Judith Crow

Under-utilization of engineers is not a complaint I've heard Mostly there is so much custom engine work to be done (especially if as you say your studio uses multiple game engines) that the artist tools take time to rise to the top of the queue–and that's where Houdini can take away some of the stress and provide solutions in a more timely way. But please do be sensitive to your studio's specific character!

In studios with proprietary engines and an interest in writing a custom Houdini Engine plug-in the biggest concern from the engineers is the size of that development effort. It's a bit like asking the length of a piece of string…but depending on the current engine editor environment and what the requirements are, that piece of string can be surprisingly short. Best to have your team talk directly with us if that's of interest. Typically though you'd want to get some experience working with Houdini Engine for Max/Maya and perhaps Unity/Unreal before taking that next step.

Ed,

We have found that often the advantage for Engineers is expressed by showing the work they no longer need to do. Technical Artists are often building tools that used to require an engineer - or if nothing else The TAs are making very effective prototypes that do a better job of specifying and communicating the requirements for a production quality tool so that the engineer's time is applied more efficiently.

David Santiago's “Spiderman” talk is great, but you might also want to look at his earlier “Sunset Overdrive” Talk (also on the GDC Vault) in which he procedurally places spawn points and other gameplay elements.

There are a couple of interesting examples in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MgUEbfrjXA [www.youtube.com] (Gameloft - “Modern Combat Versus”. Look at the video description for time markers. Both the Vegetation Tool and the Vertex Heatmap Tool are good examples of Tools that might once have required an engineer.

Feel free to message me if you want your studio to have a conversation with one of our Tech Art team.

We are exploring offering Houdini Engine on the Marketplace. It helps me to know that there are asset developers out there who would like to develop for Houdini Engine. If there are others reading this please post and let us know what types of Houdini tools you would find most valuable. Thanks!

-Judith Crow (Director, Games Segment, SideFX)