SideFX announces version 16 of Houdini, its 3D animation software

Toronto-based firm SideFX has announced the availability of Houdini 16, the latest version of its procedural 3D animation and video effects software.

This release includes new workflows for terrain building, shading, character rigging and visual effects creation, as well as a new network editor and radial viewport menus. Below are highlights of what Houdini 16 brings to the table:

User Experience

New Node Network and Radial Menus

For a fast and fluid experience, the new network editor has been redesigned from scratch to include custom node shapes, alignment and layout tools, ‘dot’ nodes and much more. New context-sensitive and fully customizable radial menus provide quick access to common tools, making Houdini more accessible for artists.

Modeling

Artist-Friendly Tools and Procedural Techniques

The modeling toolset in Houdini continues to grow – with new Boolean tools, Smooth and PolyFill. These tools make it easier to create good surface topology for use in Film, TV, Games and VR, and can be used interactively in the viewport or procedurally in the network editor.

Terrain Generation

Full Artistic Control using Volume Slices and Height Fields

Houdini 16’s terrain system lets you layer and edit terrain easily with tools such as procedural noise, or paint or mask out areas directly. The operations are very similar to image compositing, so terrain artists will find the Houdini workflow familiar. The terrain can then collide with Fluid simulations, Crowd agents, Particles, RBD/destruction and Pyro FX – without converting the heightfields into geometry.

Look Development

Streamlined Shader Building Workflow

More and more, artists are turning to Houdini’s Mantra to render shots. Houdini 16 includes a new shader building workflow that allows for layer mixing and quick access to procedural texturing tools. Mantra has been enhanced with improved BSDFs for creating Sub-Surface Scattering, Dielectrics, Absorption and more. Game artists can leverage an improved texture baking workflow.

Character Animation & Rigging

Advanced Rigging Tools with Muscles

Houdini’s animation and rigging tools have been improving over the last few releases – and with the Auto-rigging, Muscle and Flesh architecture and Invisible rigs in Houdini 16, a complete character workflow is now in place. The new Biharmonic skin capturing will save riggers valuable time while the FEM-based muscles produces high-realism results.

Hair & Grooming

Designed for Unlimited Control

The new hair and fur tools let you easily layer and blend attributes while mixing things like frizz, clumping, bending, parting and curling. Trim or extend hair using 3D brushes; employ masks to isolate areas of interest; paint any hair attribute in an interactive yet procedurally-safe manner. There is nothing black-boxed about the new system, and the artistic freedom it affords is endless.

Ocean Tools

New Infinite Ocean Architecture

The ability to layer wave spectra using point instanting lets artists create complex, realistic and seamless oceans with elegance and ease. No more tiling artefacts with Houdini 16’s truly infinite oceans. Art directability is paramount and individually modelled and animated hero waves now mix perfectly with existing spectra.

FLIP Fluids

Art Directable Fluid Simulations

Enhancements to FLIP Fluids include physically-correct surface tension for classic water-crowning shots. Art-directable ‘fluid suction’ uses objects – even deforming objects – to guide the fluid in a controllable fashion that enhances the aesthetic of the fluid dynamics. White water in Houdini 16 is all 3D particle-based which gives much richer, more natural results. For anything viscous, there is a new slip function which provides control over how the fluid interacts with the collision geometry.

A full list of features and improvements can be found on the What's New page. An extended overview is also available in the video below:

The technology behind Houdini is based on code from Prisms, a suite of 3D modeling applications originally owned and developed by Omnibus Computer Graphics. In 1987, Omnibus was the largest CG house on the planet, having just acquired competing firms Robert Abel and Associates as well as Digital Productions the year prior. However, due to financial difficulties, the company folded in May of 1987 and the rights for the Prism suite were bought by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic, founders of Side Effects Software (now referred to as SideFX).

What made Prism particularly attractive was that its features were programmed by SAGE (System for Algebra and Geometry Experimentation), meaning it could for example create complex reflections using procedural SOPs (Surface Operators). This particular emphasis on procedural animation is what distinguishes Houdini from competing products like Cinema 4D, Autodesk 3DS Max or Blender.

Houdini has been used in movies such as Avatar, or animations like Disney's Frozen and Zootopia, Blue Sky Studios' Rio and DNA Productions' Ant Bully.

SideFX offers its 3D animation and VFX package in a few versions:

• Houdini Apprentice - Free edition, non-commercial use, a render restriction of 1280x720 and a watermark
• Houdini Indie - $199 a year, for indie animators and developers making up to $100,000 annually, render restriction of 1920x1080. This annual license includes all upgrades.
• Houdini FX - starting at $4,495
• Houdini Core - starting at $1,495 (with a promotion until May 31, 2017)

Included in the price of Houdini Core and Houdini FX is the first year of the Annual Upgrade Plan, providing production-level support, as well as access to daily builds and all releases and updates.

Source: SideFX