Houdini 12 Wishlist

[bw5013]

pre-selection highlighting.

ies lights profile support.

multi-thread everything.

[Pazuzu]

More Viewport speed with high poly models; Currently is very slow to do a selection in a dense model even with a QuadroFX 4600!!!

[tuna]

pre-selection highlighting.

This already exists at the object level (show name on hover). However I agree it could be extended to include components, and also options for display modes for the highlighting. Things like shading the selection, or giving an outline, instead of just showing wireframe.

In fact, highlighting selections themselves could be improved a lot. For instance: if you have any display mode that show wires (even smooth wire shaded) the selected primitive will only have its edges made yellow, but not filled in like it is in standard smooth shaded mode. This is bad because you can select a ring of primitives and it will make it look like the inside face is also selected because all of its edges are shaded yellow, however it isn't.

Other than that: Speed is always really important. If that requires multithreading or newer paradigms like OpenCL, then so be it!

[DaJuice]

Hi tuna, I remember you from maxforums days. :]

About selection high-lighting in wire-shaded modes, there's a display option to do just that.

[tuna]

Hey man yeah I still remember you from way back when

Thanks for letting me know about fill selections. I swear I clicked that on at some point, maybe I was just losing my mind a bit.

[pbowmar]

-Mantra speed

-Mantra speed

-Mantra speed

-finish the character tools (Autorig and the char tools are so close to being awesome it hurts)

-lots and lots of presets.

[lisux]

-finish the character tools (Autorig and the char tools are so close to being awesome it hurts)

Yep, I second this.

Character tool has been forgoten since version 9.

[edward]

In case anyone is wondering, I personally stopped reading past post #3.

[jonp]

Agreed...

also, add a Python COP!

Cops from what i can tell hasnt had much of an update. It would be my absolute dream if it was something as fully developed like nuke or even blenders internal compositor.

[eyevex]

I got what i think would be a simple one - a little enhancement. if this is already there somewhere let me know someone...

Locking and unloading sops. Very useful yet not all too accessible. We get a toggle column in the list view if so desired to display it, but need to right click on the node in the graph? It would seem that the convention used for render/display or template/selTemplate of CTRL+LMB would apply to turn the lock flag to the unload color --but it doesnt seem to, even though via RMB it does apply the visual feed back there. I would be great and fast if I could select a node, lock it, then marquee all the upstream nodes, CTRL+LMB on the lock flag area of one of them, and dump them all toggling the unload version of the flags on all of them selected. Also the RMB convention of using the 'unload' menu to unload and un-unload (load? reload? recache?) is a little odd...

[Sean Lewkiw]

- document anything not yet documented or documented only in QT movies, (EX: auto-rig, pyro)

- better/more presets/shelf tools (EX: pyro)

- DA interface editing rationalization (there are currently three places you can edit an OP's interface and no clear indication of why/where/when you use which method)

- POPs lovin' (speed, modernization)

- RBD/Pyro docs. We need FAQ/strategy docs. EX: How do I get DOPs to inherit velocity? Why does my smoke look worse than the GL viewport version? Explain a step-by-step strategy for creating/tweaking pyro/fluid sims. Etc...

- Mantra speed, (PBR)

- viewport picking! Please please please fix it so you can't select non-visible points in the viewport in GL mode, (about a six-year-old bug).

[LaidlawFX]

I would love it, if from the tab menu in the shop network, you could get all the materials from the material palette. It would save me a lot of time in my work flow.

I do realize I could make .otl of them all and call them in like this, but I want it as a standard workflow, so when i don't have my presets I can do it. This is one of the few areas in houdini where you can't call your nodes from the tab menu.

Oh an i want to be able to organize by interface parameters via the output nodes again. Please bring that back.... PLEASE

[graham]

It's actually super easy to materials to the tab menu yourself with a tiny bit of work. You can write a little Python script to instantiate the Material Shader Builder SHOP and apply a material gallery entry to that new node, which is what Houdini does when you add a material from the Material Palette.

Attached is an example .shelf file (place in your $HOME/houdiniX.Y/toolbar/ directory) that adds Clay and Chrome Material entries to the SHOP tab menu. You can easily add more by duplicating the tool definition inside the file and changing around the gallery name.

