the currently supported platforms - but that's just me…

Maya is available on OS X, and renderman is on the way. Houdini seems like a natural progression. I know it ultimately comes down to a business decision, but I have a hard time believing that there is a bigger market for Solaris then there would be for OS X. I use houdini on linux at work, and would love to be able to play around with apprentice edition on my mac at home.

yes!!! yes!!! yes!!!

me wants houdini on a mac too!!!

yeah there were serious problems with ogl on the mac… but now its another story. ogl is running fine now!

yeah… houdini on a mac would rock!!!

m.

I'd tend to agree. What's up with this? Face it, folks, SGI is dead in the water. Apple is poising itself to take SGI's place. I'm more than a bit incredulous that SideFx actually feels there are more Solaris users out there than Mac users. I personally worked at a digital facility that loved Macs, all of the artists/admins/techs owned Macs, and though we all liked SGIs in their time, we felt they were overpriced and underpowered as the years rolled on. We gradually switched to Windows boxes- not out of any love of the OS, or it's terrible stability problems, but because of performance vs. price. Likewise, we began a shift towards Linux as time went on. We never, however, abandoned our interest in the Apple OS X platform, and as it's matured, and apps like Maya and Renderman have migrated to it, we've all been increasingly hoping that Houdini might consider a change of policy. What about it, SESI?

Face it, folks, SGI is dead in the water.

In our market, agreed. It isn't dead yet, though - there's those lucrative military and educational contracts…

Apple is poising itself to take SGI's place.

Not sure what you mean by that, unless you mean it's the overpriced and “trendy” option with crappy overpriced support? That was SGIs place for some time.

I'm more than a bit incredulous that SideFx actually feels there are more Solaris users out there than Mac users.

I'm not sure why you think that - I believe SESI *thought* that the Solaris would take off and become a viable option in our business. Before you diss their thinking too much, remember that they were on Linux before *anyone* else was in the biz(despite Alias trumpeting they were the first - their mareting machine is more aggressive). It's easy to knock them for making a wrong call with 20/20 hindsight. I'll admit that even when they announced Sun support, I was skeptical. I don't think you should determine from this that they think Solaris is more popular that OSX…it was an agressive business “guess”. Compare that to OSX and it might not make sense…but OSX and the notion that Apple was going to take off with a heavy management layer stomped all over a BSD core was a surprise to many. I still think it makes more sense to port Houdini to Ipod before OSX…

SESI will port to OSX when they get enough paying seats asking for it. That might be tomorrow, or it might never happen…all the Mac requests on this list might seem a powerful argument(although really I tend to count them on two hands), but one large facility making the request will matter many times over.

Keep asking, though…it can only help. Personally I refuse to get OSX, but if it makes you feel any better there's people working at SESI that would love to see the port. It's a business decision.

Cheers,

J.C.

Coincidentally, a fairly light but interesting article [wired.com] about SGI over on Wired today…

Cheers,

J.C.

oh hell, and here's another one [primidi.com] which shows SGI's hold on the scientific market for visualization may not be as formidable as I inferred.

fnordle
I'm more than a bit incredulous that SideFx actually feels there are more Solaris users out there than Mac users.

there may not be many solaris desktop users.. but i bet there's a few blades around the world rendering frames with mantra as we speak. for backend stuff can Sun really be beaten?

Arguably, Linux [weblog.infoworld.com], and the very fact that Linux is more aggressively being worked on, more “available” for small and mid-sized shops, and overall cost/cycle of Sun hardware makes it, well, debatable at least.

I was running SUSE 9.1, and using the SyCloth plugin, and I emailed them about it not seeming to work on our flavour of gcc. I got a working version in a few days. I truly wonder if I would have gotten the same turnaround for a Solaris version problem. Maybe.

Cheers,

J.C.

i actually meant sun hardware is hard to beat not so much solaris, sorry to stir you up i think solaris soon being able to run linux apps natively is an admission their days are numbered.

Me? Stirred up? Over Linux?

Nawwwwwwwwww….



Cheers,

J.C.

ya know, this osx port has been a discussion on a bunch of threads and im suprised no one (especially those of you mac+houdini fans) have attempted alternatives to try it out on..

it might be dog slow, but hey, it can't hurt to try it out on Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc [microsoft.com]


also, there are some powerpc linux distros to try out as well.. i'd be interested to hear if anyone has tried either of these out and come back with reports:

http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/ [yellowdoglinux.com]

http://penguinppc.org/about/intro.php [penguinppc.org]


i personally don't know much about it, but if I had a powerbook and wanted to use houdini, i know i'd atleast check out these other options to test out before getting on sidefx to build another port..

just a thought…
dave

I think that might defeat the purpose - I believe the OSX folks are specifically asking for a native port. They want the OSX environment, the ultra thick layer on top of BSD, the deliberate re-mapping of all the BSD system locations to Apple's own *different* locations, those annoying fat bouncing icons…

oooops sorry, don't get me started…

Anyway, I can run windows under vmware in linux, and I even tested Houdini in it and it runs absolutely fine…but obviously noticably slower than on the same machine in the native OS. Plus, I don't get any of the benefits of my native OS, the one I really want to run.

