hello everyone!
we’re new to UE4 my artists are asking me about implementing some of Houdini features to the engine .i know there is a plugin created by sidefx that’s still a Beta release wanna ask those who tried it , what features are there? is pyro supported? why it’s better to use Houdini particles and distinctive system compared to the native solution provided by epic?
i’m asking this because artists are new to Unreal maybe they are doing it wrong, i’m trying to convince them to work with what the engine provides but our game has so many complex particle and Mograph the game is set in the future so we need these complex effects so bad , so is unreal powerful enough with its existing tools or we do really need these 3th party software?
i know with some advance C++ coding everything is possible but that’s not possible to us we are a small team time is gold for us , our team is a team of 4 , me a programmer (not the most experience specially with C++ ) and 2 artists and one sound composer so taking time writing some advance code for a plugin with my humble programming skills instead of focusing on the game system will not help us at all , hope you guys help me with this , thanks in advance!:).
no answer yet!! come on guys no one ever tried UE4 with Houdini before?
I wish I could, but as so many other 3d apps, Houdini is right up there price wize, way out of my reach, hence why I use blender <>sculptris<>meshmixer exclusively atm.
Houdini has a unique workflow to be sure, but I think the temptation to use it is less, given its been said that epic uses maya ( ?) a lot, hence the best support there as I recall anyway.
If I had the funds I would be likely to spend it on Maya anyway, given the two aren’t far apart really in price. Apprentice seemed to allow obj export or such, but I’m not seeing that anymore. If it doesn’t have the subscription model either, that’s another reason its going to be less popular.
UE4 wize, there are ample tuts out there showing what ue4 can do particle wize, I can’t imagine it not being able to do, just about anything you need, but then I"m no expert on effects .
A few cents.
later
lee
Well guess i’ll try the plugin myself and see what i can do with it , Maya has its place like for rigging/animating probably the best tool but Houdini is just so ahead of any 3d creation software when it comes to effects and simulations , Procedural modelings and anything particle related, you will just know if you actually work with it.
there is an indie version if you can’t afford the full version , by the way that’s not even needed the houdini engine for unreal is free for now and work with the free Houdini Apprentice edition it’s still a beta release and not official once they go official you will need one of the commercial licenses , so i’ll try it myself i was just checking if someone tried it here before and see if it’s worth it . anyway thanks for the replay man.
You will get better answers at offical SESI forum for UE4 HEngine implementation.
Houdini, like UE4 and any other software that is owned by private company, not by evil corporation, has very strong community managed by company itself, with very good contact between developers and community. So if you are looking for some Houdini info go to Side Effects forums or to odForce forum, which is also frequently visited by Side Effects developers.
Yes, we are using it.
Is it worth it? Ask Microsoft, which AFAIK worked (works?) closely with Side Effects to implement HEngine in UE4. It seems that they are happy with it.
Here is one of the recent examples how companies use Houdini in their game pipelines.
BTW. Make sure to check my Houdini tools on Orbolt shop (link in my signature). You may find there some functionality that will help you smooth transition when jumping off from other apps. And follow me on my Vimeo and Twitter (links in my signature) 
We also try to reach out on here when we can I’m more on the FX/TA game dev side of things here. Regarding game FX, Houdini really only works on the DCC side of things. Since it’s designed more for accurate simulations, it would take too long for UE4 to utilize Houdini to compute things. So really, the best way to use it is to generate the textures you need and then integrate them into particle systems in-engine. For a list of things I’ve done so far:
-Fire
-Water
-Flowmaps
-Smoke
-Prefractured models
-Animated destruction
-Velocity Fields
-Flipbooks of various sims
-Meshes of various kinds to support FX
-Blood
-and more!
The best part about Houdini is that all I need to do is figure out a pipeline for a certain texture and then I can generate as many as I would ever want 
I never have to paint or video source textures.
thanks guys for the replies we already started experimenting with it, so far so good :).