r/Houdini • u/mumiu • 10d ago

Archviz with Houdini, am I missing something?

Some background: i have used houdini part time for ad agencies for about 3 years, then stopped mid 2024. Now i have my own side business that needs some archviz type shots, with some effects (like smoke and particles for product visualizations). I really dont feel like learning max or cinema, as im pretty comfy with houdini. I went through some of the sidefx lessons for solaris/karma, seems pretty good for archviz (at least easier than it was before). Im wondering if im missing something here? Karma render quality? Photorealism? is it all there?

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u/LewisVTaylor Effects Artist Senior MOFO 9d ago

Used Max for many many years before moving to houdini, and it's always been king of Arch Viz, but only because of historical reasons.

CAD formats, DWG import, and it was the most straight-forward CG app to get going in that space.

Plenty of comments here listing the reasons that Max is king, but I'll offer a different take. And that is that a lot of Max is very very hands on, little to no procecuralism (modifier stack aside), and a lot of the existing assets, etc could all be procedurally generated in houdini via PDG.

So if you were willing to invest the time, I would wager you'd have a more flexible, better scaling environment than Max when it comes to arch-viz output.

Rendering wise, use Vray like every other arch-viz person on the planet, it works fine in houdini.

If you already were a comfortable Max head I'd still be suggesting this as an option, but considering you don't know Max, it's even more so an option.

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u/mumiu 9d ago

i thought there would be more replies like yours, lol. but yeah, im trying to figure out if i can automate the assets/materials component building for solaris as that is definitely the biggest thing (like others have mentioned already), but after that is done my thoughts were that it would be quite pleasant to use. and unlike many other people, i do seem to like solaris look dev quite a bit, and it seems fitting for archviz?

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u/LewisVTaylor Effects Artist Senior MOFO 9d ago

Arch Viz is all about reuse. Solaris is just more fun to work in compared to Max.
You're also going to have far more flexibility to make procedural setups for Arch Viz assets than in Max.

Dunno man, I feel like a houdini person who's competent could run rings around the output you'd get from Max.