SideFX has released a new sneak peek for Houdini 17.5.327, the next update to its 3D animation and FX software. Version 17.5 introduces PDG which is designed to enhance SideFX's procedural architecture to distribute tasks and manage dependencies to better scale, automate, and analyze content pipelines for Film, TV, Games, Advertising and VR. In addition, there have been a number of enhancements to key features such as FLIP Fluids, volumes, destruction tools and more.

Houdini 17.5.327 - Release Date July 25, 2019:

- Fixed forced recooks on downstream asset, bypassing the paused/disabled cooking state.
- Fixed applying an HDA (via contect menu/houdini tools) to another HDA Actor causing the destruction of the input HDA on the HAPI side, forcing the input HDA to need a re-instantiation.
- Fix regression where copy/pasting an HDA node that contained an editable sub-node that had references to its spare parms can crash.
- Improved hdaprocessor TOP node UI to handle HOUDINI_PATH-relative asset paths
- Fixed onStart exception being raised in Tractor binding introduced in 17.5.320
- Modified hdaprocessor pooling HARS named pipe to include PID in order to avoid conflicts with multiple Houdini processes.
- Modified localscheduler to use SIGTERM instead of SIGKILL to terminate child processes on shutdown on Linux and macOS.
- Fixed problem where indie users were unable to checkout licenses for certain products.



About SideFX Houdini FX 17.5. The release introduces the Procedural Dependency Graph (PDG), described by SideFX as a potentially industry-changing new technology.

PDG, also due to become available in a new standalone application, PilotPDG, enables users to specify the dependencies between different parts of a project's task graph, making it possible to do anything from running simulations and renders in parallel to 'assetizing' entire sections of a studio's pipeline.

SideFX also expects PDG to form the basis of new machine learning workflows within Houdini.

Other new features in Houdini 17.5 include distributed fluid simulation, a high-quality new GPU-accelerated viewport smoke shader, and updates to the Vellum multiphysics solver.

About Side Effects Software. Side Effects Software is a world leader in the development of Houdini, our advanced 3D animation and special effects software for use in film, commercials and video games. Side Effects Software has been recognized three times with Scientific and Technical awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Houdini family of animation software offers digital artists an unprecedented level of power, flexibility and control based on award-winning procedural technology. The comprehensive feature set includes: modeling, rigging, animation, particle effects, dynamics, compositing, integrated rendering, and more. All Houdini applications work together seamlessly and are available for the Mac OS X, Linux and Windows operating systems.

Product: SideFX Houdini FX
Version: 17.5.327
Supported Architectures: x64
Website Home Page :
Language: english
System Requirements: PC *
Supported Operating Systems: *
Size: 1.2 Gb

Operating System - 64bit only - Windows 10 (64 bit)
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows 7 SP1 (future versions of Houdini will not be supported on Win7)
- Windows Server (any version) is NOT supported
Memory- 4 GB required
- 8 GB or higher and 64GB strongly recommended for fluid simulations
Processor
- Intel or AMD x64 CPU with SSE 4.2 required. Houdini 17.0 will not run on a system with an instruction set lower than SSE 4.2.
Disk Space
- 2GB required for installation
Input Devices
- 3 Button mouse required
- Scroll wheel used where present
- Wacom tablet recommended for Houdini's brush-based tools
Graphics Cards
A GL4.0 compliant graphics card is required. GL3.3 cards will have missing features and lower GL versions will not run Houdini 17 at all.
4GB VRAM or more is required. Less than this can result in display errors such as blank windows. High DPI displays (4K, 5K) or multiple monitors require a minimum of 4GB.
Graphics card must support OpenCL version 1.2.
The OptiX Denoiser requires a Kepler or later Nvidia GPU (K, P, M, V prefixes).
It is VERY important that you install the latest driver for your graphics card. Failing to do so may result in display issues and/or slow performance:
Windows
- NVidia GeForce GPUs: 390.77 or higher (don't use 376.xx - you'll have slow performance and crashes)
- NVidia Quadro GPUs: 390.77 or higher
- AMD: 19.Q1 or higher
- Intel 10.18.10.3958 or higher.