Currently we do our rigging and animation in Maya. I'm in no way an expert on rigging and animation, so I can only share feedback that I've heard from our experts.
From what I see, Houdini have some very interesting rigging tools. It's the animation tools that are a bit primitive. You can do pretty much what you want, it's just not as sexy and user friendly as the other softwares. SideFX told us they have plans to improve these tools. I'm not sure when that will happen, but everything SideFX do seems to turn to gold so It'll probably be amazing once they get to it... I'm just not sure of their timeline. We try and do as much as we can in Maya for now, but we can also import the animation back into Houdini to do muscle simulations, cloth and hair sims when necessary... or use Houdini Engine in Maya. We haven't needed to go there yet, so these are all options that are up in the air for us right now. All I can say is that our Animation/Rigging departments where the first department to transition into Maya before we even looked at Houdini and they seem happy with it. When we suggested that they look at Houdini for Animation/Rigging, there was a lot of resistance since they just made the move over to Maya and they weren't very excited at the prospect of learning yet another software, so we never pushed it. Houdini is very flexible to customize to your need. You can make it do anything, but you need technical people to help make these tools more user friendly. If you are more artistic then technical and just want to animate, then Maya is probably a better choice for the moment. I don't know if there are other software worth looking into at this moment though!? Motion builder and crowd tools like Goalem are good at mixing existing clips together, but they aren't animation tools. Animation feels like an area where it seem ready for a big technological evolution. How long will people edit keys on curves? Feels as primitive as modeling was before ZBrush and Mudbox where invented. I see there's a lot of research done with machine learning and deep neural networks... I have a feeling big breakthroughs are on the verge of revolutionizing the way we animate our characters. But until then, I would say Maya is your safest bet for now. On 25/10/2017 1:00 PM, phil harbath wrote: > Do you do character animation in Houdini, I am hesitant to change to > another program if I can't get > near the character animation workflow as Softimage, just wondering I don't > know much about Houdini's > strengths in that department other than it is behind and a work in progress, > maybe they are fine with that not being > their niche. Of all the nightmares I hear about about working in Maya I am > not crazy about spending a ton of time (and money) > changing to Maya for character animation to have it worse. > > thanks > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mathieu Leclaire > Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 12:16 PM > To: Official Softimage Users > MailingList.https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist&d=DwICaQ&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=w__nc6mCMrINpx5xEp-sXoo5sEeL0el9ETqHSc8sMX4&s=ZOLCGskRP-KFcopiYRgs8bJ9N8OrwFUu6F1EGrD5DOY&e= > Subject: Re: Softimage - not going away... > > Hi guys, > > I don't want to crash your rant here and hope you guys don't take > offense to what I have to say. I'm sure you heard this a million times > by now, but if you would allow me to share my perspective: > > I highly recommend you guys move on and learn the other softwares. This > industry and it's technology is changing so fast. Sure Softimage now > still feels like the best option, but soon Softimage won't be able to > handle all the new file formats, new geometry features, latest renderers > will stop being supported, new hardware and operating systems won't > support it, etc. It will eventually become impossible to keep up with > current production needs using that software. If you guys don't evolve, > you will become dinosaurs and you'll have a long way to catch up before > you'll be able to get work again. We work in an industry that heavily > relies on new technologies so we have to evolve with it or you end up on > the outside looking in. > > I understand your frustration. I do. I have gone through it all myself. > But after going through a hard learning curve to become as comfortable > with Houdini as I was with Softimage (and I'm still learning), I now > love Houdini probably more then I ever loved Softimage. > > Trust me, it took me a long time to let it go. We still use Softimage a > lot here at Hybride, but we are slowly migrating out of it. We have to > with all the new requirements in our pipeline with other vendors. Now I > get pissed off when colleagues decide to use Softimage instead of doing > it directly in Houdini or in Maya. Like yourself, they are frustrated, > there's a lot of pressure to deliver in short timelines and so they > prefer not to get out of their comfort zone. But it already comes with a > price to pay. For example, we had a scene that took an hour to load in > Softimage where it loaded in a few seconds in Houdini. That means that > this artist takes about twice the time allocated per shot because he's > too hard headed to switch software. Trust me that supervision is putting > a lot of pressure on that guy to learn Houdini so they don't have to > overcharge for his shots anymore. > > This is just the beginning. It'll get worst and worst in the next few > years and eventually, you'll become like the guy who still types on an > old typewriter instead of using a computer. I know that switching feels > like taking a few steps backwards, but at least you'll be able to > eventually move forward where you are standing still in Softimage. I > hated having to go through all this, but eventually Houdini open my eyes > to a world of new possibilities that never would have been available in > Softimage and I couldn't be happier that I finally made that move. Don't > make the mistake of being too comfortable in your ways of working. It'll > become obsolete sooner then you think. There's a ton of new toys out > there waiting to be discovered. Your ex broke up with you. Accept it and > move on. Sure, you'll date a few girls that will underwhelm you at > first, but you just might find one that will blow your mind and change > your life for the better, but you have to take that leap first and give > it a fair chance. > > That's my rant/recommendation. Now it's on you to decide how you want to > manage your career. > > -Mathieu > > > > ------ > Softimage Mailing List. > To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with > "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm. > > ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to softimage-requ...@listproc.autodesk.com with "unsubscribe" in the subject, and reply to confirm.
