Houdini Resources - Introduction
Quick links to resources on this site for Houdini users. Hover over an icon and click to go.
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Houdini is a software package produced by Side Effects Software. Side Effects has been in business since 1987 and is a Canadian company based in Toronto with an LA office in Santa Monica. Their core technology is procedural techniques and their software has been used in over 300 films. They have twice been awarded an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement. Houdini is their flagship product (very early versions called Prism).
What's New? Houdini 20.5 release notes
History of Major Version Changes
- 20.5 Karma XPU more stable, MPM (material point method) solver, recipes, car rig, APEX, wrinkle solver, clip with noise/fill, Copernicus and stamp points
- 20.0 Karma appeared in H18 but Karma XPU was beta; Crowds with MotionPaths (SOPs only)
- 19.5 Removal of the copy stamp node from the tab menu; SOP level fluids; Redshift standard material in RS Builder rather than RS material
- 19.0 Vellum fluids
Trend toward SOP level dynamics — to give more options for Houdini core users and convenience for quick FX.
- 17 Vellum solver (including SOP context); Position Based Dynamics; no more file node in geo container by default; playback controls on left not right
- 16 What's New in Houdini 16
mat
is now the shop interface for the material palette
shaders, where you can tab-create a "classic shader"
(previously mantra surface shader). There is a checkbox
on the shaders to use packed color. RBD static object is
now under the collisions tab. - 15.5 15.5.632 (Winter/Spring 2017) — H16 out February 2017
- 15 What's new in Houdini 15 (intro at SIGGRAPH 2015, released mid Oct) including crowds — renderositymagazine. Also, Houdini to Arnold (HtoA) and Houdini Indie were introduced at SIGGRAPH 2014.
- 15.0.244 (Winter/Spring 2016) Lava, Crowds, Animation tools, RIS support, much more
- 14.0.361 New in 14 (Fall 2015 — sand solver, start of crowd tools, excellent interface changes, animation improvements)
- 13.0.582 (Winter/Spring 2015) — H14 released Jan 15, 2015
- 13.0.476 New in 13.0.476 (Fall 2014)
- 13.0.237 New in 13.0.237 (Spring 2014). Also chek fxguide.