SideFX has officially released Houdini 21. After weeks of teasers, previews, and keynote showcases, the update is finally here. The marketing fire has long since burned out, but the actual release matters for production artists: new rigging tools, animation workflows, simulation updates, and the much-teased Copernicus renderer.

For context: earlier this month, we covered SideFX’s keynote promises of production readiness across the CG pipeline (Digital Production, 13 August{. Even before that, SideFX teased “Otto, Otis, Copernicus, and 300 new features” (Digital Production, 5 August). Now we finally know what actually shipped. Spoiler: yes, the features exist. No, they are not as flashy as the build-up suggested. But they are tangible, technical, and worth testing.

Rigging: Procedural, Modular, and Actually Usable

The Houdini 21 rigging updates aim to make character setup less of a masochistic experience. SideFX has introduced a Rig Tree view that organises hierarchies and constraints visually, making it easier to manage large rigs. The component-based rigging system lets artists assemble rigs from modular building blocks, reducing repetitive setup. This also allows for versioning and swapping rig parts without rebuilding entire structures.

Constraints have been improved, particularly with better parent/child handling and interactive feedback. Deformation tools now support GPU acceleration in some cases, promising faster skin weighting. Houdini’s auto-rigging templates have been updated with more flexible biped and quadruped presets. SideFX also stresses that procedural rig editing should make late-stage changes less painful.

A notable change is the Muscle & Tissue system refresh. Houdini 21 offers a more physically accurate muscle simulation setup, integrating with Vellum solvers for flesh-like behaviour. While marketed as “production ready,” this system will clearly require careful tuning for large-scale use.

Animation: Layers, Retiming, and a Cleaner Editor

Animation tools have received updates targeting everyday usability. The Animation Editor has been overhauled with a modernised curve view, clearer keyframe management, and new interpolation modes. Retiming is more flexible, with improved time-warping and ghosting features for previewing motion adjustments.

Animation layers, long a pain point in Houdini, are now non-destructive and stackable. Artists can apply additive, override, or weighted layers with live feedback, allowing multiple iterations without duplicating animation tracks. Onion skinning has been improved for clearer pose visualisation. There are also updated tools for motion capture clean-up and constraint-driven animation, which should ease integrating mocap with procedural rigs.

The Pose Library has been expanded, offering better thumbnail previews and organisational tools. SideFX markets it as a faster way to store and recall key poses. While the feature is not unique compared to Maya or Blender, it is a welcome addition for animators sticking with Houdini.

Character FX (CFX): Cloth, Fur, and Flesh

The CFX section is where SideFX flexes simulation power. Houdini 21 updates the Vellum solver with more stability under dense collisions and faster convergence in complex setups. For cloth, adaptive remeshing reduces simulation overhead on stretched areas, and new bend models create more realistic folds.

Hair and fur pipelines have been integrated more tightly with dynamics. Artists can simulate hair with better self-collision and guide-hair workflows, and Houdini now includes GPU-assisted grooming brushes. Fur shading also benefits from lookdev updates, integrating with Karma and Copernicus for consistent previewing.

Skin sliding simulations have been updated, making secondary motion more believable. The Muscle system connects directly with skin solvers, reducing double setups for rigging and CFX teams.

VFX: Pyro, Water, and Procedural Destruction

SideFX’s VFX updates cover pyro, fluid, and destruction workflows. The Pyro solver now supports adaptive containers, which dynamically resize to focus compute power on active regions. This reduces wasted cycles on empty grid areas in large-scale explosions.

Fluids have new foam and spray systems, with procedural control over particle birth and lifetime. Water rendering has been enhanced with improved meshing filters and tighter integration with Solaris. Large-scale simulations benefit from distributed processing optimisations, although SideFX does not provide exact performance figures.

Rigid body dynamics (RBD) see incremental improvements. Constraint networks can be visualised more clearly, and destruction setups gain new fracture patterns. Artists can now assign procedural “damage maps” to geometry, enabling more art-directable breaking effects.

