New Topo Transfer node transfers clean all-quad topology to raw 3D scan data Houdini 18.0 having shipped last November, that would have put us on course for Houdini 18.5 around now – presumably the “next major release” from which the new tools have been backported as a stopgap update. Under its usual schedule, the firm releases a major update to Houdini every six to nine months. This one is considerably more significant, adding new features throughout Houdini’s toolsets.Īs far as we can remember, this is the first time that SideFX has backported features in this way, presumably because of the unusual situation during COVID-19 restrictions. Making new features from Houdini 18.5 available early for use in production?īuild 499 actually shipped last month – at the time of writing, the latest daily release is Build 521 – but we overlooked it at the time, since SideFX’s incremental updates tend to be bugfix releases. The move gives users access to a neat new topology transfer system, support for fog in the OpenGL viewport, and support for random walk subsurface scattering in the Karma renderer.Īll the new features are described as production-ready, and have been available since Houdini 18 Build 499.

SideFX has ‘backported’ features in development for the “next major release” of the software to Houdini 18.0, the current stable version of the procedural 3D software.

Sidefx houdini fx 2020