HoudiniI 16.5: New Hair & Fur, Narrow Band Fluid Sims, Polyreduce
SideFX has just released Houdini 16.5. The updates a variety of new features and improvements in VFX, modeling, rendering and UI.
SideFX has just released the newest version of its powerful package – Houdini 16.5. The updates a variety of new features and improvements in VFX, modeling, rendering, and UI.
“The SideFX R&D team has been packing a ton of new features and enhancements into Houdini and whether you’re using Houdini for film, TV, advertising, motion graphics, games, or something else – there’s a feature in there for everyone. I actually think of 16.5 as a full release, masquerading as a dot release.”
Kim Davidson, President and CEO, SideFX
For film, TV, advertising and motion graphics artists, the top new features and enhancements include:
- Narrow band fluids – ⅓ memory usage and 3X speed (compared to full band)
- Air incompressibility – for accurate bubble behaviour
- Optical flow – use 2D or 3D sources to drive any type of Houdini simulation
- Simulated muscle and flesh – point deform & FEM
- Crowds with partial ragdolls and quadruped support
- Grooming enhancements – flexible grooming, faster controls, and artist-friendly tools
For videogame developers and artists, the top new features and enhancements include:
- PolyReduce – improved reduction algorithm, preserve quads, reduction based on texture maps, geometry silhouettes or any other attributes
- UV layout – insanely tight packing
- Terrain – smoothly transplant a feature from one height field into another
- Rounded-edge rendering – generates beveled edge at render time, output to texture maps – rounded edge can also double as a mask for dirt maps
You can check the full links of Houdini 16.5 features over at the official website.
Pricing
Houdini Core and Houdini FX – Houdini 16.5 can be downloaded from SideFX.com immediately with Houdini Core available for $1,995 USD and Houdini FX available for $4,495 USD. These prices include first year on the Annual Upgrade Plan.
Houdini Indie – Houdini Indie is also available for $199 USD per year. This version offers limited commercial usage for indie gamers and animators making up to $100K USD per year and cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini.
FREE Houdini Apprentice – For students and artists, SideFX has a free Houdini Apprentice Edition which allows non-commercial usage with a render restriction of 1280×720 and a watermark.