Lookdev: Shaders, Materials, and Library Updates

The lookdev tools in Houdini 21 focus on consistency and layering. Shader nodes have been simplified, with clearer naming conventions and documentation. Materials now support hierarchical layering, so multiple materials can be stacked and blended procedurally. The standard library has been expanded with presets for common surfaces, including fabrics, metals, and translucent materials.

SideFX also highlights better interoperability with Solaris and USD workflows, aiming to make lookdev work less fragmented across different DCCs.

Copernicus: The New Renderer

Copernicus, the most hyped feature, finally lands as a GPU/CPU renderer. Positioned as a competitor to Karma XPU, Copernicus is marketed as tightly integrated with Houdini’s procedural workflows. Features include interactive viewport rendering, out-of-core texture handling, and adaptive sampling.

SideFX promises faster iteration compared to existing renderers, though no independent performance benchmarks are available. Copernicus supports USD and MaterialX shading, keeping it aligned with industry standards. Whether it becomes a production mainstay or just another renderer option remains to be seen.

Terrain Modeling: Erosion, Noise, and Scattering

Houdini 21’s terrain tools{:target=”_blank”} expand procedural worldbuilding. Heightfields now include new noise operators with advanced control over frequency and masking. Erosion filters simulate sediment deposition more realistically, with options for layering multiple erosion passes.

Scatter tools integrate with Solaris for direct population of USD scenes. Large datasets reportedly benefit from memory optimisations, but SideFX provides no benchmarks. Artists will need to test scale performance themselves.

The Release vs. the Tease

Comparing SideFX’s teasers, keynote previews, and final release: the features line up, but the marketing language has been dialled down. The 300 new features headline has given way to a more sober breakdown of rigging, CFX, VFX, lookdev, terrain, and rendering updates. Otto and Otis, SideFX’s demo characters, still exist—but they were mostly marketing mascots for showcasing workflows. The biggest difference: the keynote leaned on promises of “production readiness.” The release notes remain cautious, focusing instead on tool improvements without broad guarantees. As always: do not update mid-project unless you enjoy debugging pipelines at 3 a.m. Install, test, and judge whether SideFX’s promises hold up in your own environment.

The post Houdini 21 Finally Lands: The Buzz Is Over, Time to Actually Use It first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Sitni Sati has officially released FumeFX 7.0 for Autodesk 3ds Max on 20 August 2025. The update’s centrepiece is NodeWorks Ocean, a GPU‑accelerated ocean simulation system integrated into the existing NodeWorks framework. This extends FumeFX beyond smoke, fire, liquid, soft‑body and cloth into large‑scale water simulation.

Ocean Simulation with Spectrum Models

NodeWorks Ocean employs spectrum‑based wave models and inverse Fourier transforms to generate physically accurate surfaces. Artists can layer multiple Ocean Spectrum nodes to mix long swells with short, choppy waves. Variation is supported via Perlin noise blending, tile variation and height masking to avoid visible repetition.

Foam, Spray and Bubbles

The Foam & Spray node generates secondary effects from crest curvature and wave motion. Foam, spray and bubbles can be rendered as Arnold points or volumes, with full access to Arnold user data attributes such as age, velocity and density for dynamic shading.

Dynamic Coupling with Objects

The Ocean Dynamics node introduces true two‑way interaction. Objects generate ripples and wakes, while the water applies buoyant and frictional forces back onto them. Artists can insert geometry or particles into the ocean via the Ocean Object node, with fine control over buoyancy, inertia, friction and wake strength.

NodeWorks Integration

NodeWorks Ocean connects seamlessly to other simulation types. Rigid body dynamics via PhysX and fibres for ropes or cables both interact naturally with water. NodeWorks particle groups can trigger fire or smoke on the ocean surface, or simulate rainfall ripples without full fluid overhead.