I think that's the whole point of what they're asking for. While I'm not an OSX fan, I think I understand why they want it…

Cheers,

J.C.

JColdrick
I think that might defeat the purpose - I believe the OSX folks are specifically asking for a native port. They want the OSX environment, the ultra thick layer on top of BSD, the deliberate re-mapping of all the BSD system locations to Apple's own *different* locations, those annoying fat bouncing icons…

oooops sorry, don't get me started…

Anyway, I can run windows under vmware in linux, and I even tested Houdini in it and it runs absolutely fine…but obviously noticably slower than on the same machine in the native OS. Plus, I don't get any of the benefits of my native OS, the one I really want to run.

I think that's the whole point of what they're asking for. While I'm not an OSX fan, I think I understand why they want it…

Cheers,

J.C.

yea, i realize that they would *rather* have the native support and agree with everything you've said (im not an osx fan either and am unfortunately stuck with one all day at work) but heck, atleast this is an alternative..

a good number of people i noticed talking about it were linux by day and powerbook by night users.. so heck, why not try out one of those powerpc distros and give houdini a whirl. i mean if you really like the package that much (which you should because it's houdini), then make the sacrifice and use a workaround instead of sitting like a duck hoping that SESI *might* one day come out with a port. :roll:

i just know that if i were stuck in that situation, i'd be looking into other possibilities.. i mean, it's houdini for god's sake man! :wink:

dave

You can only run Houdini on an intel cpu for Linux though.

edward
You can only run Houdini on an intel cpu for Linux though.

really? well that's interesting.. i always thought software just depended on the kernel of the OS and the OS was only thing that handled the cpu architecture.. is this just software specific (i.e. just happens to be the case for houdini)? Because i know those powerpc distro's run other standard linux apps (gimp for example) just fine.. figured houdini would be fine as well..

The OS doesn't handle the instruction set at all. For example, if you had a compiled Windows XP app, it doesn't mean that it will run on Windows CE under a different CPU. (I can't use the example of Windows XP under a different instruction set as there isn't any.) The reason that the powerpc distros has various standard linux apps is because they were *recompiled* from scratch on those machines.

It's not a question of whether there are more users than Solaris or more users on Windows or Linux. The issue is that OSX is a popular platform. There are clearly many forum users that need Houdini to support OSX and like myself are patiently waiting for it to happen. To me this is not platform war issue. The point is that those who wish to benefit from the rock solid stable user friendly environment known as Mac OSX would like to become part of the growing Houndini user base. It's a fair request.

There are people using high-end applications on OSX such as Maya, Shake, Nuke as well as EIAS, Zbrush, Modo, C4D, Blender and so forth. All this talk about the interface etc shouldn't make any difference, after all shake is working in the same way with a completely different GUi to normal Mac applications and if you look at Blender it also works a treat with it's Linux styling GUI which also runs on the Mac.

I have heard, even-though I have no evidence, that Sidefx have already a Mac OSX version running top secretly and that they are just waiting to see how the new intel core due chip and the fourth coming high-end Apple machines will be received.

Slave1

slave1
It not a question of where there are more users than Solaris or more users on Windows or Linux. The issue is that OSX is a popular platform.

I agree that OSX is a popular platform, but it all comes down to resources. To port a application to a new platform it takes a ton of man hours of development and bug hunting. The only reason Side Effects would put resources into porting to OSX is if there was a demand for it by paying customers. Its true there are a lot of people who would love to see Houdini OSX, myself included. But if I had to choose between improving Takes or porting Houdini to OSX I would pick improving Takes in a heartbeat.


Heck, if SESI said that they could double the speed of Mantra if they stop supporting Windows, I know which one I would pick.

how come that big companies like softimage and side-fx have more trouble porting their program to osx than a small, young company like luxology that has their modo on mac-osx, windows and linux… (?)
i-ve heard brad from lux speaking about their nexus architecture and how fast it is to implement things and do ports without a problem. and i just wonder why bigger companies have such a struggle to port their programs onto a platform.

really, i-d love to see houdini on macosx. i just dont see point why there is still irix and solaris versions but no osx?!

come on side-fx, kill irix/ solaris and give us houdini on osx…
now apple is on intel anyway and there is no more excuse for no good opengl in osx.

so please side fx > HOUDINI FOR OSX NOW!!!