Side Effects Software, an industry leader in 3D animation and visual effects software, is pleased to announce the planned release of Houdini 9.5 on July 15, 2008. Houdini 9.5 brings the 3D industry’s first node-based workflow to the Mac ensuring that 3D artists can collaborate seamlessly in a multi-platform environment.
Houdini 9.5 public beta release is available today for download on all platforms. “More and more artists are embracing Houdini’s node-based workflow for their animation and visual effects projects,” says Kim Davidson, President and CEO, Side Effects Software. “Houdini for Mac is an important step in bringing Houdini’s renowned power and flexibility to the wider creative community.” Built from the ground up with a particular focus on performance, Houdini for Mac supports 64-bit Intel-based Macs running Mac OS X v 10.5 Leopard. Houdini for Mac offers a standard Mac menu bar, a window menu on Houdini’s Dock icon and drag and drop support.
QuickTime support has also been added for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. “Mac OS X Leopard delivers true 64-bit computing allowing 3D applications like Houdini for Mac to render detailed animations quickly and easily,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations. “We’re thrilled that Side Effects is bringing Houdini to the Mac so 3D professionals can seamlessly collaborate across multiple platforms.” For all platforms, Houdini 9.5 includes a number of key productivity enhancements including FBX export with support for geometry, lights, cameras, animation, hierarchies, skeletons, weighted skins, UVs, geometry caches, particles, and dynamic simulations. Adobe Illustrator and eps import has also been included for motion graphic artists. To streamline workflow and make Houdini more accessible, a tool shelf was added in Houdini 9. Houdini 9.5 continues to utilize the shelf with new Rigid Body fracturing tools, debris generation tools, river and wave simulation tools, and tools for generating fluids-based fire and smoke.
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In addition, an animatable “all-purpose” Ramp parameter type has been added to help artists build shaders and control effects such as particles or L-systems. Artists can also use real-time shadows in the viewport and Houdini 9.5 now supports hand-coded OpenGL2 shaders. “Customer requests have fueled many of the workflow improvements in Houdini 9.5,” says Cristin Barghiel, Director of Product Development, Side Effects Software. “One example is the ability to make nodes inside locked Digital Assets editable.