Side Effects Releases Houdini 14

Side Effects Software have released Houdini 14 which adds an new Position-Based Dynamics solver for granular simulation, new crowd pipeline tools, user interface enhancements and new grooming tools for hair and fur.

The new Position-Based Dynamics is a multi-physics environment ideally suited to the creation of wet and dry sand

Position Based Dynamic Tools

Houdini 14’s  new Position-Based Dynamics offers a multi-physics environment that is built to simulate things such as wet and dry sand. The new solver has been accumulating quite a stir from the spectacular samples and test shots people using the tool have posted over the last little while. In addition to sand effects, artists can create solids, sheets or tethers to generate soft body, cloth and wire-like simulations.

The new Position-Based Dynamics solver is multi-threaded, relying on VEX-based operators. This means it can can run on either the CPU or on the GPU using OpenCL making use of computer resources for complex simulations.

Crowd Simulation Tools

In addition the the PBD solver, Houdini 14 has new artist friendly shelf tools for the new crowd system. This includes the addition a new packed agent primitive type, a Finite State Machine (great name for a mental band) solver, and a hardware accelerated support for crowed instances.

the new crowed tools represent a pipeline into Houdini’s Mantra renderer, and has controls for crowd layout, steering, collision avoidance, the ability to adapt to terrain, blend motion, and the ability to add look-at targets for crowd systems.

The new Houdini 14 crowd pipeline is intended primarily for large to middle background crowds that are non-interacting. If you need crowds that do basic motions and can seamlessly interact with dynamic elements such as Bullet, fluids and sand, the new Houdini 14 tools are for you.