Edit: Oops. You'll need to replace "/opt/hfs11.0/" with "$HFS/" for the icon paths in the attached file for the icons to work. Accidentally hard coded the paths through my symlink.

materials.shelf

Edited September 21, 2010 by graham

[LaidlawFX]

It's actually super easy to materials to the tab menu yourself with a tiny bit of work. You can write a little Python script to instantiate the Material Shader Builder SHOP and apply a material gallery entry to that new node, which is what Houdini does when you add a material from the Material Palette.

Attached is an example .shelf file (place in your $HOME/houdiniX.Y/toolbar/ directory) that adds Clay and Chrome Material entries to the SHOP tab menu. You can easily add more by duplicating the tool definition inside the file and changing around the gallery name.

Edit: Oops. You'll need to replace "/opt/hfs11.0/" with "$HFS/" for the icon paths in the attached file for the icons to work. Accidentally hard coded the paths through my symlink.

Cool thanks, materials.shelf

Funny things that I noticed, in h11... ramp was made in a different way so when you try and create it errors out saying its locked

Dust puff is broken naturally and when you create it this way it errors out, the fps took over the attribute slot in the frame

and there is a mysterious rsl basic shader that is locked out too

[LaidlawFX]

For the light node,

X Y Translate and Z rotate shift for the projection map, texture map, and orthographic width, potentially just a UV based slide

[Korhon]

- Houdini Auto update. A simple way of updating houdini without uninstalling/installing new builds.

A update simalar to "windows update" would be ubernice! Just an update button to get it to the latest build.

Would be a huge feature for me

- texture gamma adjust on the new surface material

- oceandisplace shader and sop (simalar to Hot or maya`s oceanshader)

- bulletsolver

- faster clothsolver

- multihread/speedup when using pointinstance. Its almoast usless now when dealing with thousands of objects. Faster to use copysop

- multihread POPS!

- display total render time in mplay

- a simple way to invert groups on nodes (like in fusion, "Apply mask inverted") maybe this already exists?

- a simple way of autoconverting all textures to rat. A digital asset that converts and replaces filpaths would be very handy!

- righclick on channel to apply stored/preset expressions. Find my self writing the same expression over and over again. Now i got a .txt file where i store expressions.

- and ofcourse speed speed speed all over the place!

Thanks

[Ole]

• Like Korhon, I would also love an update function since builds are released so often. It would release a lot of overhead from our IT guys for example. In addition, I would like to see separate installers for HQueue, the license server and Houdini. Currently, having them all in one package does more damage than good when doing selective updates/installs on nodes and workstations. Especially when you are uninstalling since it doesn't allow you to select what to uninstall (I know there is a seperate uninstaller for HQueue).
• Proper edge primitives and not just arbitrary grouping of points in special cases.
• Multithreaded POPs and in MT general. Use the GPU where possible.
• More presets for common tasks in DOPs, like recommended settings for common fluids.
• Better ramp parameters with autoscale and numeric grids like in Softimage.
• Bezier ramps.
• More information in the viewport, like point count etc and custom text.
• Voxel-based fluids that only generate voxels where needed. Having to use a container often results in a waste of resources.
• Mixing of materials without having to build everything into a humongous material network. Also makes it easier to branch out and reuse specific parts. You make a material like usual and define what is to be exposed at the material's upper level (like if/while VOPs). Then you can connect and mix materials without sacrificing flexibility or the current workflow.
• Ability to manipulate the internal point numbers with more than the sort sop (in VOPs for example).
• More focus on workflow enhancements like right-clicking on a parameter and being able to insert custom expressions/strings, like the Motion Effects menu.
• Enhance the channel editor with simple things like inverting/reversing a curve for example. Things one have to do manually today.
• Using expressions on animated keyframes. I know it is possible to script this -> update keyframe data, but it would be nice to have native support for dynamic keyframes with interpolation.
• Speed and stability.
• HQueue that works.
• Faster and more stable CHOPS when dealing with tens of thousands of curves.
• Support for executing a wedge on multiple processors for outputing multiple passes simultaniously (POP with different seeds).

A lot of stuff can be scripted, but for a small studio there is no time or resources to make custom solutions to every issue.

Edit: Added last point.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Ole

[Zach]

for the love of god just let me type in a field that my mouse isn't currently hovered over. makes using a wacom such a pain in the ass.

[lisux]

for the love of god just let me type in a field that my mouse isn't currently hovered over. makes using a wacom such a pain in the ass.

I really second this, many people in this industry use Wacom, and I think everybody is suffering the same problem.

[Macha]

Real motionblur COP and a more straightforward way to render out mb passes (not having to wire up your own vex network...)

Edited October 14, 2010 by Macha