Houdini Apprentice

WendyLuvsCatz

I do not know how to do a damned thing in Houdini Apprentrice yet
but
it imports Carrara rigging via FBX fully animated and textured!!
got 3dage's creature in no worries!
now I have to figure out how to render in the blighter and run those fluid sims!!!

just a heads up to other Carraraites!!
free for personal use and there is a poor Artists full HD unwatermarked non-commercial version for a hundred bucks
if I ever figure it out, I might even buy that!

the xon

Houdini totally rocks,that node workflow gives u unprecedented power

3DLust

Wendy, don't make me buy more software! I still need to learn to use the stuff I have!

(opening tab to see houdini and download.... ahhhhhhh!)

:coolcheese:

WendyLuvsCatz

I cannot figure out how to render in it!
never gets past frame 1 or even does frame1, yet another interupt and retry, let it go for hours!!
my settings must be wrong

WendyLuvsCatz

I have tried everything in that output pictue btw, says jpg in my image but used the $HIP/$F4.tif for the several hour render that went nowhere!

3DLust

What is that 'Render with Take' setting?

WendyLuvsCatz

no idea, just tried the step by step instructions in side effects website, it is all very confusing
might have to join their forum, may search it first to see if others have asked, surely they have!

bigh

told you it was a pain to learn - thats why I quit

3DLust

Ah, okay - I did download the program, but I haven't installed yet - busy playing with C8.5 hair :)

vbk3

Hi

Before to try to render fbx import maybe could you try to render simple sphere or grid mesh to check if it works or not.
you could try to use absolute path instead of $HIP variable.

@3dlust :
the"take" feature is a scene within scene feature in Houdini. There is no need to use it to render anything.

++
Vincent

WendyLuvsCatz

Working now!
I was running Carrara6pro which changed my screen from Aero whatever to basic after a restart and back in full resolution it now works.

Woolyloach

Congrats! I've thought about buying Houdini "Starving Artist" but trying to learn the free version gave me a terminal headache. Blender is easier to understand! And I'm a programmer, too... urgh.

Keep at it!

WendyLuvsCatz

starving!!! lol! I said poor by mistake, starving is kinda an extreme description for someone who cannot afford $10 000 for a program!!!
cool how the nla clip animation works too, does not need to be keyfames but apparently no morphs via FBX.

WendyLuvsCatz

Houdini render continues to confuse
before clicking that film reel brought up a window saying I did not have a valid license for whatever
now it brings up a render window where I can save to file after watching the render happen
no consistancy why a render works or does not

vbk3

I think Woolyloach talk about the 99$ apprentice HD version ...
99$ for 99% of the features. It's more than nice to me.

Wendy,

It's one of the limit of the apprentice edition : you can only run one instance of mantra at a time.
if you want to render on disk or in mplay, take care to STOP you interactive render first and any other render running.
hope it helps.

Question about fbx :
it seems fbx export animation bones and skin
what about the camera ? Is it the same as in Carrrara ? I means if you render something UNDEFORMED in the 2 apps with exported camera, are the renders EXACTLY the same ?

++
Vincent

WendyLuvsCatz

not tried bringing a camera in.
yeah the render limit explains possibly what is happening, I might inadvertantly have more than one enabled as I am clueless otherwise.

robertjmagee

Glad to hear you are tinkering with Houdini and that FBX is working well between your apps. There are some new "First Steps" lessons about Houdini basics on the sidefx.com website:

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=202&Itemid=361

The Rendering lessons may help you get started. If you have any other questions then please let me know. It is strange that the rendering is giving you so many issues. Like any app getting started can be a challenge but Houdini is well worth the effort (and Houdini jobs are out there for the taking which is good for all).

Robert

djmulcahy

I absolutely love DAZ content, but I've been a little less than impressed with its animation software... neither DS or Carrara are strong, well supported packages.

Is Houdini an option if I'm looking for strong animation software while using DAZ content, without a whole lot of trouble?

Meaning... I can import stuff into Blender, obviously, but it's a mess of re-rigging and playing with textures and simply isn't worth it.

