As promised, SideFX unveiled more details about the next major release of Houdini during its Keynote presentation on June 22. And judging by what was shown, there's far more in store than the preview initially suggested.

One of the biggest updates is a refreshed user interface. The layout has been redesigned to be cleaner, more modern, and easier to navigate, with new customization options and usability improvements that streamline everyday workflows.

Houdini 22 also delivers on its promise of native support for 3D Gaussian Splatting and controllable ML pipelines. If you're not familiar with it, 3DGS is a method for reconstructing real-world scenes from photographs or video footage. Instead of modeling objects with traditional geometry, it recreates them using millions of tiny ellipsoids placed in 3D space. This technology has been getting a lot more attention lately, and we've highlighted plenty of third-party plug-ins for DCC software that make use of it.

Other key updates in this release include Copernicus tools for texturing and generating Terrains and Ocean Spectrums. There are also new rigging, animation, retargeting, and motion mixing tools powered by KineFX and APEX, offering more procedural control throughout the character workflow, plus optimized hair, fur, and muscle physics. Solaris has been expanded with faster layout, set dressing, and more advanced scattering procedurals.

The release date hasn't been confirmed yet, but based on previous Houdini release patterns, we can expect it around mid-July.

If you want to make the most of the wait, you can explore seven free Houdini courses from The VFX Campus, an online VFX school:

Also, take a look at some of the recent cool Houdini projects we've featured, including MPM foam and lava sims and watercolor done in COPs:

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