SideFX have released Houdini 15.5. Houdini is a 3D application with a focus on procedural generation. This release brings several new features, including:
Modeling
New PolyBevel SOP
New PolySplit SOP
New Dissolve SOP
TopoBuild tool (phase II)
Variable width offsets in PolyExpand2D
Double-click for edge loop selection
Double-click for point and primitive island selection
Crowds
Advanced locomotion controls
Direct FBX Imports for agents
Vertex normal support for deforming crowd agents
New Agent CHOP
New Terrain Adaptation SOP
Improved crowd steering behaviour
Accurate foot planting
Mocap Biped 3 with library of motion clips
UVs
Triplanar UV projection VOP
Curvature support for UV Bake
Tighter UV island packing in layout
Lighting and Rendering
Third Party Rendering Support in Houdini Indie – Today: RenderMan, Arnold, and Octane – Coming: Redshift, V-Ray and Maxwell
New VR Camera built using new VR lens shader
DOF and Motion Blur in OpenGL ROP
Overscan rendering support and crop window fixes
OpenGL displacement mapping in viewport
“Render to Disk in Background” button on SOHO ROPs
Photon tracing control in Mantra
User Experience
Better Euler tumbling in viewport
3D handle enhancements
File chooser enhancements
Improved geometry snapping
Multi row/column pasting in Parameter Spreadsheet
Help system enhancements
Character
“Delta Mush” deformation support
Multi overlapping selection in Dopesheet
Hair and fur grooming enhancements
Performance
Faster VEX function loading and more efficient memory use
Faster saving of large geometry
HQueue performance optimizations
Volumes
OpenVDB 3.1
Interoperability
Many Alembic enhancements
You can see a summary of the new features in the video below.