User Guide > Whats New

What's New in Houdini 6


Houdini Version 6 offers a number of key new features and workflows that are focused on increasing productivity for both animators and technical directors. These new features include the ability to create, publish and manage digital assets in existing production environments, enhanced character animation tools, global illumination rendering, interactive light and camera controls, and an embedded help browser.

An overview of each of these new features is available in the following categories:

Interface
Digital Assets
Animation
Characters
Lighting
Compositing
Particles

Click here for a list of additional Houdini 6 Features.


Interface

Integrated help browser - Version 6 gives Houdini users access to online learning material and help from directly within Houdini. Any pane can be set up as a browser that supports not only html reference help but also hscript commands that can actually run Houdini. This capability makes it possible to publish interactive tutorials while also providing a framework for technical directors and writers to produce in-house documentation and browser-driven scripts in support of production pipelines.

Pane-based menus - The new pane menus consolidate all the toolbars, control bars, and pop-up menus into one place for easy access and learning.

Network pane workflow - Houdini's procedural workflow is network-based and enhancements such as the ability to import a background image, node layout tools, and node connector pop-up menus help improve the artists ability to work effectively.

Tree-style network browser - The tree browser dive into Houdini networks and select specific operators without worrying about how they are connected. This toll combined with the network view give you easy access to complex networks.

Custom heads-up display [HUD] sliders - Parameters can now be set up as heads-up display sliders in the view pane. These sliders can be sized to suit your layout and several can be docked together and controlled as one. Keyframes can also be specifically set for the active sliders which makes it easier to animate a scene.

Interactive Camera Handles - Cameras now have interactive handles for controlling parameters such as eye-point position, look-at position, and frustrum. You can also use the new handles to interactively view those objects that lie within the cameras frustrum and/or area of focus.

Interactive Light Handles - Lights now have interactive handles for controling parameters such as light position, look-at position, and cone angle. These handles make setting up lights much easier.


Digital Assets

Digital Assets - In Version 6, Houdini users can now create and manage digital assets that encapsulate geometry, characters, shaders, animation, and effects into shareable entities. Technical Directors can now work on the a high level interface that gives animators and effects artists access to key parameters.

Digital Assets are managed using special libraries called Operator Type Libraries. These libraries include an object referencing capability that allows assets to be stored and updated in a central location. Changes would automatically be reflected in every scene that uses the asset.

Networks within Networks - Now, network types, such as SOPS (geometry), POPs (particles), and SHOPS (shaders) can be placed directly within other network types. This makes it easier to package up and define an asset that can be re-used or shared with colleagues.


Animation

Hotkey keyframe workflow - Using a hotkey-based workflow Houdini users can now rapidly keyframe objects and characters. Either all the parameters are associated with an active handle or channels scoped from different parts of a scene can be used. Channel groups give you quick access to scoping channels as needed.


Characters

FK/IK switching - Bone chains now contain a new handle that makes it easy to blend from Inverse Kinematics to No Kinematics and back. This allows one skeleton to easily use both kinematic solutions when they are called for to solve specific animation scenarios.

Dynamic Parenting - The Dynamic Parenting tool makes it easy for characters to pick up, put down and pass objects between themselves. Add a time interval and characters can easily toss objects back and forth. This tool works behind the scene adding null objects, blend operators, and keyframes as needed to speed up workflow when dealing with objects that need to be passed around.

Capture Weight Blending - When a character has been rigged and a little more control is needed, capture weight blending will make it possible to add new bones and have the new capture blended with the existing setup. This makes it easier to step forward without having to undo the hard work completed so far.

Kinematic override - All Kinematics can now be disabled in order to allow for the editing of rest positions for the bones. This offers more flexibility while setting up a character.


Lighting

Global Illumination - Global Illumination creates more realistic renderings by simulating the way light inter-reflects within a scene. It also allows for caustic effects that accurately render the light cast from reflective and refractive objects.

Area lights - Area lights can now be defined to create more realistic soft shadows within a scene.


Compositing

Project Manager - Compositors can now set project globals that will influence parameters on compositing operators when they are created. These values can be updated or you can choose to override them on an operator by operator basis.

Single/Multiple view toggle - When viewing multiple compositing operators in the viewer, you can toggle to a single view where each operator is dropped into a tab at the bottom of the screen.


Particle Tools

Particle sliding - When particles collide with a surface they can be set up to begin sliding along the surface then drop off with gravity. Particles can even slide off one object onto another with control over the "clinginess" of the particles on each object.


Click here for a list of additional Houdini 6 Features.


 

 

 

 

 

 

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