Houdini Indie version on the horizon?

Side FX just sent out a tweet…

https://twitter.com/sidefx/status/496684848250368001/photo/1

Looks like yes. I will purchase it - that for sure!

If this is legit (seems to be), then its finally Houdini for me :).

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=244&Itemid=399

Sounds interesting, altough not quite sure what i should think about this:

“6.2 Indie Licenses… …(ii) in the case of an Indie User that is using the Software to create content for a third party that will use such content in connection with a Commercial activity, such third party and its Affiliates and related individuals collectively have in the current calendar year, or had in the most recently completed calendar year, directly or indirectly, aggregate gross revenues from all sources less than US$100,000.”

Are you going to ask your potential customers how much they earn?

wow… is there some comparison page between this and the normal commercial version?

About the “asking how much your customers earn”, this is a really commong payment kind now, used also by allegorithmic for example. I think much depend on the honesty of the customer, but if I would earn more than 100k a year using houdini I wouldn’t have any problem purchasing the complete version :slight_smile:

EDIT: found the comparison chart. Looks like there are really few limitations, such as fullHD resolution, and some other stuff, but all the functions of the FX version are there… mmmmmmm I guess I have to prepare my wallet :smiley:

EDIT2: where did the buy button go??

Regarding the income thing, one thing I’m left wondering about with these Indie editions is whether they count your net income overall or just the income that’s direct or indirect from content created within the program, because it would be quite a big jump in price for Houdini Standard if you’ve already moved out of your parent’s house and have to pay bills and buy food.

Awwwww… this looks pretty impressive! I wonder how much better the simulation process would be (water fx for me!)? Since there’s that little limit for rendering out the animation I’m guessing it could be exported to Blender for a Cycles render…

Yeah the wording is a bit strange, but from cgtalk thread it seems only to apply to producing entities, not the customers.

199$ for what appears to be a completely functional (apart from interoperation with its big brother) Houdini? From cgtalk appears so… oh dear, I know what to ask Santa for this year!

Dear Blender developers… beware.

That’s $199 per year, no?

from what I undestood no. Is not a subscription. You buy the licence for this version. Of course when the new version comes out, if you want it you will probably need to buy it, but your licence should go on without problems.

The Indie License appears to be non-expiring, but the $99 education version is limited to a year.

Are you going to ask your potential customers how much they earn?

This stuff generally operates via honor system, or if you are a big studio and they find out the indie version was used instead of the full pro version, they can legally go after the studio. I dont think this has ever happened though.

The logic is that if you are making well over $100,000 a year from an indie version of the software, then spending a thousand or two to get the full pro version shouldnt be an issue. In a way its like giving you the software for free/cheap and having the income go towards a future purchase.

$100,000 is pretty gratuitous btw, Allegorithmic’s indie limit is $10,000 until you have to buy the pro version.

I cant reinforce this enough though, its based on revenue made USING the software as part of the pipeline. If the software isnt used, then its not counted.

Quote from here:
“Houdini Indie is available today for $199 USD annually. Houdini Indie replaces Houdini Apprentice HD which was only available for non-commercial projects.”

yeah looks that way… don’t like that “annually” :smiley:

Still very tempting, though.

If it phones home its bad but otherwise it would not be much different from the support contract that you can subscribe for Vue Infinite which gives you access to every new version, as long as the support is active.

hmm I stand corrected. You are right, its still not a bad deal.

Generally with this kind of stuff they prefer to be a bit more cautious at first, even Maya LT was locked down with far more limitations that eventually got patched out. Once more competition starts hitting the market, it will be interesting to see how they adapt their licensing, pricing and limitation setup.

I usually don’t like subscription models, but $200 isn’t much and I would like to upgrade to new versions of H anyway, and this way its factored in.

So what are the obvious advantages in using Houdini over Blender?

Procedural workflow, better FX, a renderer that is more refined.