Hi Stefan.

First of all, thanks a lot for the suggestion.

@You : "why not try Houdini Apprentice?"

Well...simply because of its limitations, as shown in their website :

"Use of Houdini Apprentice is limited to following:
Non-commercial projects
Houdini Apprentice cannot be used in the same pipeline as commercial versions of Houdini
Houdini Digital Assets created in Apprentice can not be used with Houdini Engine or Houdini Engine Indie
Houdini Apprentice uses its own file format for saving scenes and assets
It is restricted to 1280x720 when rendering
Rendering to file formats other than .picnc are wordmarked
Houdini Apprentice does not work with third party renderers."

Usually I really don't like to use these two kinds of software : 1) Software with time-limited subscription licensing (like Adobe) 2) Restricted versions with limited features.

Simply, if I know that I can't afford the purchase of a standard commercial license of a software I don't waste time to learn any of its limited versions.

If one day my budget will be enough then I will consider to buy a license of Houdini.

Thanks again and have a nice day.