I’m a long time cinema 4d user. Recently we got our mocap gear and found out that face robot is now included with SI. We also need a good solution for VFX work. So we are considering SI, and Houdini.
Does anyone have any objective opinions of Houdini vs. SI for creating vfx? We’d be doing mostly explosion, fire, fluids, rigid body dynamics work.
We are also interested in Renderman and i noticed that 3Delight has a renderman connection for SI. This would also work well with our C4d. Is the 3delight connection good? Hard to learn? Stable? Does it render everything in SI?
For gasseous fluids XSI does well, and ICE is pretty strong and versatile in a number of fields, but if you need those AND fire AND explosions, it’s quite simple: nothing will really beat houdini, particularly not after the patch-ons of the last couple versions. As simple as that.
You will have to fork out thrice the cash per seat though, and face a relatively steep learning curve that tends to reward the most those who are fairly technical and well clued in the basics of 3D. Even if it got easier it’s still not the superfast sand-box hat ICE can be in most cases, but at present time it does more, even if not always as fast.
We are also interested in Renderman and i noticed that 3Delight has a renderman connection for SI. This would also work well with our C4d. Is the 3delight connection good? Hard to learn? Stable? Does it render everything in SI?
Easy and stable, yes, good definitely, render everything… mostly.
Renders all primitives and object types I can think of, but haven’t tried in a while and not with ICE strands, but given DNASoft’s response time if you become a client requests normally get addressed pretty quickly if and when you need something to get a production done, days to weeks most of the time unless it’s something really big and involved.
I suspect you will have a hard time after years of Cinema4D experience in Houdini. which still, after many changes, is not as “slick” as most other (user-friendly) softwares and can be irritating slow and unintuitive compared to SI.
On the other hand, ICE besides its power, is still not a totality of Houdini’s environment - which is specially suited for visual effects, with dozens of pipeline tools, built-in renderman support, brilliant and perhaps the best publicly available volumetric renderer, Mantra, which you get with unlimited render tokens with a single license of Houdini. Houdini has also many secret treasures like chops, rendering backend, vex in compositing and such.
The more hand-craft work you will make, the more SI can propose to you. Specially if you’re not a control geek, but looking for an artistic experience (whatever it means).
Houdini gives you problem solving, and plenty room for customization, pipeline management, and rendering freedom for those brave souls not frightened by vex (mantra’s rsl). Houdini has also excellent support for Linux, what can’t be said about SI, but Cimena4D user isn’t very interested in it, is he?
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