[MrScruff]

I've only dabbled with Blender but from what I saw of geometry nodes it's quite a long way away from competing in the same space as Houdini. Houdini's biggest single feature and the thing that allows film studios to use it at complexity and scale is the HDA system and there's no real competition for that.

[const_cast]

I think the main difference between OSS like Blender and the competition is it seems like OSS only gets better. Each version is a little bit better, so projects that were once not competitive catch up. Blender is an obvious example, but also look at Krita, or the entire KDE project. These pieces of software age like fine wine: they get more features, they get faster, and they get more stable.

Closed-source software seems to get... stuck. In the best case. Often, they regress: becoming buggier from version to version with less features. I think of Windows and the entire Microsoft suite of applications.

I think one exception is Gnome. Gnome loves removing features more than they love not implementing popular Wayland protocols.

[Joel_Mckay]

With OSS, unless every add-on is part of the build tree or package repo testing... it quickly becomes broken as the ecosystem constantly evolves.

i.e. of the $3k of community Blender plugins/add-ons we evaluated last year, only around 60% are still functional in stable blender releases. Additionally, many built-in core features like Fracture became broken in 4.x due to API permutations, and getting split into its own module.

In a production environment one must version lock Blender for the project. =3

[const_cast]

IMO it's always a good idea to vendor software. But yes, OSS typically moves fast. It's a tradeoff.

[MrScruff]

Blender is definitely getting better compared to things like Maya but I don't think this argument holds for Houdini & Sidefx.

[Joel_Mckay]

Blender has solved several key challenges, but the learning curve is steep given many tutorials are version specific.

I usually recommend these courses to users when the under $20 sale is active.

They cover a lot of Blenders non-intuitive workflows :3

"Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners"

https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/

* Basics of low-poly design in blender

"Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life"

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/

* Some more practice rigging

"The Ultimate Blender 3D Sculpting Course"

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/

* Sculpting, Retopology, and VDM brushes

* basic anatomy

"The Ultimate Blender 3D Simulations, Physics & Particles"

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-simulations-physics-par...

* Shader/Texture basics

* Geometry node basics

* Boid sprites

* Hair and physics simulation

* Camera FX, and post-render filters

* Instructions on how to export your assets to Unity 3D and Unreal game engines

[brcmthrowaway]

What is HDA?

[raincole]

Houdini is entirely a node-based system and HDAs are just your custom nodes (on contrary to the built-in ones).

At the end of the day, an HDA is just a 'function' you define like what you do in a programming language. A function can call other functions etc. It might sound nothing special if you're a programmer, but Houdini is the only generic DCC that is built around this idea, making it more like a framework than an app.

[Joel_Mckay]

Probably means a Houdini Digital Asset which is similar to a maya reference.

At one time there was a Houdini-Engine Open Mesh Effect plugin, but no idea if that project survived.

Cheers =3