Houdini 7 Houdini Master, the flagship product from Side Effects Software, is the ultimate tool for the creation of advanced visual effects. With capabilities spanning the entire production pipeline, Houdini Master delivers unparalleled possibilities and productivity to artists who wish to push the envelope of computer animation.
Modeling
The modeler provides the ultimate feel for artists using intuitive and extensible 3D handles, brushes (for painting, combing and deforming), and an unmatched toolbox of NURBS, Bézier and game-inspired polygonal tools.
This page will give you an idea of the key features of Houdini 7 and the system requirements of Houdini 7.
Take a look around.
Houdini also includes advanced channel editing capabilities, called CHOPs, that provide a level of control unique in the world of animation. Houdini's channel operations let you layer and blend motion then set triggers, lag and jiggle in a completely procedural environment. More than simply non-linear animation, working with channel operators has been particularly popular with visual effects artists looking for new ways of creating and controlling naturalistic motion.
Houdini provides a flexible and easy to use set of animation tools which support key-framed or expression-based animation. Animation channels can be grouped and nested, for quick scoping by animators. The channel list, channel graph, dope sheet, playbar, are just a few of the many ways to modify and manage your animation. The 2D flipbook can be used for blocking out a shot then modifying the timing of your the flipbook frames before exporting the new motion back to the 3D scene.
Houdini's character rigging tools are designed to provide the best experience for both riggers and animators throughout the production pipeline. Many of Houdini's character tools have been developed while in production on Hollywood feature films to specifically meet the needs of the most demanding riggers and animators. Houdini includes advanced tools for capturing geometry, painting weights and adding secondary animation.
Houdini includes a set of robust procedural modeling tools that work with a wide variety of geometry types including subdivision surfaces, polygons, NURBS, and Metaballs. By working procedurally, modelers can step back into a model's history and easily make revisions. Houdini's nodes can even be branched off to allow the exploration of an alternative modeling approach. Houdini is particularly good at creating clean geometry that renders and animates properly.
Houdini's lighting workflow provides a flexible and powerful environment for creating lights, building shaders and defining the look of a shot. Light and material shaders are created using Houdini's procedural node-based shader builder featuring dozens of shader operations. A rich assortment of supplied shaders can easily be applied or edited.
Houdini's UV Texturing tools provide complete control over the generation of UV maps for use in texturing props and characters. Use Houdini's procedural approach to quickly explore different UV mapping options and set them up as different texture layers if you need different maps for different types of textures.
Houdini's Mantra renderer is a state-of-the-art hybrid scan-line / ray-trace renderer that supports global illumination, and point cloud textures. Mantra is production proven on numerous films and provides users with a powerful alternative to their other renderers.
Houdini has a tightly integrated interface to Pixar's RenderMan© and RenderMan compliant renderers which includes a node-based RenderMan shader builder and RenderMan IPR support for fast test renders in the 3D viewing pane. Houdini also provides integrated support for mental ray™ and Entropy™. RenderPlus is included as part of Houdini Master and can be purchased as an add-on for Houdini Escape.
A robust procedural compositor that can stand-alone or work fully integrated with the 3D environment. It features dozens of 2D compositing and effects operations. With Houdini Master, compositing is integrated while Houdini Halo offers a stand-alone compositing environment.