Hi all, I have a client (an advertising network with their own production facilities) that currently have a pipeline involving Maya and Houdini with RenderMan and Redshift as rendering options. There's a smattering of Max and Modo for asset creation but that's beyond the scope of my enquiry.
We're currently going through the process of deciding whether Katana would be an effective tool to add to their pipeline as their are moving into longer form branded content as well as their existing advertising output. I have a major cognitive bias going into this assessment that Houdini can be used for Katana style deferred rendering workflows as well as it's FX bread and butter. Introducing Katana will come at a considerable cost so I'm wondering what others think and feel about Katana, particularly if they've already gone through a similar thought process. It doesn't matter whether you use Katana in you pipeline (or have used it in the past) I'm just looking for any considered views ref Katana benefits. And Jordi, if you're reading this, I would love your take on Houdini as a lookdev/lighting toolset as I understand that's exactly how you use it at Framestore. Funnily enough, the more deeply I research this, the more I'm reminded how ahead of the game the Softimage team were. The whole models workflow (and underlying philosophy) was incredibly flexible as well as powerful. Sure it had some gnarly aspects much like any referencing system (from what I hear, Katana it littered with these referencing cul-de-sac's too). My internal bias towards Houdini is that is has so many strengths with regard to deferred procedural loading, packed disc primitives etc etc, and to be frank, shading networks in Katana suck right now. Plus Houdini pretty much invented the nodal shading game with VOPs. As a positive for Katana, I'm really impressed with the 3delight integration, and it's promise of seamless a seamless pipe with Maya (a necessary evil not a preferred choice). I've always had a soft spot for 3delight and the new OSL driven, artist centric presentation layer/UX is something that connects with my own thoughts about delivering flexible rendering power without the need to have all the wiring on show. Apologies for the lengthy post. I'm hopping that one or two of you have gone through similar considerations as you've gradually planned your move away from Soft. As ever, thanks in advance. jm
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