Houdini 14 released

Houdini 14 released. With a new Position-Based Dynamics solver for granular simulation, new crowd pipeline tools, user interface enhancements and grooming tools for hair and fur, this release brings a better user experience, improved scalability and optimized performance to VFX artists, animators and game makers.

The new Position-Based Dynamics is a multi-physics environment ideally suited to the creation of wet and dry sand. Multi-threaded thanks to its exclusive reliance on VEX-based operators, the new solver can run on the CPU or on the GPU using OpenCL. In addition to sand effects, artists can create solids, sheets or tethers to generate soft body, cloth and wire-like simulations.

The new crowd system uses artist-friendly shelf tools along with a new packed agent primitive type, a Finite State Machine solver and hardware accelerated display of instanced crowds. The system has a seamless conduit to Houdini’s Mantra renderer 
and is equipped with controls for crowd layout, steering, collision avoidance, terrain adaptation, motion blending, and look-at targets.

This crowd pipeline is intended primarily for large, mid-to-background, non-interacting crowds executing basic motions and can seamlessly interact with dynamic elements such as Bullet, fluids and sand. This pipeline will be enhanced in future releases to support more complex agent interactions and AI for creating hero quality crowds.

With Houdini 14, a great deal of work has gone into user experience. From preselection highlighting to new handles, improved edge-loop selection, new UV Flatten and UV Layout tools with UDIM support, grooming tools for hair and fur, an advanced visualizer architecture, custom panels and much more, this release will make it easier for artists to work procedurally. Meanwhile, animators will appreciate the new faster Animation editor with Animation layers and significant speed improvements to the display and playback of rigs.

Houdini 14 can be downloaded from sidefx.com immediately with base Houdini available for as low as $1,995 and Houdini FX available for as low as $4,495. Both these prices include first year on the Annual Upgrade Plan which provides production-level support, and access to daily builds and dot releases. The limited commercial Houdini Indie is also available for $199 per year and the free Houdini Apprentice Edition is available for students and artists who want to explore Houdini’s new features.