SideFX Houdini FX   introduces powerful new physical simulation tools such as the Vellum multi-solver for fast cloth, a new organic white water solver, and material-based destruction workflows. In addition, significant enhancements can be found in Houdini’s interactive modeling and procedural UV tools, erosion models for terrain, character rigging and animation, a brand new 3ds Max plug-in for Houdini Engine, and much more. 

Fast Cloth

The new VELLUM cloth solver is OpenCL accelerated and easy to set up and control.

This XPBD inspired solver supports multi-layered, paneled, and draped cloth and includes dynamic constraints for stitching, branching, and tearing.

A Simple Cloth tool lets Houdini Core users set up a simulation using cloth, collision geo and gravity, and wind forces.

GROOMING

Including VELLUM Hair & Fur

Grooming hair in the viewport is significantly faster providing a better workflow for artists. These tools incorporate the Vellum hair solver for fast simulation and there are new shelf tools for generating Hair cards for gamers.

MATERIAL-BASED

DESTRUCTION FX

Material-based Destruction Tools make it easier to set up and art direct destruction shots by providing tools for pre-fracturing materials such as concrete, glass and wood while automatically building constraint networks that tie the whole system together.

WHITE WATER

FLUID SOLVER

The White Water Solver has been rewritten to achieve a more organic, foamy, look with realistic cellular patterns and repellant forces and a more accurate relationship to the source FLIP sim. 

PYRO FX

Sourcing and Retiming

Houdini can now use OpenVDB as a Pyro FX source providing a more efficient and flexible solution that makes it easier to create the right look for your fire and smoke. Retime is a powerful tool for stretching out or slowing down fluid sims, RBD sims and volumes with effective interpolation and blend options for creating clean results.

INTERACTIVE

Modeling 

Interactive Modeling includes a new PolyDraw tool which lets you use interactive “Topo Build” tools anywhere in your scene, free from dense reference geometry; fast construction plane alignment and positioning; rotation snapping; view and construction plane memories; and new geometry alignment tools.

TERRAIN

Advanced Erosion and Hierarchical Scattering

Terrain now includes advanced erosion tools with more control over details such as fluvial lines, river banks, and debris and new hierarchical scattering for more efficient placement of elements into landscapes.

CHARACTER

New Timeline, Keyframe Workflow
and Facial Autorigging Tools

Character Animation & Rigging has been improved with a newly designed Timeline (i.e. play bar) that supports a more animator-friendly keyframe workflow and facial auto-rigging tools for a complete top-to-bottom auto-rigging solution.

HOUDINI ENGINE PLUG-INS

3ds Max    |    Maya    |     Unity    |     UE4

Houdini Engine is now more versatile with a brand new 3ds Max plug-in that integrates with the host application's stack interface, and a Unity plug-in 2.0 that works with prefabs, packed primitives and Houdini's Terrain tools. There have also been important enhancements to the Maya and UE4 plug-ins. 

GAMEDEV

PRODUCTION TOOLS

The list of GameDev shelf tools continues to grow while incorporating new Houdini 18 features into how they work.  Meanwhile,  GLTF Import and Export was added to provide an efficient, interoperable asset delivery format that compresses the size of 3D scenes and minimizes runtime processing.

Download SideFX Houdini FX v18.5.596 Win x64 [ Updated ]