The following day, on June 19th, the annual Houdini HIVE Paris event gathered industry professionals who had the opportunity to explore the latest features in the upcoming Houdini 20.5. This event showcased new and enhanced tools designed to meet the most demanding production requirements. The rich program of presentations included use cases from the latest release and featured technical talks.
The presentations that stood out to our FX team were:
Don’t Run from COPs | Nikola Damjanov
Nikola Damjanov, an experienced generalist 3D artist, currently working as a lead game artist at Nordeus, presented a demonstration of the new procedural texture generation features in the latest version of Copernicus. He showcased how to utilize and fully exploit these capabilities to unlock a wealth of creative possibilities. This demonstration hinted at the potential for Copernicus, seamlessly integrating directly into Houdini.
Pillow Talk | Fianna Wong
Fianna Wong, Technical Marketing Lead at SideFX, explored several of the new modeling features in Houdini 20.5, including the new wrinkle deformer, planar inflate, sculpt brushes, and a variety of procedural textures in COPs. She demonstrated how to create a cushion or pillow with just a few clicks and transform it into a prefab asset for reuse in various contexts.
Every Node, Everywhere, all in LOPS | Rob Pieké
Rob Pieké is a Senior Software developer at SideFX, working on Solaris for the last three years. He provided a comprehensive overview of the new features in Houdini 20.5, with a particular focus on the LOP context, Karma, the new viewport, Stage Manager, Component Builder, Light Instances, Karma Physical Sky, Karma Lens, Quick Surface Material, and more. His detailed presentation highlighted the powerful enhancements and tools that make Houdini 20.5 a significant upgrade for users.
Baking Recipes | Attila Torok
Attila Torok, FX TD at SideFX, introduced the new concept of « Recipes. » His presentation detailed practical solutions to simplify and enhance workflows, showcasing how « Recipes » can streamline processes and boost productivity in Houdini 20.5.
Why Animators will Love Houdini! | Magnus Møller & Jesper Andkjæ
You don’t need to be an expert in Houdini to animate effectively!
Tumblehead’s Magnus Moller and Jesper Andkjae demonstrated how to go from a model to a fully rigged animation and then to the final animation in their short film « Turbulence, » using KineFX with Apex. Coming from an animation background in Maya, they shared insights on how easily they adapted to Houdini’s workflow and highlighted the many advantages of a procedural workflow.