Introduction
Houdini Side Effects Software's flagship product is an effective tool for creating advanced visual effects, as it has the ability to span the entire product line of the company. Houdini Master provides unprecedented capabilities and work efficiency for animation creators who want to make computer animation more exciting。
Houdini is a 3D computer graphics software developed by Canada's Side Effects Software Inc. (SESI), which was founded by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic in 1987. Houdini is a redeveloped version of Prisms and can run on operating systems such as Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. It is a product designed entirely based on node mode, and its structure, operation, and other aspects differ greatly from other 3D software。
Houdini's built-in renderer is Mantra, based on the Reyes rendering architecture, which allows for fast rendering of motion blur, depth of field, and displacement effects. Mantra is a mature renderer that has been validated by the product and can meet the rendering requirements at the movie level. Of course, Houdini also has interfaces for third-party renderers, such as RenderMan, mental ray, Vray, Arnold, and Torque, which can export scenes to these rendering engines for rendering
Version Introduction
Houdini Master, a fully functional commercial version of Houdini Master Edition。
Houdini Escape, the Houdini Artist Edition, is a commercial version that is cheaper than the Master Edition and lacks some features. It lacks particle, Rigid body dynamics, cloth simulation and curve dynamics functions compared with the master version。
Houdini Rental HD, Houdini HD Learning Edition. Non commercial version, priced at $99, can use all built-in module functions. Rendered images do not have watermarks, and there is no limit to the resolution of individual images. The highest resolution for rendering animation sequences is 1920x1080. External renderer rendering not supported。
Houdini Rental, a free learning version of Houdini. The non commercial version can be downloaded for free from the official website. Can use all built-in module functions, rendered images with watermarks, with a maximum resolution of 720x576, and does not support external renderers。
The Filename extension of Houdini commercial version is hip, and the Filename extension of the non-commercial version is hipnc. You can open the commercial version file, but the extension will become hipnc after saving. If non commercial users switch to purchasing the commercial version after using it for a period of time, SESI company will provide a one-time service to convert all non commercial files into commercial versions. Non commercial version users can register for the official forum when encountering problems, and other enthusiastic forum users can help you solve the problem. After registering, you can also download a small update version from the official website. The small update version is a version released by developers on the official website after fixing software defects. These small updates have a detailed update list on the Houdini Journals page。
Optimization function
Houdini will not only provide download functionality soon, but also make various improvements and optimizations to fabric, character settings, animation, lighting, and UI。
The user interface now offers a selection of dark theme schemes, and users can download various customized color schemes from the internet. Network browsing and route editors have also been optimized to make them faster and more intuitive。
The new Fluid emitter tool has been added to the panel, and the speed of dynamic particles is 60 times faster than before. Fabric simulation also becomes faster and more reliable when interacting with dynamic volumes。
Houdini provides a rich library of high-quality materials. Rendering has also been optimized to become faster and more reliable. This is particularly prominent when dealing with numerous materials. Now it provides support for both original triangular axis rendering and regular vertex rendering。
Hounidi is a programming system that allows artists to freely work, create multiple iterations, and quickly share workflows with colleagues.。
Node based workflow
In Houdini, each action is stored in a node. Then, these nodes are "connected" to the network, which defines a "recipe" that can be adjusted to optimize the results, and then repeated to create similar but unique results. The ability of nodes to store and transmit information in the form of attributes makes Houdini procedural。
Artist friendly tools
Although nodes make Houdini unique and give it power, there are many viewport and shelf tools that allow artist friendly viewport interaction. Behind the scenes, Houdini establishes nodes and networks for you. Houdini allows artists to explore different creative paths, as it easily branches out into a new node to explore alternative solutions.
Visual effects and simulations
Visual effects artists attract Houdini because its program workflow is ideal for creating complex particles and Dynamic simulation. Special effects are usually designed to respond to actions occurring in the camera, and program solutions "automate" these reactions, providing studios with more creative control and faster turnover.
Shot and multiple iterations
Houdini allows you to make creative decisions in production, as changes made to Houdini nodes are cascaded through the network to create a new and unique result. This directionality has been preserved throughout the entire creative process and can be used to make costly decisions in traditional CG pipelines at the last moment
The pipes in the box
Whether you are setting up a shot or creating a game level, Houdini allows you to create tools that can be reused multiple times throughout the project lifecycle. Instead of simply reacting to problems and issues, you will be able to plan, visualize, and optimize your pipeline in advance。
Asset Creation Tool
A major benefit of Houdini's node based approach is the ability to encapsulate node networks into sharable custom nodes. Create these digital assets without writing any code and share them with other Houdini artists。
Using the Houdini engine to open assets in other applications such as Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, C4D, UE4, and Unity, the process control of assets can be used for editing in the host application