GPU Acceleration

As with other NodeWorks features, simulations are accelerated through NVIDIA’s CUDA API. A GPU with Pascal architecture or newer is required (GeForce GTX 1000 series or later). This hardware dependency should be considered during pipeline planning.

Additional Improvements

FumeFX 7.0 also updates NodeWorks generally: particle groups can now render as Arnold volumes, the Object Properties node accepts particle‑driven transforms, particle display density can be reduced for viewport clarity, and caching has been unified. Memory caching now mirrors disk caching, with user‑defined attributes stored consistently.

Pricing and Availability

FumeFX 7.0 is available for Autodesk 3ds Max 2020 and above, running on Windows 10 or newer. Licensing remains subscription‑only: workstation licences cost US $365 per year, and additional simulation licences are US $95 per year. At release, Maya and Cinema 4D editions have not yet been updated to version 7.0.

Editorial Note

With NodeWorks Ocean, Sitni Sati extends FumeFX into full multiphysics territory. Artists can now drive cohesive scenes where fire burns on water, objects float and interact dynamically, and oceans churn with foam and spray—all GPU‑accelerated. As always, production teams should test new features in controlled environments before adopting them into active pipelines.

Sources

Sitni Sati – FumeFX Release History

The post FumeFX 7.0 on Water: New Version Adds NodeWorks Ocean first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Mike Kuhn.

The latest and final major release of Howler 2023, the GPU-accelerated digital painting and animation tool for Windows, is now completely free to download. That’s right: the software, previously priced at $72.99, now invites anyone with a penchant for pixel play to grab it for the generous price of zero. According to the announcement by CG Channel, this move comes as developer Dan Ritchie refocuses his time on filmmaking. While the software will still receive occasional bug fixes, it won’t be getting new features. Consider it stable—but not expanding.

Painting, FX, and Frame-by-Frame Animation

Howler 2023 has long been a Swiss Army brush for digital artists working in post and VFX. The software supports both raster and video workflows and is designed to handle traditional-style 2D animation, frame-by-frame work, as well as FX compositing and color effects. If your timeline involves keyframes, rotoscoping, or motion estimation, Howler’s feature set leans firmly into that space. The engine is GPU-accelerated (via DirectX), so real-time preview and performance benefit from modern graphics hardware. Among its standout tools are motion prediction-based retiming, frame blending, stabilization, glow effects, particle brushes, and general time-based filtering—a hybrid between a painterly aesthetic and VFX tweaking.

It also includes tools for 3D painting directly onto generated meshes and terrains—think elevation maps, erosion, and lighting. While not a full 3D pipeline solution, it allows painting in a Z-buffer-aware environment, complete with shading and lighting options to preview volume and light direction. Don’t expect OBJ imports or complex UVs, but terrain sculpting and faux-volume painting are definitely on tap.

Community and Patreon Support

Howler 2023’s transition to freeware is emblematic of a broader trend in indie software financing, where community support and Patreon contributions play a pivotal role. The developer’s shift from a one-time purchase model to a donation-supported platform allows the project to remain accessible to all production artists, even as occasional bug fixes and performance enhancements continue. This model ensures that while the feature set remains frozen, critical maintenance persists, keeping the software reliable for demanding production pipelines.

The Patreon financing aspect underscores the enduring relationship between the developer and a loyal user base. For those who appreciate the careful balance of innovation and stability, contributing via Patreon offers a pathway to sustain essential updates and fine-tuning. As always, any integration into current projects should be preceded by thorough testing—after all, even the best freeware requires a safety net before diving headfirst into a complex production environment.

Compatibility and Platform

Howler runs on Windows only, with no macOS version on the horizon. The final release version is stable, and although no new tools are in store, occasional bug fixes remain to support existing workflows. And for those who have already paid for the software, this transition might feel a bit like getting a refund in spirit—albeit after years of artistic loyalty.

Download and Further Info

Howler 2023 can be downloaded for free via the official site.

