eikonoklastes

A more progressed version, rendered with Karma.

I've been following this excellent thread for a while now, but haven't had the opportunity to do it justice. I was able to get decent results using a fairly simple method. It basically involves creating a reference cone that is easy to UV map, and then transferring those UVs to the actual cone, modeled from the circular grid.

I'm not sure what's happening here because I didn't read your node graph, but it appears to be a colour-driven extrusion, along with a sphere to control the mask

Here's Houdini's take on a Sine curve: 1BVxZBJLxc.mp4 It's the same thing, as you'd expect, with a couple of extra nodes in there to build the UI.

I'm a bit confused about what this topic is actually about. If we're comparing what each app is capable of outputting, then that is not necessarily dependent on whether it uses nodes or not. In fact, nodes are not even a requirement for an app to be procedural. Nodes just carry data, and serve some specific purpose. For me, the main advantage of using nodes is scene-readability. I used to create procedural stuff in Cinema 4D, and when I'd open the same scene two weeks later, it'd take me ages to decipher what it was that I had actually done. C4D, prior to Scene Nodes, offered no visualisation of how your data was flowing. In Houdini, regardless of how complex a structure I have made, all I need to do is go through the nodes, top-to-bottom, and in 5 minutes I know exactly what it was that I did. There are other things to be said about node-based workflows, and if we're going to compare nodes between apps, I think we need to compare the implementation of these nodes and how easy the workflow is. XPresso was hands down the worst node UX for me. It was shockingly bad in how it required you to interact with it. Houdini, on the other hand, has by far the best workflow for nodes I've ever used. The UX for it is sublime, just packed to the gills with endless little helpful usability features that make things easier for the user. I haven't tried Blender, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't much closer to Houdini than Xpresso in usability. I've read some not-so-good things about C4D's SN workflow though, so that isn't inspiring too much confidence right now.

SideFX has never developed a C4D plugin for Houdini Engine. Their official list is 3ds max, Maya, Unreal Engine and Unity. They provide the API for other apps to roll their own. I remember there being a C4D plugin for H16, but I stopped tracking that for a while now.

You buy a new Indie license after the previous one expires, no limit to how many times you can re-up. Of course, if things take off, and you hopefully start rolling in it, you'll need to buy the FX license. HIP files are Houdini project files. LC is Limited Commercial (Indie). NC is Non-Commercial (Apprentice). HDA files are Houdini Digital Assets - what Capsules in C4D are aspiring to be. The main difference I guess is that HDAs can also be implemented in other apps via Houdini Engine. I don't think SideFX is interested in users upgrading from Indie to FX. They understand that those serve very different markets. What they want to avoid is large studios offshoring their work to Indie users and still having access to the output, which is why the limitation exists in that direction.

SideFX has dramatically improved the accessibility of the software in the last couple of releases, not just with the software itself, but also the availability of online learning material and resources. Unfortunately, a lot of the 3rd party material has not adapted to it quickly enough, and you'll still see them using scripting/coding to accomplish what can now be done with factory-shipped tools. When I joined at v17, pretty much every single scene of mine had some VEX in it (VEX being Houdini's in-built coding language). Now, I almost never have to use VEX. I'll still use it because I've learned it, and typing one or two lines of basic code can be quicker (for me) than dropping down a node and setting parameters on it, but my preferred approach is to only use it when absolutely necessary - and it hasn't been absolutely necessary in most common use-cases for a while now. Just a few minutes ago, a user on the Houdini Discord was struggling with a tutorial that was advising using VEX, when, in fact, the setup was exceedingly basic and could be sorted with just 3 in-built nodes, and zero coding. Now, having said all that, Houdini is not there yet in terms of absolute ease of use, certainly not in comparison with C4D. There is still a learning curve as it does a few things its own way, and some tools are just straight up for advanced users (like the fluid solver, for e.g.) Still, the pace at which SideFX is making these tools easier to use is astonishing, the community is growing, and the resources are expanding, so it's a great time to get on board and make some cool sh...stuff.

@MJV Here is the official comparison: Compare | SideFX

It's an annual license. You pay upfront and you use the license for 12 months, all upgrades included. It does not renew (yet), you have to purchase a new license after it expires. There is no cancelling - once you buy it, it's yours for 1 year. There are two ways to license it - locally and online. If you do it locally, you have a fixed number of licenses you can install, after which you have to return one and reinstall it elsewhere. There is a limit on how many times you can return a license, after which you're stuck with the machine you installed on. They recently started a more flexible way, that uses an online server for the licensing, where you can sign in to any machine and up to two machines simultaneously. If you sign in on a third, one of the other machines will lose the license. There is no limit to how many times you can sign in and move your license around this way. Indie files are not usable on the pro (FX) version. You can open files from FX in Indie, but not vice-versa. You can't even copy nodes from Indie into FX. The FX session will downgrade to Indie if you attempt to do so.

