Interview : Jordi Bares - 2007-12-10
od[force]: Was the project done in Houdini 8?
JBD: The project was done with 8 because we started it before the release of 9, yes.
od[force]: In the end how many people worked with Houdini for the shot? You, Cezar Niculescu and were there any others?
JBD: Just Cezar and myself. It was a small team
od[force]: And how do you feel about the “output” of a Houdini expert? I'm talking about the perception from the Houdini community that Houdini would be more productive in the hands of an expert than a competitive package (also in the hands of an expert). Do you think this is a correct assumption?
JBD: I believe we could say so. The more complex the project is, the more exploration needs to be done.
od[force]: What did you use for rendering?
JBD: Mantra 8. It was superb and although v9 is even better I would happily recommend Mantra for such a complex job any time.
od[force]: In what sense it was superb? speed ? memory? features?
JBD: Well, considering we had to render 496 books with 300 pages each, full motion blur with shadowmaps (and some raytracing too on some shots), and something like 4000 textures for the pages assigned procedurally I am pretty happy with both speed and memory.
We only split the scene on two blocks for the flame to have more control in the comp, not for technical reasons.