The post Brush for Free: Howler 2023 Now Costs Nada first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Autodesk has unveiled MotionBuilder 2026, the latest iteration of its renowned character animation and motion capture editing software. This release brings notable enhancements to USD workflows and introduces several quality-of-life improvements aimed at streamlining the animation process.

USD Workflow Enhancements

Building upon the initial USD support introduced in MotionBuilder 2025, the 2026 version ensures that when loading a USD stage file, any embedded animation is now retained and rendered within the viewport. This advancement allows animators to work seamlessly with USD data without losing crucial animation information.

Additionally, the Python API now features an animatable frame offset property, enabling users to retime or time warp animations directly through scripting. To further facilitate USD integration, a new UI button has been added to reload USD stage proxies, complemented by a corresponding property in the API for enhanced control.

Quality-of-Life Improvements

In response to user feedback, MotionBuilder 2026 introduces a shortcut key that allows for the force-selection of previously unselectable objects, addressing a longstanding challenge in the animation workflow. Moreover, the software now supports extended function keys—[F13] and beyond—as keyboard modifiers, offering greater flexibility in customizing input commands.

The SDK has also been updated with a new property to control the inclusion of HUDs in FBX file exports. Furthermore, several API properties have been renamed to enhance clarity and usability, ensuring a more intuitive scripting experience.

Pricing and System Requirements

MotionBuilder 2026 is compatible with Windows 10 and later versions, as well as RHEL and Rocky Linux distributions (versions 8.10, 9.3, and 9.5). The software is available exclusively through a rental model, with annual subscriptions priced at $2,225—a modest increase of $80 from the previous release. For a comprehensive list of new features and detailed documentation, users are encouraged to consult Autodesk’s official resources.

As with any software update, it’s advisable to thoroughly evaluate MotionBuilder 2026’s new features within your specific production environment before integrating them into active projects. This approach ensures compatibility and stability, safeguarding the integrity of your animation workflows.

For more information and to explore the latest features, visit Autodesk’s official website.

The post MotionBuilder 2026: A little Leap first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Bad news for users of HitFilm and Imerge: Parent company Artlist has officially discontinued both applications. Effective immediately, no new licenses are available for purchase, and all development has ceased. Existing users can still use the software, but there will be no further updates, bug fixes, or customer support.

What Happens to Existing Users?

For those with an active subscription, access will continue until the end of their current billing cycle. After that, renewals will not be possible. Perpetual license holders can keep using their software indefinitely but should not expect any patches or improvements. Artlist has provided an FAQ addressing the shutdown, but in short: The software will keep working on current systems, but as OS and hardware evolve, compatibility issues may arise. Users relying on HitFilm or Imerge for professional workflows should start looking for alternatives.

The End of an Era for FXhome

HitFilm, initially developed by FXhome, gained popularity as a hybrid video editor and compositor. Its combination of editing and node-based compositing made it a budget-friendly alternative to tools like After Effects. Imerge focused on non-destructive image editing for VFX and photography. Both applications found a loyal user base before FXhome was acquired by Artlist in 2021. Now, just a few years later, Artlist has decided to cut support entirely.

What Are the Alternatives?

For users who need to transition, alternatives like DaVinci Resolve (Blackmagic Design), Adobe After Effects, or Nuke (Foundry) for compositing may be worth considering. Image editors like Affinity Photo or Adobe Photoshop might fill the gap left by Imerge. Artlist has not announced any direct replacements, leaving users to decide their next steps. Meanwhile, many users have voiced frustration over the transition, citing the aggressive upselling of subscriptions in HitFilm Express, the move away from perpetual licenses, and the increasing reliance on paid add-ons that diminished the appeal of the once budget-friendly software.

Check Your Pipeline

With no further updates planned, users should verify whether their current HitFilm or Imerge setup remains viable for future projects. OS updates and changing hardware requirements could eventually render the software unusable. Those relying on FXhome tools should plan their migration before compatibility issues arise.

FXhome official FAQ – Answers to common questions regarding the discontinuation.

The post HitFilm & Imerge: Artlist pulls the plug first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.