For the sake of sharing my experiences... > On 4 May 2018, at 14:24, Morten Bartholdy <[email protected]> wrote: > > Pardon me for intruding, but I have to agree with Jonathan here. > > It used to be that developers worked to make better tools and make them more > accessible to the average artist (and I am not talking about Kais Powertools > ;), but that path seems to have been abandoned in the pursuit of better and > more advanced tools, and letting it up to the users to get a degree in rocket > science to be able to wield said tools at all > Tools are getting easier (just look at the new hair system in 16.5 vs 16.0 or the new MAT context in order to blend BRDFs properly), complex things are simply complex (DOPs for example) and you can’t simplify certain things without loosing the whole point or it will take a lot to get there (for example custom controls with DOPs records and others) > Houdini is probably the best example of this. I know a lot of effort has gone > in to making it more accessible, but to my knowledge it still requires a fair > amount of insight into expression syntax and scripting plus more than basic > math end vector knowhow to get even simple things done. > The fact you can add expressions in your fields (something you can’t do in softimage) means you don’t need to script as much… so arguably you can choose between learning simple expressions or learning to program.
Both require a certain level of simple maths involving trigonometry, vectors and matrices. > I understand your position (stated in earlier threads) that the increased > demands on production requires more complex solutions/tools, > I would say sophisticated rather than complex… for example packed primitives allow you to do things that are truly mind-bending in combination with Material Style Sheets, but that does not mean they are difficult of full of moving parts. > but I don't buy the premise that it also has(!) to become more difficult to > use. > I don’t think that either.. a good example of sophisticated tools in Houdini 16 and 16.5 that are a pleasure to work are the new terrain tools… but it is also true that unfortunately some problems are complex no matter what. > Good UI devs could alleviate that and make even really complex stuff > accessible to the least technical artist in the room if ressources were made > available, ie the management and dev team leads concur it would be a good > idea. I am going out on a limb and guessing it might often come down to this > – spend ressources on making the tool more accessible or spend them on making > more and better tools… In reality I think in all fairness they try and > balance it while keeping a keen eye on their userbase and potential for > increasing it. > With the UI and UX there is a major point Jeff Wagner explained to me long time ago… Houdini is non-linear (branches splitting and mixing again) so many things there can be easily put on a linear system (like Softimage) are not possible in Houdini and therefore we have to accept certain limitations. Exactly the same than ICE, you don’t have many tools making your live eraser in terms of workflow inside ICE, you need to know what you are doing. But it is true also that Softimage vision of ICE is a lot neater, easier and element in terms of packaging functionality in ICE… A LOT BETTER IN FACT. > What remains is that people like me find Houdini way too technical for > practical use (the steep learning curve) and as such I have not delved into > it for real yet. > May be that is what makes you feel it is complex... > I will for sure, because I think it is probably the only major 3D DCC which > is really evolving and making groundbreaking tools available to the users, so > it will very likely inherit the world, but for me, and probably many others, > as Jonathan probably indicates, it would do so much faster if it was made > even easier to use :) > Agreed, there are many things that should be a lot easier because you do them all the time (like path deform for example, or layering animation, or having a shape manager and others) but don’t be mistaken, it is not difficult at all until you need to dive in certain areas. > And that would mean I would get to spend less time in Maya which honestly > makes me short of breath to the point of needing to vomit, almost every day. > Well, then I can guarantee you you will age slower. ;-) Peace and have a great weekend. jb PS. I am thinking… would it be of interest for you guys if I talk to SideFX to organise a crash course in Houdini for Softimage users? May be replicating one of the old XSI tutorials live in Houdini??? I still love those tutorials… remember the carnivore plant? > Just my two kr (the coin we use here) > > Have a nice weekend all – Morten > > Den 3. maj 2018 klokken 19:17 skrev Jordi Bares <[email protected]>: > > And by my judgement, Houdini is no closer to being a generalist replacement > for Softimage. > > This is what I would love to understand if you don’t mind… > > jb > > ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to > [email protected] with “unsubscribe” in the subject, > and reply to confirm. > > ------ Softimage Mailing List. To unsubscribe, send a mail to > [email protected] with “unsubscribe” in the subject, > and reply to confirm. > >
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