Saturday, August 28th, 2021 Posted by Jim Thacker

Weta Digital unveils WetaH


Weta Digital and SideFX have unveiled WetaH, a new cloud-based service providing users with access to the leading VFX studio’s in-house tools embedded inside SideFX’s Houdini.

The subscription-only service is expected to enter private beta at the end of this year.

Following the same model as WetaM and Maya
The announcment follows that of WetaM, an equivalent service based around Autodesk’s Maya, also due to be launched by Weta Digital’s new Software as a Service (SaaS) division this year.

“Partnering with SideFX was essential in realizing our vision for the cloud service,” said Weta Digital CEO Prem Akkaraju.

“The industry is moving to distributed architectures that will allow [us] to reduce expensive technology barriers, further enhancing the natural strength of Houdini’s node-based procedural workflows.”

Public access to Weta’s in-house tools, including Loki and City Builder
As with WetaM, the new service will provide users with access to Weta Digital’s in-house add-ons for the host application – in the case of Houdini, primarily simulation technologies.

Weta Digital’s announcement specifically namechecks Loki, the studio’s multi-physics solver, and its high-performance compute framework.

In addition, the teaser video shows City Builder, its procedural city-generation system,

“This is such an exciting time for new generations of Houdini artists,” said SideFX VP Cristin Barghiel. “Now even the smallest studio will be able to access production-proven tools out-of-the-box.”

Pricing, system requirements and launch date
WetaM is due in private beta in Q4 2021. Weta Digital hasn’t announced prices or system requirements yet.


Read more about WetaH on the new product website

Read more about Weta’s in-house tools on the studio’s website