Off to a great start. Keep 'em coming. Just a couple of comments from my side: - When SideFX do their demo videos, they usually use the default layout. This is to ensure that new users are not confused about where things are can follow along more easily without having to do an initial UI layout to match the demos. Houdini does have a Modeling UI preset, so maybe it's worth starting off with the default startup layout, and then switching to that layout so that new users have a path to where you reached. You can then proceed to further customise that layout by collapsing panels you don't want to see (like the timeline - not sure why that's visible in the modeling UI layout). - You mentioned about being careful with changing divisions upstream that will upset the selection groups. It would have been worthwhile to mention that the selection groups themselves can be procedural, which can allow you to change divisions, and still keep things working as expected downstream. Since this is a direct modeling tutorial, I guess that sort of setup is not necessary, but for newcomers it might be good-to-know information, since it does separate Houdini from the rest. That's it really. Looking forward to the next one!

Honestly, the actual features look pretty good. The UI, as always, looks very slick and modern, the Capsules, particularly look extremely promising as a long-term feature that will greatly extend C4D's capabilities. Both are extremely time-consuming features to implement, so I can see why, on an accelerated release schedule, you would only have a couple of these. Robust spline import is always a welcome feature, but hardly a major addition, but still, nice to have. I guess the major issue is why prioritise the freaking UI? That would have been likely last on my list of things to tweak with in C4D. It already had a very good UI, and given what an enormous task rehauling a major app's UI is, why on Earth expend resources in that direction? Anyhow, on a positive note, I am excited to see where Scene Nodes and Capsules are headed.

As next steps, you can use TOPs/PDG to generate a contact sheet of your variations for reviewing: https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/pdg-for-design-work-pt-1-the-basics/ Side note: how the heck to like a post here? I'm, pretty sure I did it before, but I can't find the button any more.

Not just generate any number of pieces, but the real beauty is in the astonishing level of control it gives you to craft exactly the look you want over those pieces. It allows you to vary any parameter of any incoming geometry that you are looking to copy, and have extremely precise control over those variations. Also, if you need to target any specific piece or group of pieces for extra special attention, you can do that without having to break your chain, keeping everything procedural, always.

Looking good. Remember there's a Building Generator tool that ships with Labs, maybe dive into that to see what they're doing: https://www.sidefx.com/tutorials/building-generator/

You guys are absolutely rocking it. Really interesting stuff. Here's a quick, semi-random tip: If you're doing preview renders with Mantra, they have a really nice Click to Prioritize option, where if you hold down the left mouse button, it will focus the rendering only in that area. You can also enable Sticky Priority, so you can click to set the rendering area to focus on. Really handy way to quickly resolve areas of interest without having to wait for the whole frame to update. I wish all other renderers had this feature. Didn't realise my replies would get merged. Just adding this line for the topic separation. @Igor: Looking very cool. The nib looks a bit too flat. Does it have any thickness? You can try Labs Thicken to bulk it up.

If anyone is on Indie or above, I highly recommend taking a look at the 3Delight renderer. Mantra is fantastic with its feature support, but it is slow as hell. 3Delight is entirely free to download and use for up to 12 cores, and produces beautiful images, along with being extremely speedy, especially with volumes. It also has built-in cloud rendering that's quite cheap and easy to set up and use. I don't work for them, although I do realise that I sound like an advertisement. It's just a great renderer to use, and entirely free if you just want to try it out.

Hello. The bump issue has been addressed by Igor earlier (your value is far too high). Bring it down to something like 0.01 and it should work. A couple of things to note about your scene: 1. You can MMB hold over any node to get a quick readout of its size. I mention that because your scale is likely way off. Houdini units are in meters, so your vase is currently 30 meters tall. Not that you can't do that, but you generally want to watch your scale from the outset - fewer gotchas down the line. 2. If you just want to bevel the lip, PolyBevel can do this automatically, without you having to make a selection. In the PolyBevel, delete your Group entry field, expand the Exclusions rollout, and enable Ignore Flat Edges. Then turn up the angle until it only bevels the sharpest angles. 3. Resample, by default, doesn't work like a Subdivide. It will add points to segments, while preserving the original shape of the curve. So, if you start with a faceted curve, you will resample to more points, but still end up with a faceted curve. There is a setting you can change on the resample to subdivide and smooth (Treat Polygons As: Subdivision Curves), or you can just use a Subdivide SOP.

Yeah, that'd be sweet. The most popular Houdini Discord is Think Procedural, but always nice to have a smaller group to chat with.

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I've been a Cinema 4D user for over 10 years, and then transitioned to Houdini the last couple of years now, after I ran into some bottlenecks in C4D. I'm by no means a master of either software, but having made the jump myself, I'd be happy to help anyone looking to do the same, and looking to replicate certain C4D tasks in Houdini, in the easiest way possible. My main focus is on motion graphics and archvis procedural modeling, but I also do the odd sim now and then. Houdini is freaking awesome, and for the work I do, it blew C4D out of the water in terms of features and performance (and since I used Indie, price as well).