A year ago I spent countless hours in Houdini’s incredible Apprentice edition, learning the interface, concepts, and terminology. It was much different from the old RayDream 3D I had purchased years ago: RayDream was at best a toy and Houdini is a world-class studio-level application (thing Harry Potter, Spiderman 3, Meet the Robinsons, The Last Mimzy, Superman Returns, etc.), and Houdini handles objects and concepts completely differently than most 3D applications, using node-based hierarchies. Houdini was refreshing and a pleasure to work with, but I eventually abandoned it because I knew I could not afford or justify the full version of the program if I decided to move up from the watermarked Apprentice version.

Well I received an email today from Side Effects Software announcing the release of Houdini’s “Starving Artist” edition. Side Effects has taken their astounding Houdini application, pulled out the ability to render to 3rd-party renderers (you can still render to the excellent native Mantra renderer), and set a price of $99. Unbelievable.

Thank you, Side Effects!