I think a serious effort on animation is absolutely underway in Houdini (the new 'KineFX' released in 18.5 the other day is a foundational element of this, as I

I think a serious effort on animation is absolutely underway in Houdini (the new 'KineFX' released in 18.5 the other day is a foundational element of this, as I understand it.) Haven't heard anything other than vague hints but they may also be working on something that could start to eat part of the sculpting/painting pie (zBrush/mudBox/etc). Modelling wise SideFX are going great guns (they hired some of the awesome Softimage devs when Autodesk shut that down). Houdini's modelling toolset now at least rivals if not surpasses what is available in Maya out of the box, however there is a massive amount of inertia in this department. Modellers seem to get a bit stuck on specific tools, so things don't tend to change until new modellers start coming in, bringing the new tools with them.