So I finally bought Indie version today.

However, when I open files create in Apprentice, I still get Indie on the splash screen, however when the file opens the window title still shows <project path and name.hipnc> - Houdini Apprentice Non-Commercial, even though I installed the Indie licenses.

Is Indie unable to load Apprentice scenes and the other way around?

Quite confused by my experience so far...

I was hoping to:
1) Load all scenes I had created with Apprentice - into the Indie version
2) In the future when Indie license runs out - assuming I won't renew - I was hoping to be able to load scenes created in Indie -> into Apprentice

I'm not really rendering anything for commercial purposes, just learning of Houdini, didn't want to deal with large watermark and resolution limitation.

Thank you.

At a high level, if there's a conflict between what version of houdini you're running and what version of houdini a hip is saved with, the result is the lowest level license.

This is to stop studios being able to get a single fx license, have the entire team running apprentice, and be able to 'money launder' them through the single fx seat.

In your case you can either rebuild the setups, or from what I understand you can contact sidefx support, send them your apprentice hips, and they'll do a one-time upgrade of your hips to the license you have. I know they do this for core and fx licenses, not sure if they offer that service for indie.

Re in the future if you don't continue your indie license, apprentice will still be able to open the hips fine, again any houdini license can open any other hip, but in doing so the session will be downgraded to the lowest common factor. In your case you'd already be on the lowest anyway, so you wouldn't really notice the difference.

Got it, thank you. And while it's a pain in the butt, I can see the reasoning behind it. You could totally game the system otherwise.

Thank you