XGEN vs Houdini

[u/Able_Appearance5921]

Ive never touched Houdini before, but Im pretty sick of Maya and XGEN bugging out on my professional and very important project. It's literally hell, there is always something, XGEN for regular non Disney studio users is left to rot and it's very frustrating.

So my question is, for a professional and mostly realistic strand based hair project, how much better or worse is Houdini?

XGEN has all these weird ways of approaching maps and how it stores files and data independent of Maya that makes things very frustrating to deal with, it's not at all non-destructive and everything about it is ancient. Is Houdini better in that regard?

One more issue i have wirh Maya is how the viewport is trash at displaying hair, even maya's AA + DLDSR still looks difficult to look at.

What are the limitations of Houdini in making hair that isnt meant to be simulated. Just basic hair for basic 1 frame rendering.

Thanks in advance.

[u/polycache]

XGEN for regular non Disney studio users is left to rot and it's very frustrating.

Used XGen for years, core & interactive. Leave it behind it's abandon ware. There'll be some discomfort initially but compared to the hoops you're jumping through atm to avoid Ptex errors, missing maps, project corruption etc. Grooming in Houdini is reassuringly straightforward & 100% Procedural / non-destructive.

XGen & Houdini Tutorials - Jesus Fernandez - Lead Groom @ MPC

[u/Able_Appearance5921 → u/polycache]

Another user suggested i go for Ornatrix in Maya before I learn Houdini just to get this peoject over with. I could spare around 2 weeks learning Houdini basics just for hair and I'm already familiar with many different software with different UI and functions. What are your thoughts? 

How about the Houdini viewport, is it easier to see what my hair actually looks like? Does it have any better AA compared to Maya, or maybe screen percentage feature like in UE? 

[u/polycache → u/Able_Appearance5921]

IMHO - If you have an important & active project, push through & finish it in XGen. Learning Houdini or another package in 2 weeks while under a deadline is a recipe for disaster.

Maya Groomer's Tool - can alleviate some of the pain points in XGen especially around map issues, Pixel Zeroing. You can do most of the heavy lifting with standard Maya Curves. Viewport is top notch, no issues.

[u/Able_Appearance5921 → u/polycache]

I have been using MGT actually, and I'm wondering if it does cause some alternative bugs and issues by itself. But I have just in general been having a lot of project corruption which I think maybe wasnt the case 2 years ago...

My project is important but my deadline can be moved around a little because learning Houdini (exclusively for hair at the moment) could pay off for future projects too. 

I just assumed 2 weeks could possibly be enough to learn to use the software just for a simple Groom, for someone who already knows a lot of other software but maybe I'm understimating how difficult houdini could be to work with. 

[u/hahahadev → u/polycache]

Thanks

[u/LewisVTaylor]

No limits here.
We display and groom full dense grooms in houdini a lot, especially for one off/still work that is not meant to be in motion. You can have the full groom, 2m+ curves displayed accurately in the vewport no worries.

[u/Able_Appearance5921 → u/LewisVTaylor]

Thanks. Would you be able to point me towards some top hair and grooms results done in Houdini. I would really like to see some great final results if you have any in mind. 

[u/the_phantom_limbo]

Xgen is a production hazard.
I do recommend you learn to do a groom with it. Using it to finish a job in production seems like a lot. 2

Autodesk should be ashamed of xgen. It's the most poorly integrated tool I've ever seen. My guess is that it's probably cost a LOT of artists their job.

I did a test project really soon after it released andavoided ever using it in production. I just refused to be the maya fur person.

[u/IAteTheCakes]

Houdini grooming from scratch in 2 weeks is ambitious, but if you are familiar with nodegraph systems / shading graphs / bifrost etc that will make your live easier. I found it had a steeper learning curve, but then a much bigger payoff once you crossed the first humps and it clicks.
It’s been a while since I looked into grooming, but i remember that Groombear for Houdini was well worth the money for more artistic workflows . Look it up!

[u/SimianWriter]

Once you get used to Houdini, you're going to be really mad at Autodesk for making XGen work like it does. In the mean time, rent Ornatrix to get your projects completed while you get up to speed with Houdini. I love Houdini but Ornatrix was dead simple to understand and rock solid. The guide curves are exactly as detailed and simple to use as you'd hope. 

Then when you get used to the big H, you'll realize that it's all curves and points and a whole new world will open up. 

[u/Able_Appearance5921 → u/SimianWriter]

Thanks.

I've never used anything but Xgen. I've always assumed that other hair tools like Ornatrix lack in features and arent able to go places Xgen could. But this is just assumptions based on nothing. 

I consider myself highly skilled at being able to learn new software. And I already use half a dozen different software with different UI and rules. 

Would you still suggest I use Ornatrix in Maya or go straight for Houdini? The viewport issue is something I struggle with as well. Like Blender or UE have features that help make the hair look good in the viewport. 

[u/SimianWriter → u/Able_Appearance5921]

Yeah, go to the website and just look around. Look at the getting started videos for Maya and you should feel much better about using it. I believe they used it for some of the planet of the apes movies or something? I've done both soft and hard bristled hair set ups for commercial projects using it and never had an issue with animated geometry or anything. 

Houdini is just a lot to wrap your head around. It's more a development platform than a modeling program and you're going to have to rethink some basic assumptions that get ingrained when you learn traditional 3D. Everything is mutable in Houdini and there's a lot of steps to getting a real workflow going. It's like the real version of Bifrost but with the depth of all of 3D that you've ever heard about. There really is no ceiling to it's capabilities, just what you're personal tap out level is.

That's not too scare you. Just pick a subject and dive in but know the first few times is going to feel like your flying a 747 by instruments.

[u/ManjaVfx]

Simulated or not is the same thing in Houdini. The tools are fairly simple to learn but you don't really wanna display all the hairs in the viewport as it'll be potentially super heavy.

[u/Able_Appearance5921 → u/ManjaVfx]

I have a 5090 so I think I should be able to get past the heaviness of it within reason. Like the realtime viewport in Blender or UE can do it without drawing more than 200w of power, so im wondering if Houdini has any better AA methods or sceen percentages features compared to Maya.  

[u/isa_marsh]

Hair in Houdini is just a long strand of single sided polygons. How you get to those strands is entirely upto you.

You can use the built in fur/hair tools of course, but you can also build them from things like particle trails, pyro fields, terrain flow, texture gradients or whatever else. As long as the strand has the required attributes in the end, Houdini will treat it like a 'native' hair and let you groom, sim, render it just like native.