Houdini products can be licensed in different ways to meet the needs of individual artists, studios and schools. After installing Houdini, you can set up the licensing path depending on which product and which license type you choose.
INSTALLATION
While there are a number of different SideFX products including Houdini, Houdini Indie, Houdini Education, Houdini Engine, or Karma they all come from the same install. Whether you use the Launcher or the Installer, you install Houdini then let your license determine which part of the software you are accessing.
Note that the HQUEUE Software and SideFX Labs can be installed independently.
PRODUCT LICENSES
There are a number of Houdini products that meet the needs of commercial, indie [limited commercial] and education [non-commercial] customers. Each of these categories is designed to work as a family of products that function as a complete pipeline. It is important to get the right products for your chosen category.
Commercial Products
Houdini CORE / Houdini FX / Houdini ENGINE
Commercial Artists and Studios
File Formats | .hip/.hda/.usd
These licenses are for Studios and Artists doing commercial work. There are a number of different ways to license these products to suit your specific needs. Learn how each license works and how to set up the relevant license servers.
Indie Products
Houdini INDIE / Houdini ENGINE INDIE
Indie Artists making less than $100k USD
File Formats | .hiplc/.hdalc/.usd
The Indie licenses are for artists making less than $100K USD or working with less than $1 million USD in funding. These are workstation licenses that can be set up in one of two ways. Learn how to set up your licenses and how to get started quickly.
Education Products
Houdini EDUCATION / Houdini ENGINE EDUCATION
Students, Schools and Training Centres
File Formats | .hipnc/.hdanc/.usd
Education licenses are available for individual students or for computer labs in schools. Learn how to set up different license servers for these situations. These are non-commercial licenses that can only be used for teaching and for learning.
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Houdini APPRENTICE
Hobbyists and Students
File Formats | .hipnc/.hdanc/.usdnc
Houdini Apprentice is a trial version that can be used to explore the features of Houdini while completing non-commercial projects. Apprentice is licensed differently than other versions of Houdini to make it quick and easy to set up.
LICENSE TYPES
When you purchase a Houdini license, you can choose between different license types that determine whether you lock your licenses to one computer or share throughout your studio.
- Workstation [Node-Locked] – This license type can be used on a single computer and can only be accessed either from a local server or from logging in to SideFX.com.
- Local Access [Floating] – These licenses can be set up on a server and shared with a team of artists within a 100KM distance from each other. When an artist starts Houdini a license is checked out of the server as long as there is one available. Local licenses are designed for a single location.
- Global Access [Floating] – These licenses can be set up on a server and shared with a team of artists around the world. When an artist starts Houdini a license is checked out of the server as long as there is one available. Global licenses are for sharing between studios in different locations.
COMMERCIAL
INDIE
EDUCATION
APPRENTICE
USER
Studios/Artists
Indie Artists
Schools/Students
Trial/Hobbyists/Students
LICENSE TYPES
Workstation
Local Access [LAL]
Global Access [GAL]
Workstation
Global Access [GAL]
Workstation
HQUEUE
HQUEUE is a general-purpose job scheduling system that is included with Houdini. HQUEUE is designed to distribute, monitor and manage tasks across a collection of computing nodes, or client machines.
It specializes in managing render and dynamic simulation jobs submitted from Houdini, but you can customize it to work with any job from any application.
HQUEUE works with commercial, indie and educational Houdini. You can use Houdini or PDG/TOPS to set up distributed tasks then the client machines will consume Houdini Engine and/or Karma licenses.
