Procedural workflow for Houdini. (product spotlight).(Product Announcement)

The biggest change for Houdini, Side Effects Software's modeling and animation software, is a redesigned interface and workflow system. The new workflow will offer users of Version 5 the opportunity to combine the interactivity of traditional modeling with the flexibility of the procedural modeling capabilities that have been the product's hallmark. The new Houdini also comes with a large set of character animation tools, a new compositor that allows for an integrated 2D/3D environment, a new texture editor, and improved rendering tools, including volumetric rendering.

"Interactive work has been hugely accelerated in Houdini 5," says Jason Iversen, a technical director at special effects studio Digital Domain and aversion 5 beta user. "We can now do modeling and modeling tweaks and adjustments at the artist's end--as opposed to the modeler's end--much more easily. Rendering also has quality improvements, and features like the 3D images [volumetric] texture format will help us do effects like clouds, smoke, and ...