I would be interested to know if Motion Creation is as easy and powerful as it
is in ICE, I can find I can do whatever I want to do for the most part in ice,
create point clouds in most any fashion, pop them in and out at any time, and
apply animated colors to them as I see fit, I would think that you do much of
this in C4D but without the complete control you can get with ICE, however I
wonder if the same ease of creation is there with Houdini. I agree with others
I would just assume continue to use Softimage/Ice, however, I worry about the
day, Soft just doesn’t open. I have had problems like this with other programs
where just recently some updates whether it be windows 10 or the video drivers,
have caused certain things to crash, and has caused me great anxiety.
From: Jonathan Moore
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2017 7:07 PM
To: Official Softimage Users Mailing
List.https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__groups.google.com_forum_-23-21forum_xsi-5Flist&d=DwIFaQ&c=76Q6Tcqc-t2x0ciWn7KFdCiqt6IQ7a_IF9uzNzd_2pA&r=GmX_32eCLYPFLJ529RohsPjjNVwo9P0jVMsrMw7PFsA&m=ZdkZahgcGpF7AcCYLN6bpeJvGhb5646aVqvMp9i6OJk&s=gc1xHlmwhFGWaRk4lH-PJAcFTfu0glRcoRVAZwWhQPw&e=
Subject: Re: Softimage - not going away...
Those coming from the likes C4D and After Effects doing wonderful stuff in
Houdini were in many cases already technical artists. One of the
Aixsponza/Entagma boys (Manuel) started out in XSI as it happens, the other was
skilled in Processing (Moritz). And Simon Holmedal was a math nerd long before
he gazed eyes on C4D, never mind Houdini. Ben Watt on the other hand is a great
example of a C4D artist not used to technical workflows who rapidly adapted to
using Houdini as his main platform.
Motion design is my thing and I encourage any artists I know to learn Houdini,
but sadly for some, things don't click. At the moment I'm working with others
on a Mograph/MASH type suite of tools for Houdini. Creating the cloners,
effectors and falloffs of a typical motion graphics plugin suite is the easy
part, making it a 'gateway drug' into the delights of Houdini, a little harder!
But we feel one of the major hooks is performance and luckily the v16 release
cycle has seen critical SOP nodes become thread friendly (e.g. the Copy and
Point SOP's for starters). C4D and Maya's motion design tools are throttled by
a single threaded core, so a suite of tools in Houdini with similar
capabilities, whilst being optimised for fully threaded workflows will
hopefully provide further encouragement for motion artists to deepen their
Houdini knowledge. ;)
On 26 October 2017 at 21:30, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote:
No worries Jonathan..
It is nevertheless interesting that non-technical artists like those coming
from C4D and AfterEffects are jumping on Houdini and some really are doing
amazing work the like we haven’t seen so may be it will be an evolution in the
sense that understanding the processes may be fundamental for the type of work
they intend to do.
Anyway… good luck though
hugs
jb
On 26 Oct 2017, at 19:41, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com> wrote:
I wasn't intending to pick holes Jordi, so apologies if it came over that
way. But yes, be it nodal shading, nodal compositing or full featured end to
end procedural modeling and animation; nodes scare the bejesus out of a many
artists. Personally, I find nodes a more visually descriptive view of things
but have come to realise there are many that don't share my view. :)
On 26 October 2017 at 19:29, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote:
Indeed you are right, I probably have a skewed vision due to the fact
that everyone is now exposed to Nuke (and here XSI) which have node based
approaches but may be outside is not so obvious.
I hope you have fun though. ;-)
jb
On 26 Oct 2017, at 18:44, Jonathan Moore <jonathan.moo...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Jordi, I'm only recounting the feedback I get from the artists I
support. Some of these artists find nodal approaches per se as being technical.
You, I and most on this list know this not to be the case, but we have
to be considerate that not all artists are wired the same as us.
On 26 October 2017 at 18:13, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote:
Could you give me an example of various stages of a production where
you need those skills? I can only see a few places where you do and others that
you might if you want to do complex stuff (like modern abstract motion graphics
for example)
Let’s also remember, only recently we have Wrangle nodes and although
they are awesome, you didn’t even have them a few years back yet you were able
to do anything (slower of course) in other manners. A good example is the new
Point Wrangle versus the old Point SOP.
I still think for Previz, Modelling, Animation (not technical FX
animation), Layout, Shading, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering you need Zero
skills.
But may be I am missing something.
jb
On 26 Oct 2017, at 17:29, Jonathan Moore
<jonathan.moo...@gmail.com> wrote:
The only way to learn a language well is to fully immerse into
it, same thing here… Houdini is not hard any more, UX and specially a more
viewport centric approach makes it very easy to start.
True there is some vocabulary and weird things in a few areas but
those come easy if you really go for it.
I say this as a Houdini fan. Houdini is only an easy transition for
technical artists. I support teams of artists from fine art backgrounds as well
as technical artists and those with a fine art background even found ICE a
challenge. For larger teams made up of both TD's and artists this isn't a major
issue, but the fact that so much of Houdini is Wrangle-centric these days
causes problems for those with a purely art school background who don't know
their way around a scripting language, never mind a C-like programming language.
I think it's untrue to say 'Houdini is not hard anymore', but more
true to say that Houdini is easier to transition to from another DCC (for those
with a technical aptitude). You won't get far in Houdini if you can't at the
very least think programmatically, and that still goes for those that stick to
VOP's rather than Wrangles.
One can argue that 3d is an inherently technical art, but there are
plenty of professionals working in media & entertainment based studio
businesses that get by just fine without any aptitude for scripting &
programming. Unfortunately, I don't think it's untrue to state that it's
difficult to get past the basics in Houdini without a technical aptitude.
On 26 October 2017 at 17:01, Jordi Bares <jordiba...@gmail.com>
wrote:
The only way to learn a language well is to fully immerse into
it, same thing here… Houdini is not hard any more, UX and specially a more
viewport centric approach makes it very easy to start.
True there is some vocabulary and weird things in a few areas but
those come easy if you really go for it.
:)
jb
> On 26 Oct 2017, at 16:07, Morten Bartholdy
<x...@colorshopvfx.dk> wrote:
>
> Houdini is still to technical to even start using. Blender I
have actually looked at and it doesn't look half as bad as Maya, but it also
very much depends on where you are working or aspire to work.
>
> Maya is a ticket to work in most places these days I guess, but
it is also certain to drive you mad, and hate going to work everyday.
>
> Honestly I would love to work with Houdini, and might even sit
down and try and learn it some day, but it is still damn hard to start using,
so downtime is considerable.
>
> MB
>
>
>
>> Den 25. oktober 2017 klokken 14:53 skrev Gerbrand Nel
<nagv...@gmail.com>:
>>
>>
>>
>>> I read the stories by people who had the bad fortune to have
to learn Maya earlier and I have to say everything they wrote is true and then
some. After 3 months+ of everyday Maya punishment I actually only like some
modeling tools and being able to see layered textures in the viewport - the
rest is a horrible mess. And our Maya artists are blissfully oblivious to how
much easier their lives could have been if things had been different.
>>>
>>>
>>> Morten
>>
>> If you read on, the story splits.
>> Kinda like a "choose your own adventure"
>> Some people choose Maya, and THEY DIE!!!!
>> Others choose NOT-Maya and live.
>> Honestly I would rather use bryce and poser.
>> Why not Houdini or Blender, Morten?
>> G
>>
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