http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/08/quadspinner-ships-gaea-1-0-24/
https://www.sidefx.com/community/houdini-hive-sigg2019-presentations/
The Houdini Gaea integration info starts at 18:24 in the video, about 4 minutes worth.
Yeah I saw that clip from siggraph.
It's a great move by Dax, having SideFX be interested in integrating Gaea directly into Houdini.
In many recent games you see a mixture of WM terrains augmented with Houdini procedurals etc., but the workflow is cross-platform.
Now game studios can have art-directable terrain creation tools right into houdini.
With this one move WM will be pushed out of the market, eventually.
Very clever, great move by Dax.
I've just started to learn Houdini and very excited by the possibiities - it natively seems to have a pretty comprehensive terrain toolset.
Gaea still has a way to go, at least for my workflow at the moment (it still doesn't output 32bit OpenExr for heightfields).
World machine is indeed looking a bit "clunky" compared the new kids in town, but on a side by side test project, still managed to do a better job.
Keeping a close eye on these developments though.