How about Genesis? Can I fashion a character in DS and use it easily in Houdini?

chikako_8af55a8a68

djmulcahy said:

I absolutely love DAZ content, but I've been a little less than impressed with its animation software... neither DS or Carrara are strong, well supported packages.

Is Houdini an option if I'm looking for strong animation software while using DAZ content, without a whole lot of trouble?

Meaning... I can import stuff into Blender, obviously, but it's a mess of re-rigging and playing with textures and simply isn't worth it.

How about Genesis? Can I fashion a character in DS and use it easily in Houdini?

Carrara is well supported, but maybe animation not its long suit.

Poser does have PoserFusion, and PoserFusion is implemented in a few software packages on the market, and these allow importing of animated Poser / DS content.

WendyLuvsCatz

Reallusion iClone and 3dxchange 5 pro may be your best animation option.
already imports and retargets Genesis easily, facial animation for Genesis in iClone is coming, not there yet.
I use Carrara mostly myself but iClone is probably the easiest animation program to use and the fastest.
and it also imports Carrara rigging through 3dxchange.

I cannot say Houdini strikes me as easy, FBX import is limiting in any program,
Carrara natively imports Poser content, the beta is needed for Genesis, a work in progress but not bad.

djmulcahy

I've used iClone a bunch. I enjoy its ease of use, but it's pretty bare when compared to other packages.

And I'm not really looking for "easy." I use Blender a lot, and that's not really easy.

But I like animating, not rigging and modelling and everything else associated with it. So ideally I'd like a powerful animation package that I can "easily" import DAZ (and Poser) content into. I've been waiting for Carrara 8.5 for what seems like a year now, and I'm looking for other alternatives. Blender is awesome, but, as I said, importing DAZ content is a pain, at best.

I haven't played with it yet, but I was under the impression that 3Dexchange 5 imported DAZ models, but at a very, very low detail level, and without the ability to do some basics, such as facial animation. So they could be used, for instance, as background models but wouldn't be good for any up close, detailed animations. No?

Didn't mean to hijack the thread. :)

I just saw the DAZ figure in the Houdini clip and thought maybe this would solve some of my problems!

WendyLuvsCatz

well I am actually beta testing 3dx5 pipeline but cannot say too much on that yet.
Genesis imports quite well into iClone if you reduce texture sizes which you can do in 3dx5 too.
it will use all of iClone's motions after conversion.
the facial animation has been promised as a free upgrade, I am waiting excitedly but do not know yet how good it will be.

Carrara is VERY easy for animation due to the detailed timeline where you can modify keyframes moving induvidual ones, use tweaning tools such as oscillate, biezier etc etc you can do tracking etc with target helpers all sort of cool things,
and easy to bone and rig ANYTHING too!
(and as I said Carrara rigging imports into iClone via 3dxchange!!)
you just create a bone hierachy or use an imported BVH select it and any object lined up, go to animation and attach skeleton
no seperate domains on mesh, nothing!
too easy
rendertimes are my main issue but it runs rings around studio and Poser's rendertimes
this is where iClone comes in!!!

WendyLuvsCatz

I had not actually tried a Daz figure in Houdini yet.
was a Carrara and iClone figure in each case.
have now from studio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6RJzCs81E
needs retexturing

Kevin Sanderson

Houdini can do fantastic things but my head hurts every time I try to follow their training videos. It's a lot of steps to to do things which is great if you need to make changes and tweaks for directors, but for individual artists, I don't know. It's great that FBX export is working right again in Carrara. But Houdini is harder to get your head around when you're tired like I am when I get time to work on CG.

I was looking at the possibility of using Blender myself, but it again becomes a problem of getting DAZ and Poser content into it. I think much of what I want to do is possible in Carrara. I just wish we had more brainy people around figuring out how to do things in it to make life easier for the rest of us. The Carrara animation tools really are pretty good and are more traditional than the good aniMate tool for DAZ Studio (the full one, not the lite version) though it has some neat features, too. Puppeteer can get you some good starter animations going between poses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtFnC1a-pPY