Modelling tools such as PolyBevel, PolySplit and Dissolve have been rewritten from the ground up, and the retopology tools can now perform splitting, straightening and edge loops, and have brush tools for positioning and relaxing points.
Optimised Crowd Tools
The crowd tools now feature expanded motion control, exact foot placement, terrain adaptation and more complex crowd control. Importing .fbx files is also now supported directly, allowing other applications to be integrated better into the workflow. Mocap Biped 3 includes an extensive library of motion clips, and the Shelf Tools have been redesigned and simplified.
VR Camera
The new VR camera is based on a VR Lens Shader; it can render VR images, for example, as Latlong Spherical Projection, Perspective Cube Map or a stacked Cube Map—3×2. The camera allows the eye distance and eye-to-neck distance to be set and can be used together with the Mantra renderer.
Third Party Rendering
Houdini 15.5 also brings third-party rendering to Houdini Indie, allowing indie artists and studios to use RenderMan, Arnold and Octane together with Houdini’s internal renderer Mantra. Houdini Indie support is also due to be expanded shortly to V-Ray, Redshift and Maxwell.
DeltaMush Node
This node can smooth point-deformation effects by using a copy of the geometry before deformation. This allows better deformations to be created during character rigging when extreme bends occur.
You can find an overview of all Houdini 15.5 features here on the Side FX website.
Houdini 15.5 can be downloaded here for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux; the full version of the tool is available from 2,000 US dollars.
Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 30, 2016. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
